Kinetiek

Rotation.

Marcel Duchamp: Fietswiel (1913).

Cf. other rotation-pieces by Duchamp.

Cf. demonstration of the motion detection mechanism of the human eye, by means of a spinning black & white disk (J.F. Schouten).

Cf. Tinguely/Klein collaboration: spinning monochromes (high speeds).

Opgave: Ga na of dit soort werken getoond kunnen worden m.b.v. hedendaagse computers. Of veroorzaakt de refresh-rate van het monitor-scherm dan artefacten?

Translation.

Ray Staakman: Bewegende stalen muur. (Early nineteensixties.)

Simultaneous Rotations.

Jean Tinguely: Méta-Malevich Series (15 pieces), 1954

Front / Back

Snapshot / Multiple Exposure

. . . 'meta-mechanical paintings', reliefs of a kind, in which simple geometrical shapes painted in the primary colours move about slowly in front of a surface. (. . .) It is theoretically possible to calculate the periodicity of the reliefs. One of them, for instance, ought to repeat the same configuration after about a year, if it ran continuously. But the couplings slip a bit; as a result, the shapes might reach the same position already after two months, or it might not happen for hundreds of years.

Hultén, 1955, p. 26.

"I am an artist of movement. Initially I did painting but I got blocked there, I found myself stuck. I was handicapped by the whole history of art and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. I got hung up in the pictures, on the pictures – finally all I could do is wait until they were tired; I could never find their end. So I decided to introduce movement. I started from Constructivist elements, taken from the vocabulary of the Russian Suprematist painter Malevich, and from Kandinsky and Arp and a few others. I re-used their elements and set them in motion. I was trying to get away from the imperative, the power of these artists, also from Mondrian. I began to use movement simply to make a re-creation. It was a way of re-doing a painting so that it would become infinite – it would go on making new compositions by means of the physical and mechanical movements that I gave it."

Tinguely, 1982

Cf. ook: Gerhard von Graevenitz (early nineteenseventies): Panelen met bewegende lineaire elementen. (Maar: Andere bewegingsprincipes?)

Compositions with Movement:
Alexander Calder's "Mobiles à Moteur".

Calder (...) says that during a visit to Mondrian's studio, in the rue du Départ in Paris, he received a vision of a new art form (...). Mondrian's studio was an extraordinary room, with small, movable red, blue and yellow rectangles on the white walls, and a large, red, cylindrical gramophone in the middle of the floor (..). Calder writes: "... the light coming from two facing windows met in the room, and I thought how beautiful it would have been if everything had started to move, but Mondrian didn't like the idea." (...)

Hultén 1955, p. 19. [Cf. also: Calder, 1937.]

Calder sloeg Mondriaan's advies in de wind en ging toch een vorm van "kinetisch constructivisme" uitwerken in zijn "Mobiles à moteur" (1931): verschillende vormen: punt, lijn, vlak; verschillende periodieke bewegingen: lineair, rotatie, pendule; rotatie-as in het vlak vs. loodrecht op het vlak. (Cf. Mondriaan: analyseer kleur en vorm in termen van orthogonale basis-vectoren.) Een van deze werken wordt door Calder als volgt beschreven:

Dimensions: 2 x 2.50 m.
Frame, 8 cm., neutral red.
The two white balls rotate at a high speed.
The black spiral rotates at a lower speed and appears to be constantly climbing.
The tin disc turns even more slowly, the two black lines appear to be constantly climbing.
The black pendulum, which is 40 cm. in diameter, climbs to 45° on each side with 25 strokes a minute and swings outside the frame

Mobile à Moteur
"Red Frame", 1931.

Mobile à Moteur
"Black Frame", 1934.

Alexander Calder:
Untitled, 1942.

Alexander Calder:
Myxomatose, 1953.

Man Ray:
Equation-Obstruction, 1920.

Natural Chance:
Alexander Calder's "Mobiles à Main".

Calder's latere "mobiles à main" gebruiken organische vormen, opgehangen in constructies van vrijelijk beweeglijk hangende hefbomen in evenwicht, die al door de flauwste luchtstroom in beweging gezet worden. Arp in plaats van Mondriaan. Onvoorspelbaarheid.

De structuur van het planetarium: geneste rotaties. Maar andere bewegingen.

Man Ray maakte al eerder een eenmalig soortgelijk werk: een constructie van kleerhangers. (Cf. Duchamp: flessenrek, kapstokken. Cf. Duchamp: portable sculpture (draad). Cf. Armand: accumulations.)

Calder found that a motor forced repetition on the movement: if the mechanism was not rather complicated there was a danger of the movement becoming monotonous. (...) With his 'mobiles à main' Calder found the simple, perfect way of giving his constructions mobility, by the use of equilibrium, as fundamental a principle as Duchamp's rotary movement. These wires, suspended interdependently and moving their frail elements in space, offer an inexhaustible range of possibilities. (...) Calder took the history of mobile art a step forward by the introduction of endless variation, the fact that the movement of a mobile never repeats itself exactly. It is now possible to create endlessly complicated combinations, eternal change. As I see it, everlastingly varied rhythm is one of the assets of mobile sculpture, without which it is in danger of becoming more boring than static sculpture.

Hultén 1955, pp. 21-22.

Hultén onderscheidt dus:

de variatie in de optredende configuraties
(een vaste cyclus of niet);
de opeenvolging van configuraties
(gefixeerd of niet);
de aard van de beweging
(uniform of gevarieerd).

Een combinatie van verschillende periodieke bewegingen levert een oneindige, niet-cyclische opeenvolging van configuraties op, als de periodes van de bewegingen incommensurabel zijn; maar het is wel een deterministisch proces, en wordt als zodanig ervaren. Bij Calder's "mobiles à main" is de opeenvolging non-deterministisch, omdat de bewegingen door een onvoorspelbare externe invloed worden veroorzaakt.

Zie ook: Jean-Paul Sartre: "Les Mobiles de Calder," Carré, 1946.

Naum Gabo:
Kinetic Construction, Vibrating Spring. 1920.

Standing Waves.

The Machines @ Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller,
Otterlo, 1982.

Mechanisch Toeval

Jean Tinguely's vroegste kinetische werken zijn gebaseerd op schilderkunstige voorbeelden (Méta-Malevitch, Méta-Kandinsky, Méta-Herbin). Door het gelijktijdig (maar met verschillende snelheden) roteren van de elementen ontstaat er een oneindige variatie aan mogelijke toestanden.

Maar vrij snel maakt Tinguely de stap naar werk dat niet meer over schilderkunst gaat, maar over mechanica. Bewegende "sculpturen" die bestaan uit motoren, wielen, kruk-assen, drijfriemen. En dan worden niet alleen de optredende configuraties, maar ook de bewegingen zelf onvoorspelbaar gemaakt. Dat gebeurt door gebruik te maken van de onvolkomenheden van de machine. De onvoorspelbaarheid die daardoor ontstaat is van een ander soort dan bij Calder's mobils à main: niet organisch maar anti-mechanisch: slippende, haperende, stokkende epicycli van periodieke rotaties en translaties. (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 het "Schéma des Dispositifs" waarin Tinguely zijn technieken opsomt, is de constructie van toeval door de onvolkomenheden van de techniek een weerkerend thema.

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.]

(Rond 1964 worden Tinguely's sculpturen vaak weer minder vrolijk en grillig. Regelmatige bewegingen, Sisyphus-arbeid, vreugdeloze sex. Zie: Pontus Hultén 1975, p. 278.)

Thema: nuttelooosheid.

Métamatic and Métaméchanique – In the work of Jean Tinguely (Swiss, 1925 – ), machines programmed electronically to act with antimechanical unpredictability, jerking erraticly, sometimes scribbling on rolls of paper. Tinguely was influenced by Klee, Miró and Duchamp. His most famous work was Homage to New York, 1960, an assemblage including an old piano, a pram, a meteorological balloon, and various machine parts; it self-destructed with pyrotechnics before a crowd; its remnants now at the Museum of Modern Art, NY. See automata, Dada and Surrealism.

[Artlex.com]

Tentamenvraag: In nevenstaande mini-bio zit één zeer storende fout. Bespreek die.

Für Statik

Es bewegt sich alles. Stillstand gibt es nicht. Lasst Euch nicht von überlebten Zeitbegriffen beherrschen. Fort mit den Stunden, Sekunden und Minuten. Hört auf, der Veränderlichkeit zu widerstehen. SEID IN DER ZEIT – SEID STATISCH, SEID STATISCH – MIT DER BEWEGUNG. Für Statik, im Jetzt stattfindenden JETZT. Widersteht den angstvollen Schwächeanfällen, Bewegtes anzuhalten, Augenblicke zu versteinern und Lebendiges zu töten. Gebt es auf, immer wieder «Werte» aufzustellen die doch in sich zusammenfallen. Seid frei, lebt!
Hört auf, die Zeit zu «malen». Lasst es sein, Kathedralen und Pyramiden zu bauen, die zerbröckeln wie Zuckerwerk. Atmet tief, lebt im Jetzt, lebt auf und in der Zeit. Für eine schöne und absolute Wirklichkeit!

Düsseldorf, März 1959 TINGUELY

Pamphlet released in 150.000 copies from an airplane above Düsseldorf, March 14, 1959. A more extensive manifesto along the same lines was presented in Tinguely's lecture "Art, Machines and Motion" at the Cyclo-matic Evening, ICA, London, November 12, 1959.

[Cf. Pontus Hultén, 1975, pp. 77, 114-119, 327; Hulten 1987, p.67.]

For Stasis

Everything moves. Rest does not exist. Don't let yourself be controlled by obsolete notions of time. Away with hours, seconds and minutes. Stop resisting change. EXIST IN TIME - BE STATIC, BE STATIC WITH THE MOVEMENT. For stasis, in the now occurring NOW. Resist the anxious impulse to stop what moves, to freeze moments and to kill what lives. Give up constructing «values» that always collapse anyway. Be free, live!
Stop «painting» time. Give up building cathedrals and pyramids, that will fall apart like sugar-candy. Breathe deep, live in the now, live on and in time. For a beautiful and absolute reality!

Düsseldorf, March 1959 TINGUELY

Opgave: Analyseer bovenstaand manifest. Breng het bijvoorbeeld in verband met de psychologie van de tijd-ervaring van Henri Bergson; met Wittgenstein's statement dat "leven in de eeuwigheid is leven in het nu" (Tractatus); met Duchamp's "aesthetics of indifference" (cf. Pyrrho en andere Stoïcijnen); en met Tinguely's eigen werk.