Descartes’ Clown: The Spine
Upcoming Performances:
- Exhibition
Sep 6th, 2007 to Sep 15th, 2007 - View Schedule
at: VIVO
Descartes’Clown: Homo numericus – The Spine.
Descartes’ Clown is the collective name for a number of allegorical machines representing a series of mechanical organs and humours. These have been removed from the body of the last robot on earth in a process of auto-autopsy. The clown has dissected itself. The machines that have already been built are represented by the scans of 24 working drawings listed in the catalogue.
The Spine, then is one allegorical machine among others, actual or projected. But before offering some introductory notes concerning this piece, it may be helpful to outline the background to the project.
The original purpose of machines was poetic: they were concerned with marvels and magic. Machines made the oracles speak, machines worked wonders in theatres, in temples and in the market places. Clockwork, the central metaphor of Cartesian materialism, was used to animate automata. Machines, as the agents of awe, actively represented phenomena. Ideally a machine is immortal . Its parts, as they wear, can be replaced. Yet, it has been discovered that beyond mechanical immortality lies virtual death . Virtual death is transparent and not commensurable with actual death. One can never be used as the measure of the other. The virtual may gnaw at the actual, just as a shadow can erode a silhouette, but they can never eat at the same table.
Death is the other side of existence. The Fact of Existence itself was the question for Descartes, who doubted everything: what he was - and even that he was what he was, and whether he existed at all. He sought a clear and distinct answer in terms which defined the nature of scientific doubt and philosophical skepticism for the following three centuries, and established the ground rules for mechanical anatomy.
Descartes, was a considerable anatomist, he undertook the dissection of many animals alive or dead over a period of eleven years. He obtained carcasses from the same abattoir that Rembrandt frequented. They may have met there, although that is mere conjecture. He examined the evidence on which he based his conclusions with great care, as when holding a still warm heart in his hands, he realized that heat was the source of the circulation of the blood.
As the result of his extensive study he concluded that all animals are clockwork. Cartesian man is a special variety of automata. He is equipped with a soul attached to the body at the pineal glad near the top of the skull .
This then is the milieu of my project. Descartes’ Clown the last robot on earth, is a pure machine. It shares with Descartes an immense insecurity. Like Descartes it is dead. But in after-death it conducts its own post-mortem examination in order to discover whether it too existed .
The Spine
The anatomized backbone of the clown is attached to, and thus becomes one, with three wooden dissecting tables. Therefore the anatomy of the tables is as significant as the spine proper. The names of the tables are Fish, Worm, and Bird. The segmented rhythm of vertebrate, invertebrate, vertebrate is clear and distinct, though not visible. The names of the tables are written on the underside in Italic capitals.
The tables are identical except for their differences. Each surface, of fire-hardened Douglas Fir, measures 12.125” x 77.688” or thereabout. Patches of edge grain fir measuring 3.018” x 1.225”, technically known as swans , are inlaid in the surface. These are not random pieces of intarsia, but result from the restoration of the surface by concealing natural blemishes or fabricating blunders.
The table Fish has three swans on the surface, six on the south edge and one on the north. There are thirteen on the surface of Worm, and only four on the south edge. While on Bird it is possible to count nine on the surface three on the south and five on the north edges. Representing these facts using Arabic numerals in an abbreviated notation we get the formula (3-6-1: 13- 0- 4: 9-3-5) := {10:17:17} Suggesting Fish has seven illusory swans.
Wood from four other local trees was used in the construction: alder, hemlock, spruce, and Western red cedar. This last, the lightest, which appears heaviest has been used for the feet of Bird. Both the feet of Fish and Worm are spruce.
There are 206 distinct bones in the human frame, of which 26 are in the vertebral column. Descartes’ Clown has a total of 1927 metallic bones that provide a structure for the humours and 2007 in the skeletal parts. The backbone carries 27 vertebral electro-magnetic counters in each of the three regions: cervical, dorsal and lumbar. It also has three ancillary vertebrae making a total 90 - as against the parsimonious provision of 7 cervical, 12 dorsal and 5 lumbar for members of our species. The electro-magnetic counters are nominally identical: Mercury counters (CE40an501) manufactured by Automation Controls Division of General Controls, Skokie, Ill. U.S.A. I am running them on 12 volts d.c. They have an average measured resistance on 14.4 ohms and draw about 0.83333 amps when fired.
In spite of its size (20’) The Spine is an intimate work affording the viewer the opportunity to scrutinize it at the scale of its smallest part. Such scrutiny lies at the foundation of anatomy, and without it knowledge of the structure and workings of the body is impossible.
It may be thought that the scale of the piece has been influenced by the ever growing domain of penis enlargement. This is not so, though in truth it shares with that illusory ambition the equation that size equals power. In fact I had two things in mind from the beginning. An intellectual regard for Descartes’ definition that the essence of material is pure extension, and secondly destiny defined by the theatrical impact of the great green coffin of Sullyman the Magnificent, for which I have a great fondness.
© Geoffrey Smedley