rotation
Jean Tinguely: Machines Inutiles
Mechanical Chance
Jean Tinguely's earliest kinetic works were usually based on painterly examples. (Méta-Malevitch, Méta-Kandinsky, Méta-Herbin). The elements of these "kinetic paintings" are simultaneously rotated with different speeds; this creates an infinite variety of possible configurations.
Tinguely's next step is the construction of machines which are no longer concerned with painting, but with movement per se. These "moving sculptures" consist of motors, wheels, belts, cogs, and crank-shafts. Their movements are irregular because of the machine's imperfections. This irregularity has nothing in common with the unpredictability of Calder's mobiles à main: it is not organic but anti-mechanic: jerking, jamming, jittering epicycles of periodic rotations and translations. [slippen, haperen, stokken] (Rubato: Gustav Leonhart, Thelonious Monk.)"Tinguely discovered an almost inexhaustible source — a mechanism whose goal was not precision but anti-precision, the mechanics of chance." [Pontus Hultén 1975, p. 8.]
"In machines intended for practical use the engineer tries to reduce the irregularities as much as possible. Tinguely is after the exact opposite. His objective is mechanical disorder. His cog-wheels are so constructed that they jump the cogs continually, jam, and start turning again, unpredictably. (. . .) The same movement can appear ten times in succession and then, apparently, never be repeated again. This creates an unusually acute sense of time." [Hultén 1955, p. 26.]"Le mot "asynchrone", dit Tinguely, tu peux l'écrire mais en petit. C'était plutôt un défaut mais j'ai découvert que la création était là, la combinaison infinie: ce n'était plus calculable." [Conil Lacoste 1989, p. 33.]
In the "Schéma des Dispositifs", Tinguely gives an inventory of his techniques. The construction of chance by means of imperfections is a recurring theme in this text.
Les Courroies en cuir [le peaux des les les Vaches - Veaux tire coupé en ficelles au kilomètre ...... ] Glisse bien = distributeur du HASARd (...) Les Courroies Trapezoidales Glisse aussi (...) 1953 le "META" est LA mais "le Jolie" Meta-MECANIQUE c'est l'ENGENAGE "Libre" & hésitant – en fil de fer tousjour "en panne" permanent Stabilité du Hasard. (...) la "FAbricAtioN" du HASARd & de l'IRRéGulaRité VARiAble } le MetA d'Abord le "CHAOS" stable
[Tinguely: "Schéma des Dispositifs". In: Conil Lacoste, 1989, pp. 27-31.]
"Tinguely (...) uses an old-fashioned technology in his machines. He likes ordinary, conventional motors (...). As yet, with the exception of the components from radio-sets used in his sculptures around 1962, he has never employed electronics or other more up-to-date techniques." [ Pontus Hultén 1975, p. 307.]
"There was nothing new in the idea of deliberately introducing chance as an element in art. (. . .) In Tinguely's case, however, it was no longer a matter of the role of chance in the act of creation, nor of a static display of something that had come about by chance, but of chance in action." [Pontus Hultén 1975, p. 8.]
"With their unrepeatable and unique movements and sequences, Tinguely's machines exist in an enviable freedom. Their vitality, spontaneity, and lyricism bring to us ecstatic moments of life divorced entirely from moral precept or inhibition, from good and evil, right and wrong, beautiful or ugly. His machines are a piece of pure existence, eternally changeable, and they do not have to mean anything or refer to anything. But one is mistaken to believe that their artistic message is innocent or harmless. They subvert the established order and convey a sense of anarchy and individual liberation which would otherwise not exist." [Hultèn 1965, pp. 13/14.]
References
Alexander Calder: "Mobiles." In: Myfanwy Evans (ed.): The Painter's Object, Gerold Howe, London, 1937.
Michel Conil Lacoste: Tinguely. L'Énergétique de l'Insolence. Vol. I. Paris: Éditions de la Différence, 1989.
Karl G. Hultén: Den Ställföreträdande Friheten eller Om Rörelse i Konsten och Tinguelys Metamekanik. (Substitute Freedom or On Movement in Art and Tinguely's Meta-mechanics.) Special issue of Kasark, October 1955. (English translation in: Pontus Hultén, 1975.)
K.G. Hultèn: "Jean Tinguely." In: Jean Cassou, K.G. Hultèn, Sam Hunter & Nicolas Schöffer: "Two Kinetic Sculptors: Nicolas Schöffer and Jean Tinguely." New York: October House / Jewish Museum, 1965.
K.G. Pontus Hultén: Tinguely. 'Méta'. London: Thames and Hudson, 1975.
Moulin à Prière III, 1954
Sculpture Méta-Mécanique, 1954
Méta-Herbin
Mes Roues, 1960
Méta-Harmonie IV
Fata Morgana, 1970
Requiem pour une Feuille Morte
compiled by remko scha, july 2012
