Thoughts and other droolings (iDigress machinaKafe)

Alongside the Vivisection work, I have been doing some reading and research into 19th century mechanization, Virilio’s essay “The Art of the Motor”, and dwelling on things I associate with the 19th Century. When you say: “19th Century Europe!”

I think (in alphabetical order):

- Casper David Friedrich
- Enlightenment
- The Encyclopedia
- Gare St. Lazare, Paris and the Modern City
- JMW Turner & John Constable
- Museum as Public institution
- Romanticism
- Rise of Nationalism and the “Nation-State”
- Large Scale Industrialization Steam Engine
- Subject/Object dominance in Painting

(Wait a sec - some of these things are from the 18th Century...hmm)

Moving along,

Following the vivisection, I intend to physically transform the machinaKafe’s application. I would like to explore, by transforming it into a cultural artifact, a metaphore of architecture’s purpose, or ability (strength? Hold over culture?) after the 19th century, rise and rapid deployment of high speed communication and the evaporation of real distance and space. That’s a lot of bullshit (I know – its so vague).

Steam is so hot. And it’s invisible, sort of. It can cover visible things and then make them invisible. Water is clear. Its also highly reflective, able to create true and fantastically distorted images of reality.