Méta-matic No. 8 by Jean Tinguely

Foreshadowing the plotter, the Swiss kinetic sculptor’s key piece in the history of chance in art, Méta-matic No. 8, was an animated sculpture made from found material. The piece was exhibited at the legendary The machine, as seen at the end of the mechanical age. link This piece itself was actually a drawing machine, constantly producing an abstract drawing on its own. Tinguely said: “The machine is above all an instrument which permits me to be poetic. If you respect the machine, if you enter into a game with the machine, then perhaps you can make a truly joyous machine; by joyous I mean free.” The piece, like much of Tinguely’s work, also questioned the role of the artist’s hand in an artwork’s production and the art object itself. This work also further demonstrates the role of Kinetic Art in the development of computer art as well as an example of proto-digital generative art.