Art 308, Studio Sculpture

Molly Burtenshaw

Project 4- Intention Statement

The interactions between humans and machines and their merger have always represented to me a kind of moral and personal conundrum. For this final piece I am interested in exploring this relationship and the evolution of machines in expressing themselves and communicating in more human ways.

My major inspiration for this No Moving Parts was hearing George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique, performed at the National Gallery during the Dada exhibit presented there a few years ago. The music was strong and emotive, yet disturbing because all the instruments were played without the involvement of human hands. My mind managed to fill in the presence of human hands where there was none - dancing on the piano keys or bashing the cymbals. Thus began an obsession with rendering the presence of a human without direct representation. While the gloves follow the shape of a human hand, they are awkward and deformed when placed on a wire skeleton so the illusion is unfulfilled.

The purpose of using hands in this project is their relationship to the sensation of touch. The myriad of feelings that can be expressed through touch – softness, hardness, roughness, cold, heat, wetness – are not able to be fully duplicated by machines. The whole piece is intended to evoke the feeling of a machine striving for that kind of sensation that humans still hold the advantage in and what the implications of them gaining this ability might be. The use of keys from a computer keyboard is there to represent the traditional ways in which machines are communicated with and the machine’s attempt to question beyond its basic motor abilities. Ambiguity is the foundation for the machine’s form in an attempt to assign it no particular function. The process of this work was also important, because it involved deconstructing machines that are no longer usable, and then piecing together the parts into some completely new mechanical creature. It still retains all the trappings of its former functions, but strives for something more. The title, No Moving Parts, refers to evolution of machines to the point where they are advanced but unmoving, and devoid of any human touch. This is a machine trying to relate back to the human mind and feelings that created it.

Our society today works with technology with an almost religious fervor. Artists such as Chris Burden and Jean Tinguely express the danger in relying on and worshiping machines too heavily as well as human’s direct relationship to technological creations. Burden’s work suggests that the machine is a type of philistine temple, which we worship at the cost of our own willpower. I also wanted to represent this mystery and awe that machines invoke in modern society. The light used inside the gloves is there to create an otherworldly sense, as if some power beyond technological reasoning is attempting to express itself through the machine. Body language in hands is very powerful, so each one is an expression of a different emotion, though it is not important to identify each one individually so long as the impression of unease is present.

I’m excited with the outcome of this project because it begins to combine many of the most deeply rooted influences and interests in my life – rendering the presence of a person without the use of a physical body, our relationship to technology, and the introduction of religion in unorthodox contexts. Some limitations encountered with the work include my lack of experience working with lighting and the mechanics of technology, but I believe I have managed to represent the image effectively as related to the emotions that inspired it.