“It is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times.” — Pearl S. Buck
This is going to be…
… one long, extended scroll down into…
… the intimate specifics of…
… this gem stone of civil engineering…
… the tar machine…
… a deep, exhaustive…
… visual survey…
… into valves and gauges, steel and rubber…
… rust and hydraulics…
… pipes and pistons…
… spilling forth viscous, pitch black resin…
… noxious blobs of aromatic hydrocarbons…
… complex… carcinogenic…
… a mixture of phenols and asphaltenes…
… of colloid compounds and viscoelastic polymers…
… as they present themselves in all their…
… mute carbonic grace…
… the profane and expressive mystery of the sleeping machine, radiating…
… a feel of perfidious silence…
… and emotional bereavement…
… controlled doom…
… unspeakable injections…
…darkness and concealment…
… heated energy…
… amorphous rebellion…
… passive aggression…
… rage…
… hatred…
… guilt…
… brute force…
… danger…
… pain…
… lust…
… sacrifice…
… violence…
Oops… I got carried away by tar machine’s symbolism…
… “a dull, resentful, metallic will”…
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On the subject of mind and machine:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5762/cyborg.html
(Illuminating… lots of words, though…)
Kraftwerk’s rendition of machine consciousness: Die Stimme der Energie – The Voice of Energy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZtWvmbKepg
(0:55 min)
On Jackson Pollock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bICqvmKL5s&feature=related
(1:09 min)
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(I took some licence with the colors…)
Peter Bies © 2009
