Description
This was Tinguely’s first large scale self-destructing machine. It was built in the garden of the MoMA in New York with the help of engineers and other artists; among others Robert Rauschenberg. The machine performed its self-destruction program with noise and smoke for 27 minutes after which its parts lay scattered in the garden.
The thought of a machine performing such a fundamentally irrational and unproductive task as destroying itself makes a strong statement about the nature of machines and our way of linking machines and robots to rationality and productivity. This theme of the unproductive machine or robot has become a very common strategy for the artistic use of mechanics and robotics.
