Kontemplation und Resignation – A Meditating Automaton
by Hannes Köcher
funded by Stadt Wien Kultur
special thanks to Florian Prix and cat-x
A table with a large sheet of paper stretched across it.
Two rollers pull the paper slowly, almost imperceptibly, across the table like a conveyor belt.
In the middle of the table, facing the viewer, a mechanical arm lays a black thread on the paper like a drawn line. Meter by meter the thread forms a picture, a landscape appears.
The landscape passes by, until – having reached the edge of the table – it falls down, sinks to the ground. The thread accumulates into a pile that slowly takes up more and more space.
My latest brainchild is an automaton that finally lays down a real thread onto paper after I have been creating drawings and paintings based on the simulation of virtual threads for years. It had to be done. The project was to a large part enabled by funding from the city of Vienna culture department, enough to buy the required materials and to put some butter on my bread. Big shout out to Florian Prix for his support with transports and the more heavy duty machinery, i don´t even have a table saw in my own shop.