Abstract
This article presents a series of works called Machinic Trajectories , consisting of domestic devices appropriated as mechanical drawing machines. These are contextualized within the post-digital discourse, which integrates messy analog conditions into the digital realm. The role of eliciting and examining glitches for investigating a technology is pointed out. Glitches are defined as short-lived, unpremeditated aesthetic results of a failure; they are mostly known as digital phenomena, but I argue that the concept is equally applicable to the output of mechanical machines. Three drawing machines will be presented: The Opener , The Mixer and The Ventilator . In analyzing their drawings, emergent patterns consisting of unpremeditated visual artifacts will be identified and connected to irregularities of the specific technologies. Several other artists who work with mechanical and robotic drawing machines are introduced, to situate the presented works and reflections in a larger context of practice and to investigate how glitch concepts are applicable to such mechanical systems.
Highlights
MECHANICAL DEVICES AS POSTDIGITAL DRAWING MACHINESThis article presents a series of my original mechanical drawing machines and situates them in a post-digital discourse – even though these appropriated domestic devices have no electronic or computational components
This article has presented three appropriated domestic devices that were reconfigured to function as drawing machines
The works have been contextualized with the post-digital discourse and glitch-theory, and compared to other practices with drawing machines
Summary
The Opener (Figure 1) is an electromechanical can opener with slow and powerful movements. The pen, pressing against the paper surface only with its own weight, effects just enough friction to propagate the paper strip by a few millimeters on each rotation, so that the drawing results in a spiral rather than a repetitive circle (Figures 2 and 3). I looked for a visual expression that is neither unambiguously machinic, nor clearly human The drawings reflect both the repetitive regularity of the can rotation, and the nervous motions of the forceful machine, mirrored by the squiggly lines. While the spiral curves can be seen as a planned or programmed outcome of the rotating repetition, the shivering scribbles emerge as unpremeditated results of the can opener’s mechanical technology
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