Introduction

The creative process begins with an idea that the artist initially carries within himself. Then he tries to ring it out and show it the world using the chosen medium. I would like to uncover this process for my audience. Invite creators, artists, and viewers to participate as an active commentator, shy observer, or direct participant.

A machine-object will be used to show the creative process, the construction of which I will register, and make public. The source is a modern technology of 3D printing, resulting from my previous creative researches. I will reveal an observation of the development of the work, its creation, and its gradual evolution in the form of photo-video documentation in the Internet media. The final object will be both a work and a mechanical creator of subsequent objects created based on contact with recipients, their observations and built meanings.

The object itself is a buckle that binds the idea of the project together.
The last stage will reveal the metaphorical nature of the object–creator
relationship in relation to the creator and his environment.

Patronage

Realized under the scholarship program
of the Minister of Culture and
National Heritage
  – Culture on the Web.

Object

The physical element of the project was the construction of the “Machine Creative”. An object, based on 3D printing technology, but subjected to a process of deconstruction, so as to reveal the variability of subtle, negligible even factors. I’ve prepared a machine object with dimensions of approx. 30 × 30 × 150 cm, capable of creating other small, extruded objects.

Extruded objects were created in a strictly controlled environment to reduce the possibility of the influence of external factors, and yet their uniqueness was inevitable. Because of this, they have become a kind of indirect record of a certain fragment of reality.

Process

The entire creative process, from the first technical trials to the presentation of the final object, was reported via the Facebook social platform. Thanks to this, the audience’s relationship with the process of creating the artwork was established. The original assumptions were fulfilled and the parallel between the creative work on the piece and the creator and his environment became noticeable. Just as I was building the “Machine”, which was the source of other objects, the relationship with the environment had a direct impact on me – the creator.

Critical review

Dorota Perszko „Machine Creative

In one of the most famous scenes from the movie “Modern Times,” the main character played by Charlie Chaplin (who was also the author of the screenplay and director) is accidentally pulled into the gears of an automated production line due to his reflexive and automated work. Although this motif belongs to the canon of film art, it consistently resurfaces in the discourse surrounding the interplay between human nature and technology, which has been ongoing for nearly 100 years. The scene, which is both humorous and deeply poignant, serves as a bitter diagnosis of the world and humanity, entangled in dehumanized processes, defined systems of power, and social models. Chaplin’s genius in this scene with the giant machine also inspires us to ask what emerges from this painfully physical closeness, where the human being takes on the characteristics of a machine, while technology absorbs subjective factors.

For wherever the question of the role of technology and machines in human life arises, there arises the question of the condition of human nature. The interwar period – the everyday life of Charlie Chaplin, as well as the Dadaists, Aldous Huxley, Witkacy, or Martin Heidegger – harshly evaluated the machine (technology) as a devourer of human existence.

Meanwhile, Paweł Dudko refers to his latest machine creation as “creative,” thus challenging the black-and-white understanding of automation assigned to technology and the unequivocal intuition belonging to humans.

” Machine Creative” is another original device by Dudko, merging the realms of visual arts, digital art, and performance, based on 3D printing. In his early works, this technology served as an alternative method of “creating” objects, diverging from traditional media (“Fruits of Enlightenment” 2014, “Populations” 2016). Even then, the artist posed the question of whether there is room for technology on the border between industry and craftsmanship among traditional media. Over time, however, Dudko’s additive manufacturing projects developed towards an analysis of the structure of the medium itself, as well as its performative expansiveness (“Sound of Image | Image of Sound” 2016, “Faces of the Circle” 2018). The conclusions drawn from observing these actions generated additional layers of questions regarding the extent to which the device – the author’s 3D printer – is anchored in an objective, dehumanized, infallible algorithmic system. This same question determines the identity of the “Creative Machine,” but unlike other works, it serves as its overarching thesis.

Many qualities in the “Machine Creative” by Dudko are reversed compared to his previous works, where, nevertheless, the artist himself remained the controlling subject. The latest piece, like the others, is presented in a very minimal visual style, appearing as an unassuming glass case on a pedestal. However, the cylindrical structure conceals the entire potential of the objects that only “come to life” before the viewer’s eyes. For the first time since 2014, when Dudko started using additive manufacturing in his works, there is a physical reversal of the printer nozzle, defying its logic and standard purpose. Yet, it is precisely this act of defying gravity that determines the crucial aspect of delicate objects emerging right before the viewer’s eyes. Using filament of a neutral color reminiscent of human skin, the machine creates organic “bodies” resembling peculiar creations of mother nature, marine organisms, or even snippets of the human body. One might assume there is a certain principle of filament winding: after an initial random “spitting” of the nozzle, a fragile body with a changing cross-section begins to grow from it. The rotating head of the nozzle imparts its own rhythm of vibrations to the emerging objects, creating an undeniable impression of life pulsating within them. It cannot be denied that their beauty is ambivalent, like Bataille’s eye – simultaneously alluring and repulsive. Yet, it is precisely this aspect that brings the creations of the “Machine Creative” closer to the nature of existence. Intrinsically charming, filled with tension and unknown processes, they give birth to somewhat monstrous organisms that the artist himself mockingly refers to as “guts” or “worms.”


The acceptance of ugliness, as recognized by Saint Augustine, is inherent to the identity of life, as painfully emphasized by Julia Kristeva in her psychoanalytic theory of the abject. Kristeva associates the abject with the notion of “expulsion” or “waste,” encompassing everything that stands in opposition to human subjectivity (understood in the image and likeness of the divine). The abject can be metaphorically equated with everything that the human body discards as unnecessary—bad memories, traumas, but also sweat, tears, excrement, and vomit. These are the base elements that disrupt the beauty of human nature, yet are fundamentally inseparable from its identity. Kristeva’s painfully ontological truth ultimately leads us to reflect on the origin of the human being, who, in essence, also acquires the status of the abject as an “expulsion” from the mother’s womb.

The “Machine Creative” is full of contrasts, as suggested by its very title. The attribution of characteristics derived strictly from human spirituality to the machine generates a similar dadaistic sense as in the painterly, utopian machines of Francis Picabia. However, post-war structuralism brought a breakthrough in thinking about machines compared to the previously mentioned dark prophetic period between the wars. In his “The Myth of the Machine,” Lewis Mumford analyzes and familiarizes our understanding of the titular machine by delving into prehistoric times and even the evolution of humankind itself. He writes: “Perhaps the first great breakthrough was the transformation of the forelimbs of the quadruped from specialized organs of locomotion into a kind of universal tool for climbing, grasping, striking, tearing, pounding, digging, and holding. The hands of early man and stone tools played a significant role in his development primarily because they […] facilitated preparatory functions of gathering, carrying, and macerating food, thus freeing the mouth for speech.” (Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine. Volume 1, translated by Michał Szczubiałka, PWN, Warsaw 2012, p. 18)

Just as broad as the conditions of its emergence, the concept of technology is understood here. The author of The Myth of the Machine includes in it not only tools and traditionally understood machines but also all kinds of containers (from pits, traps, and nets to baskets, barns, and houses, to reservoirs, canals, and even cities), entities that he refers to as social machines, and even to some extent, the human body itself.

“If man was truly a maker of tools, then from the very beginning, he possessed one primary universal tool more significant than any later invention, namely, his own mind-driven body, every part of it, including those members that produced clubs, choppers, or wooden javelins.” (source, p. 18)

Later works of Mumford, as well as “Machine Myth” itself, primarily address the issues raised by his great predecessor, Charlie Chaplin, in his film. Paweł Dudko’s work is far from political or socio-cultural speculation. Instead, it immerses the audience in a seemingly controlled ritual that unfolds beyond predictable boundaries. However, contemplation of humans as a kind of “creative machine” blurs the boundaries between creation and production, intuition and automation, deliberate control, and mechanical repetition.

Dorota Perszko

Facebook Posts:


1st of July 2020 – post #1
[live post in Polish click here]

July in the calendar, holidays in the air, #kulturawsieci [culture on the web], so the “Machine Creative” starts!
Over the next few months, I will share with you my work on the project that I am realizing under the Culture on the Web scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
#maszynatwórcza #stypendium #mkidn
July in the calendar, holidays in the air, #kulturawsieci [culture on the web], so the “Machine Creative” starts!
Over the next few months, I will share with you my work on the project that I am realizing under the Culture on the Web scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
#maszynatwórcza #stypendium #mkidn


14th of August 2020 – post #2
[live post in Polish click here]

#kulturawsieci prowls and the “Machine Creative” works!
There will be some sneak-peaking at creative work. We will meet virtually in the studio. We will build object-machine. We will write some 🙂
This project is completely unusual for me. Typically, my works are created in secret, somewhere behind the workshop door. This time, I will share my path and I am counting on your presence and a little attention.


21st of August 2020 – post #3
[live post in Polish click here]

The creative machine begins to become independent! 🎉
This is the second stage of work that I can successfully consider closed. The driver is prepared. The program that controls the most important parameters – written. The mechanical part of the head – ready.
Soon I will show what we’re going towards 😉
I like to divide my work into technical and creative stages. Of course, these stages will meet at some point and then the most interesting things will happen. However, this initial division allows for a better focus and understanding of the phenomena. The possibility of observing and working on each of the stages allows you to discover new paths.
I am fascinated by how unreal, abstract programs can create physical objects thanks to 3D printing. Just thinking about the movement of electrons is engaging, let alone when it becomes the source of a new form!
It’s been a long post this time.
It’s probably not a proof of concept yet, but if it works flawlessly, it’s an important moment. More soon, because #kulturawsieci does not sleep!


26th of August 2020 – post #4
[live post in Polish click here ]

Today I planned to work, not publish.
However, there are days when it is difficult to gather thoughts and force the mind to work. No matter how many coffees have I drunk, nothing is moving forward. #maszynatwórcza won’t move a bit! And at such a moment the technical and creative stages support each other!
It was enough to organize the wires and ideas started to flow. 😃
Previously, I wrote that I like to divide my work into two stages. However, I did not mention that these stages never end. In practice, at some point you have to say “ready!”, But thinking about solutions and meanings goes on. Sometimes its an origin to new projects, and sometimes you just move a step backwards and improve.
The Machine Creative works! The one in the head and the one on the table.
Back to work while it’s on!


28th of August 2020 – post #5
[live post in Polish click here]

I remember a few years ago, late in the evening, when I disassembled the 3D printer head and the first version of this idea was created from a piece of cardboard with a hole quickly drilled into and a few makeshift supports.
Proof of concept, i.e. the proof that the idea can be executed.
And maybe a little closer to explaining what actually arises here 🙃
That particular evening, I watched in fascination as the material formed itself. At times I couldn’t help feeling that it was not the filament that was flowing out of the nozzle, but rather some creature was nibbling at it in focus. My thinking about the appartus started to move from the virtual-real relationship towards an animate object. Towards a being, that is partially determined and at the same time has some potential for self-determination.
In implementing the #maszynatwórcza project, I wanted to make sure that I was in control of several important factors. I assumed that the moment the machine starts up, a few elements will remain predetermined: block temperature, nozzle diameter, feed rate, and filament type. Anything else that we are unable to control, or the changes are so small that they are difficult to see, will make the results unique.
In the case of the Machine Creative, there are still many decisions to be made.
But all in the right time…


5th of September 2020 – post #6
[live post in Polish click here]

Model.
These are the last fittings before the completion of the final facility. A little sketchy model allows you to check the layout, fit and, at least briefly, the proportions of the elements.
From the technical side, I was afraid that the head would heat up the attached metal plate too much. Or on the contrary – will the plate dissipate too much heat, so that the filament would not melt.
Finally, everything works fine 🙂
Now I can prepare visualizations to make final decisions about what the #maszynatwórcza will look like.


18th of September 2020 – post #7
[live post in Polish click here]

This is how I imagine it, i.e. visualization.
3D model, exact dimensions, materials, fitting of elements. One last look before cutting, milling and gluing.
I can reveal that one detail will definitely change 🙂
Even though it’s almost over, #maszynatwórcza still surprises. Therefore, whenever I think about my work, I think about some kind of dialogue with technology. I take a step forward and reality verifies it. Then I need to step back a little and take a look from a distance.
There’s a livestream coming out next week!
But details in the next post … 😉


23rd of September 2020 – post #8
[live post in Polish click here]

🔔 Livestream! 🔔
Today at 14:00 live from the studio
I cordially invite you!


23rd of September 2020 – post #9
[live post in Polish click here]

Machine Creative – livestream from the studio
Live from the studio 🙂


23rd of September 2020 – post #10
[live post in Polish click here]

Thank you all for being on today’s livestream !!! ❤
I honestly did not count on such a large audience, especially in the middle of the day!
Unfortunately, during the stream I did not see all the comments on the fly, but I tried to answer them all in writing. The material is available in a slightly lower quality (it was supposed to be fullHD) and it definitely needs to be checked 😉
Richer with the new experience, I am a little calmer about our next meeting.


29th of September 2020 – post #11
[live post in Polish click here]

Livestream the 2nd! 🔔
Today at 7:00 PM live – such an unusual evening story for the brave 😉
I cordially invite you!


29th of September 2020 – post #12
[live post in Polish click here]

Machine Creative – project presentation – livestream 2.
#maszynatwórcza


30th of September 2020 – post #13
[live post in Polish click here]

#maszynatwórcza in all its glory 🔔
Today is the last day of the project and I am sharing the documentation of the object. What wasn’t visible during the live streams, the photos will surely explain 🙂
“Machine Creative”
object, 2020, wood, plywood, stainless steel, glass, electronic control system, 3D printer head, PLA filament, 30 × 30 × 150 cm

P.S. Video coming soon!


30th of September 2020 – post #14
[live post in Polish click here]

#maszynatwórcza for the almost last time (in the near future) 😉
Video recordings of small, extruded objects. An opportunity to see them close in their environment.


30th of September 2020 – post #15
[live post in Polish click here]

September 30 is slowly coming to an end…
The third phenomenal month of work on the #kulturawsieci scholarship is also ending. This year’s events changed a lot, but had it not been for this time, there would probably never have been a #maszynatwórcza in this form.
It’s a whole new experience to share with you my thoughts, doubts, and work before they settle down, and before they become something more than just my first impression.
I would like to thank everyone for every comment, private message, reaction, presence on streams, live conversations. I greatly appreciate your kind words, shares, and questions, as well as doubts, critical remarks, and sarcastic comments 🙂
At this point, I would like to thank the people who helped me with the project with their outstanding skills. It is a great joy and happiness to know such people and to be able to count on them!

Damian Dworakowski helped me prepare my scholarship application and explained the intricacies of the application system. He can look from the perspective of a creator, organizer, and expert, and then choose the best solution from this ridiculous conglomerate! What’s more, he is still able to develop the project and inspire 🙂

Dorota Perszko wrote a phenomenal text about the project. The knowledge, contexts, and meanings she notices are always a surprise to me, and at the same time, I often feel shy about such comparisons.

Radek Gurski, a modest master of the workmanship with whom we built the final facility. He always proves to me that theoretical knowledge in the workshop is only an introduction to the joy of making, and shows what understanding the material is all about.

And last, but not least… Karolina Niedbało, who probably reacted to every comment, followed all possible reactions regarding the posts, was able to spam the livestream, but most importantly, she helped me plan this project and made sure that it was implemented in the best possible form. I do not even need to mention all the support and pointing the direction when it got blurry because it is obvious 😉

I am very glad that this project was created. It started, as usual, with the realization of an object for an exhibition somewhere, sometime in the future… Meanwhile, our interaction over the weeks showed me a completely different face of creativity and possibilities.
If someone looks here in the future, all documentation can be found on my website.
Thank you again and let’s stay in touch!