ponedeljek, 17. september 2012

5. Jean Tinguely - The Godfather of Metamechanics



Although he was not an engineer, most of his lifetime Jean Tinguely dreamed about rotating wheels, gears, belt transmissions, chain drives, levers,  pulleys and other parts of discarded machinery. But instead of constructing more and more efficient machines like engineers do, Tinguely decided to put all his creative efforts to construct machines without any efficiency and  his only aim was to draw forth astonishment and surprise of anyone who ever seen them.

Jean Tinguely was a swiss sculptor who gained his international recognition in the early sixties  as one of the pioneers of kinetic art. As avantgarde artist, inspired with Dada tradition, Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters and Yves Klein he started to work extensively on large mechanisms made of discarded metal objects and machine parts. Many of his sculpures from that era, which he described as 'festivals of errors', were constructed to fall apart, explode or destroy itself some other way. 

Here you can see his famous 'Homage to New York' from 1960:

It is not a coincidence that Tinguely was born in Switzerland, well known producer of precision machines and highly sophisticated measuring devices. In that context it becomes obvious that his artistic effort was resistance against industrial production, non human rigidity of machines and their impact to the society and human relations. He was a self proclaimed anarchist, fascinated with movement on an abstract and metaphysical level in a Heraclitus manner:

»So-called immobile objects exist only in movement. Immobile, certain, and permanent things, ideas, works and beliefs change, transform, and disintegrate. Immobile objects are snapshots of a movement whose existence we refuse to accept, because we ourselves are only an instant in the great movement. Movement is the only static, final, permanent, and certain thing. Static means transformation. Let us be static together with movement. Move statically! Be static! Be movement! Believe in movement’s static quality. Believe in change. Do not hold onto anything. Change! Do not pinpoint anything! Everything about us is movement. Everything around us is change. Believe in movement’s static quality. Be static

And last but not least, he was the one who coined terms meta-matic and meta-mechanic to describe his kinetic sculptures. That's why he deserves to be called as godfather of metamechanics.

Tinguely's Cyclop 

 Tinguely was very critical about the state of the art at the end of 20th century, especially regarding museums, galleries and their establishment. He prefers to see his art on the streets, parks and city squares. This attitude was the main reason that he decided to finance the project of his life with his own money. At the end of sixties he bought a parcel in a forest near Mille la Foret in France and started to realize his idea of Art Total: to build a sculpture like gallery, miraculous imaginary space where people could meet materialized visions of him and his artistic friends. 

With construction of Cyclop Tinguely tried to merge his own vision with collaboration and push the art closer to the world where it emerges. Most of the works were done with bare hands and with a help of only four adherents: sculptor friends Bernhard Luginbühl and Rico Weber, professional welder Seppi Imhof and his wife sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle. Tinguely described the whole process as 'well organized absurd' and Cyclop finally grown up as alive utopian monument of small group of enthusiasts who were ready to sacrifice their money and 'best years of their life' to materialize their dreams and share them with others.

Cyclop is almost 23 metres high and was built from about 300 tons of scrap metal and machine parts amongst which you can find a railway wagon, doors of treasury, ship chimney, parts of a bridge, giant metal ear, steel balls and hundreds of wheels, connected with belt transmissions which drives each other making devilish noise. Front facade is covered with mosaic of mirrors reflecting nearby trees and on the top of his head is a pool dedicated to Yves Klein.


Link to the documentary:

At the beginning of 21st century, the myth about machines which will work instead of us showed the dark side of its face: mass production alienated workers from their products, people around the globe are loosing jobs because of automatization of production and with fast development of communication technologies, machines also settled into our most intimate relationships. Meetings and events grounded in common space with all senses aware are withdrawing before virtuality. For younger generations there's no more difference between presence of the other and his image on screen. Body has a meaning only as an image.


Jean Tinguely was dreaming about machines which are not efficient, useful and functional. He dreamed about machines on different way than engineers of industrial revolutions. His kinetic sculptures have no purpose, they just are, showing themselves in their movement with undressed and crepitated mechanisms. When technics becomes aesthetic, mechanism becomes a metaphor in infinite motion which has the power to engage us to rethink our fascination with technology which becomes more and more efficient and which defines our civilization for the last three centuries.

Jean Tinguely built his total sculpture-machine-totem, expressing absurd beauty of technology in its magnificent uselessness, until his sudden death in 1991. Henry Miller once wrote, that after death he would like to reincarnate like a park where people could play and find some peace. Similarly, Tinguely's Cyclop remains crepitated monument alive in his movement and dedicated to all of those, who still dare to imagine  the world, where machines are manifestations of boundless imagination of human spirit and not tools of ruthless corporations which forces us to compete with machines in their efficiency and entertain with them as they want us to.