Resetting the Stupid Machines

So one of the issues we're having to deal with is how to reset a Stupid Machine once it's been tripped. In this one, for example, we'd need the boot to reset itself every time, lest the whole thing just becomes a one-off. And this is the hard part, because, as our friend Tim is wont to say, It's easy to make a ball roll down a hill; getting it back up is what's tricky.

So last night I was talking to a fellow lover of elaborate means of doing simple things -- I'd just met him; he's in craft school in Portland and is the cousin of a buddy of mine -- but he was thinking we should have the initial crank attached to two different contraptions, the first being the one illustrated in this drawing, the second being some means of building up potential energy, perhaps winding up a spool or something, so that once the boot does its thing, all that potential energy from the second contraption will get triggered and then will yank the boot back in place.

Of course, this would still have to be sketched out and all that, but I think it's a good idea. Plus the extra contraption would also serve as yet another distraction to the viewers, and that'll just make it even easier to kick them in the butt.

Oh, by the way, we didn't get the Lawndale thing. Back to the drawing board, as they say.

Floor Composition Revelations

The whole floor art thing started simply enough, I found some targets. Well, really is was a little more interesting than that. Some friends and I had heard about some old concrete bunkers that were a prime place to "party". They were deserted and most of them were wide open. We found out where they were but we also found out that there might be a security guard roaming around in a jeep. Fun, a game of stay away from the security guard as well as deserted bunkers. So we went to where they were, once we got there we realized this was bigger than we thought, it was like a neighborhood of bunkers. We found some swept clean but in others, buried treasure and still others remnants of homeless/squatters. The buried treasure, for me, consisted of a couple of old army books about hand to hand combat and some life size human shadow targets. One day, in a new more peaceful frame of mind, I needed to beat my swords into plowshares and decided the targets needed to go...for a cause. What I had realized was the targets would make a great yin-yang and cut a few teardrops out of them, but they just didnt work for me. I tore them up and threw them on the floor. Later, after a few more failed attempts at my anticipated solution, I had paper all of the floor. When I decided to clean up, I got a little OCD about the different colors being together, they ended up little piles of white, black and beige paper in neet little piles. That is when it hit me, why dont I do kind of mosaic out of them to make the y-y? And the scanned in polaroid of it was what came out. It stayed around for a few months but then I became host to a keg party and since this was an efficiency apartment that had a 3 foot yin-yang in the middle of the living room floor, I didn't think it would have survived anyway so it continued down its path of life, in my garbage. As a Chef's Apprentice and with a few artist friends, I didnt really consider myself an artist I never really thought about trying to show it to people but my artist friends sure liked it.

Now, we have had a couple of discussions about what other floor art we could work out, for Lawndale. How much you see, shows how far open your mind is.

Can You See Me Now?

If we get the Lawndale studio, we definitely should set up a webcam so folks can watch us work.

Nothing says "online documentation of the inner workings of the art-making to-and-fro that is Keith and the Chuck" like a 24-hour feed of us sitting around, playing with gears, arranging random stuff on the floor and shooting the shit.

On a different note, "online documentation of the inner workings of the art-making to-and-fro that is Keith and the Chuck" is kind of cumbersome when you try to use it in a sentence.

Floor Compositions

Another part of our application for Lawndale's studio program revolved around Floor Compositions.

Here's something The Chuck created many moons ago. I'll let him explain.

Re: Quick Question for The Chuck

You had already mentioned him (Rube Goldberg’s creations) but when I was composing I didnt go back to look at the name and couldnt remember off the top of my head. Come to think of there was another idea that kept floating around, the college contests that pit teams against each other trying to accomplish some task and some of the ideas around the segways in Monte Python.

Quick Question for The Chuck

You remember anything more about the artist I mentioned who had come up with something similar?

At this point we discussed everything from the game Mousetrap to this artist that Keith knew of, that had done something similar.

I don't deny having seen the idea before. Shoot, nothing's original.

I just wish I could remember who the heck I was talking about...

...and now The Chuck

I think that many kids and no, I am not limiting it to boys, want to create for the sole purpose of creating. A kind of Art for Art's sake idea but what happens when the kid cant figure out what the outlet for this should be? Keith and I talked one day about ideas of Art. What is considered Art? Schools identify, I suppose out of neccesity, Arts and Sciences when really each of them are completely intertwined. The poetry in an Algebraic equation that solves some age old problem. The chemistry of the paint that a painter uses giving him that exact color and texture that he wants to convey his full emotion. I think architecture is a prime example, as well, of the artistic beauty in science. About this point we came across an independently thought up idea of stupid machines. Although some of the specifics were different this idea of machines that didnt really complete much of a task other than to run, a sort of Machine for Machine's sake engineering art thing. At this point we discussed everything from the game Mousetrap to this artist that Keith knew of, that had done something similar. Alas, without the neccesary funds and someplace to do it, it would proabably never get done. Then along comes the Lawndale folks and we thought wouldnt it be cool to actually get to make them. The specifics can be worked out later but for now the idea has taken some shape. Now, just so you know there is much more than what is shown on the pics that we have so fare. Just to make sure we get everything covered there will also bells and whistles, no I am not joking, we are going to actually use bells and whistles for distractions we will also of course need smoke and mirrors, to make our diabolical plan go into action. If we can possibly find any more cliches, they will be used as well. All the while there will be computer moniters with readouts of RPMs, PSI, MPH, ETC. We may even be able to give them a keyboard or mouse to interact, we shall see. There is no telling how far we can go with the information at our finger tips.

Stupid Machines

So I’ve been thinking about Stupid Machines for quite some time – not sure how long, but it definitely feels like a good while.

It all started when I was imagining projects that made use of distractive elements, or sleights of hand, to draw people in with one thing only to have them notice something else a little later. (I pitched an idea along these lines to the Texas Biennial, but that’s another story altogether.)

I also wanted to begin working with gears. I’m not sure why they appealed to me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always loved looking at machinery – although I definitely was not the kind of kid who took apart his watch to see how it worked. (Or when I did take things apart, it was only because I’d read in books that that was what smart kids were supposed to do.) I never really cared that much how things worked. I just liked watching their movement.

But just watching isn’t enough, at least in terms of where I am now. I’d much rather someone participated in my work than looked at it passively. I prefer something along the lines of social sculpture, where the participants are very much part of the work.

Distraction, gears, participation – with these three themes bouncing around in my head, I dreamt up the idea for a machine that has the participant turning a crank and unwittingly kicking himself in the butt. No reason. No rhyme. Just a nice self-inflicted butt-kicking.

And that’s how Stupid Machines were born.

Stupid Machines are definitely reminiscent of Rube Goldberg’s creations. They take the long road to get a job done. In that sense, I see their creation as kindred, albeit somewhat paradoxically, to the practices of artists who intentionally limit their materials – toothpicks, wires, lace, whatever – in order to foster creativity.

By taking the long road, we open ourselves up for all the surprises along the way.

The Blog

It's time for a little ouroboros action, otherwise known as blogging about the blog.

I'm thinking that, no matter where we end up setting up our Stupid Machines, our Floor Compositions (more on those later) and whatever else we do, we should definitely have a computer with Internet access on site, so that way viewers and participants can check out this blog.

It'd be like a cyber version of an artists' statement, but so much better than what's usually offered at gallery shows, since people would be able to bounce around in our little world, letting the internal links take them wherever they want.

Linear reading, after all, is so 20th century...

American Politics

Last week we submitted an application for Lawndale Art Center's studio program.

Here's one of the ideas we pitched.



We really hope we score that studio space. It would definitely help us actualize some of our larger ideas.

Once we get a stupid idea in our heads, we gotta make it happen.

The sketch above is very basic. You can click on the image for more information, but even that doesn't tell half of what we'd like to do with American Politics. We'll begin elaborating over the next few days and weeks.

Let the dialectic begin.