Sculpture "Machine"

1986

height: 110 cm

This machine is no machine.

It pretends to be a machine able to produce, fabricate, measure or weigh something but none of this is true. Its only function lies in its inanity.

With a bit of luck and jerking around, releasing the trigger results in hitting the red thread. On its end a plumb line wobbles a bit when hit.

The machine is built of cheap, galvanised angle-bars, odds and ends of acrylic glass, and the parts partly visible at this page.

It is based on four wheels arranged at such cock-eyed angles that they prevent each other from rolling.

At the most one could yank the machine over the ground or pluckily grab it by the stable spiral spring that is fixed at its top and swing it madly around.

Its linkage to the grand scheme of metamorphosis raises questions:

• Would a kiss magically transform the machine?

• Would emerge and discover the world, light as a butterfly in a staggering flight?

• Would it even sell its shadow to the Grey Man? (Peter Schlehmil, Adelbert von Chamisso)