Humbaba and Tim Hawkinson (and another)

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"Call me Guardian of the Fortress of Intestines. Or, Humbaba for short."

...?

The next task of MachinaKafe (following vivisection) is to transform the machine into a beast.

What is the beast? And how is it activated?

The beast is Humbaba, manifested by the gurgling noises of the water tank and the shrouding effects of steam; an apparition of beautiful white smoke belying scalding temperatures, suspending the source of unpleasant groans we often associate the movement of bowls.

In ancient Mesopotamian story telling, Humbaba is the embodiment of our darkest fears - our insides, our intestines.

Our being depends on the smooth operation of our guts and pulsing heart, but we are cautious and squeamish to explore them: their shape, they touch, their organization. We deliberately close our ears to the pulse of our own heartbeat, to knowing the moist and warm feeling of our intestines. We have our skin to seal off our touching and mishandling of our insides, and we have our eyes and ears and fingers and toes, directed outward to distract us with the knowledge of the outside world. We are squeamish, and often afraid to explore that which is inside, to know what we are, to acknowledge all the shit that passes through our system. There is no light inside our bodies, or at least we imagine our apparatus going about in total darkness. There is nothing to illuminate a vision of the human construct. Are bodies are simultaneously full and void.

When I took apart the MachinaKafe, I became intimate with its apparatus, its guts. I also developed a level of excitement at knowing how it worked the way it did. It is common nowadays to celebrate and glamorize the machine as beautiful object. Intriguing then, that we still resist celebrating the machine of our bodies. There are, of course, people who do celebrate the machine as a body (and I will get to that soon enough), but for the most part, this resistance to align the aesthetic of the machine outside our bodies with the machines inside our bodies is a disturbing and grotesque subject I will explore with the beast I make from the MachineKafe.

Part of the celebration of machines as beautiful objects stems from our glamorizing the scientific precision that informs its design and order. Even in the MachinaKafe, there is an admirable degree of efficiency in materials and organization. It is an intricate mesh of metal bodies and flalling wires, that in the end fit together very nicely inside a so-so (but also carefully designed) looking plastic casement. And it works great for what it was set out to do.

What happens then when it does not work the way it does? Or, from another perspective: how does our impression of the celebrated machine alter when we distort or "twist" its normal function? What do we begin to see in the grotesque machine that would also make us think about and question our own internal machine?

I am interested in manipulating (through amplification) the effects the sonic and visual qualities of steam and water. I would like to experiment with the gurgling noises of the boiling water and pumping steam. I would also like to experiment with steam, to increase its output, and use it as a kind of shrouding devise. In this way I can align the beastly character of MachineKafe with Humbaba; these are the same effects that our aching stomachs produce, and they are the reminders that our bodies are not voids. Every time we hear that tremor, we are reminded, perhaps unwillingly that there is apparatus going on without our touch, without our implicit directing and ordering about. And perhaps that gurgle is even a reminder of our weaknesses, of something not going right, of the machine falling to pieces. A reminder of the falibilty of what we have come to celebrate after the age of industrialization, the godlike power of all things mechanized.

So how is it activated? Still thinking on that one....aiyah! In the mean time, allow me to distract you with some tentalizing images....

Tim Hawkinson
(a. penitent 1994 b. Pnueman 1994 c. Balloon 1993, Reservoir 1995 , Head 1995
d. Uberorgan 2000)




a & b



c



d



Hermann Nitsch
(e. Last Supper 1976-79 f. Das Orgien Mysterien Theater 1990)




e