The Machine stood shoulder high - a bizarre aberration of 20th.Century Art. It functioned by
means of a primitive mechanism at the will of whosoever might choose to use it - knowing or
unknowing of its sad yield. Wrought in iron it could have been fashioned by a medieval
armourer. Crude in appearance it showed no lack of skill in design or any hesitancy of
intention in standing as an object of Art.
The Machine's stark image looked to be the antithesis of the True, the Good, and the
Beautiful - Utopian ideals once purported to help bring about the social and political
perfection of Man's world.
Utilising sham, equivalent to human and mechanical parts, the Machine became a grotesque,
cynical model of a crude humanoid birth-machine, a satire on 2nd Millennia life, and an
inverse comment on the 'High Art' of the 1960s. Its apparent discordant tones mirrored the
compound anxieties and moral values confronting humans conceived either in lust, or more
gently out of love - both born as little children upon Earth.
The ugliness of the Machine by the strength of its unsightliness attempted to convey the need
for people to care seriously and compassionately for future people. At its symbolic heart lay
a small monument - a recollection and reminder of natural Life in the Brave Old World.
There was little doubt that the Machine would fail to succeed in conveying its
good-intentions for any considerable length of time before it became a loathed phenomenon - a
'thing' to be consigned to a deep vault beyond commonplace sight.
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All text and images ©Laurence Burt, 2000 - 2015
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