D. Machines for Making
These models differ from the pavilions in character and intent. They diverge from the idea of considering place although some are to be found in places with particular characteristics. Each is a mechanism for producing qualities I deem to be necessary in the world. Their mechanical and electronic workings are indicative of the machinic means that can be necessary to produce such qualities.
14 Machine for Making Zephyrs (A Tower of the Winds)
Like the apocryphal hammer, or axe, this machine displays historical continuity through the replacement and re-formations of its constituent elements over time. There is a blurring of technologies, but the bricoleurs who have tended it have produced a concatenation of parts that, to this day, augment the birth of gentle breezes and support the basically biological efforts of the flapping membranes – so significant when the butterflies are weary. The support mechanisms through their geared clusters and pneumatically controlled arms enable all directional breeze requirements to be met. While the other four continue their efforts, a time of rest and repair for any individual flapper can be accommodated beneath the double-winged canopy. The flappers are carved and sanded from Huon Pine; the bits and pieces forming the mechanisms include parts from plastic kit motorcycles, and interiors of computers.
In my making, there was a confluence of concerns (or a field of fascinations) at play: first, the Tower of the Winds in Athens which, although having deity-decorated faces toward each of the eight wind directions, was a horologion, a teller of time for the locals; second, the concept of the clockwork universe, perhaps epitomised in the most elaborate orreries, offers a further allusion to geared and ratcheting mechanisms; third, the opposition of the ‘clockwork’ model to the Chaos Theory constructs of emergent phenomena in nature – the contrast of the mechanical and the biological; fourth, my experience of getting a mid-sixties watch refurbished (and the search for images this provoked) during the making of this model; fifth, towards the end of this work, beginning to read Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘tinkers’ with its evocative accounts of time pieces; and finally, through an allusion that remains unclear to me, the outer protective wings of the Scarab beetle (Scarabaeus sacer), the dung beetle regarded as scared by ancient Egyptians, that form a mesh canopy.
Base: 104mm x 104mm. Model: 193mm x 184mm. Height: 318mm.
Initiated: November 2008. Constructed: 3 May 2009 – 22 March 2011.