The materials and making of Machine 2

Machine 2 was conceived through a number of rough sketches made in blue fountain pen. The drawings represented an idea of a machine rather than a plan for its construction. The machine itself was made in my attic studio from a variety of materials, some recycled. The process used for making this machine is similar to that used previously. It is more akin to dry stone walling than engineering.

A glossary of materials

Windscreen wiper
Found in the gutter, the windscreen wiper represents an upgrade from the original wooden arm. Having pre-drilled holes it was much easier to dismantle for transport to Exeter.

Surgical tape
I had broken my toe only a few weeks earlier and this leftover padded tape was lying around my studio.

Clip on bells
These were dug up from the garden, although a little rusty they still jingled. I attached them to the machine in order to weight the bottom of the arm. The bells improved the swing and made the camera tap on the glass a little more insistently.

Packing tape
This tape has "fragile" printed on it. It is usually used for wrapping sculptures. It was within reach at a vital moment.

Camera
Shipped from Hong Kong this is a simple digital camera (find out more), it is tapped against the glass once every 20 seconds. The image it produces is soft and tinged with green. As it repeated hits the glass there are small interferences in the image it transmits to the screen hung on the wall behind it. This image is upside down and as the camera moves it swings in and out of focus. Opposite are a pair of glass automatic doors which open for people to enter the gallery.

Wood
Crudely formed with a coping saw to form a base and a cam. The cam is not smoothly cut leading to a juddering motion. There is nothing true about the construction, joints are loose leading to a great deal of play in the workings. This makes the movement of the camera extremely eccentric, tentative even.
Dansette legs
Broken down from a piece of bedroom furniture. The legs can be unscrewed for transport.

Cotton reel
This is used as a linkage for the cam. It is secured with a screw which occasionally slips out. This is the most common breakdown of the machine. The result of this breakdown is that the camera stops tapping on the glass and twitches.

Motor
This is a mirror ball motor, it turns at a rate of one revolution every twenty seconds. If over stressed it will grind and can reverse direction. Over time the plastic cogs will lose their teeth, the motor will skip and eventually lose all motion besides a slight judder.

Machine 2

Machine 2 , 2015, Windscreen wiper, surgical tape, bells from the garden, packing tape, camera, wood, dansette legs, cotton reel, motor.
Machine 2 is the second in a series of video sculptures investigating anthropomorphism and breakdown. Sealed in Gallery 333, the machine will tap on the glass and observe passers by. Eventually it will cease to function, at which point a documentary of its short life will be screened in the gallery.

The machine taps on the window of a small vitrine in Exeter's Phoenix arts centre. Closer examination reveals that it is tapping with a small camera mounted on a windscreen wiper. We can see what it sees on a small television screen. The mechanism of the machine is imprecise, it's movements are far from fluid, it catches and judders, it's materials, not really fit for purpose, strain and contort.
The camera is a machine too. There is an interesting scene in Verhoeven's 'Robocop', 1987, before the cyborg is fully activated. In the beginning Robocop is turned on and off by his makers, we get glimpses of vision in the form of a fixed screen overlaid with interference and heads up display. At one point he is activated during a Christmas party and a scientist kisses his screen leaving a lipstick print. The print sits on the outside marking a separation between the internal world of Robocop's mind and that of humanity.

In 'Machine2' just like 'Robocop' we see what the machine sees. But there is a sense of dislocation, not least because like the human eye the camera relays an inverted image. Deleuze in 'Proust and Signs' uses the imagery of love to Expand upon this idea.
"It is also why the loved women are often linked to landscapes which we know sufficiently to long for their reflection in a woman's eyes, but which are then reflected from a viewpoint so mysterious that they become virtually inaccessible, unknown landscapes." (Deleuze, 1973, p7-8)
"How can we gain access to a landscape which is no longer the one we see, but on the contrary the one in which we are seen".