Drawing Machine
This drawing machine was a site specific design based on the harmonograph, a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a geometric image. The drawings created typically are Lissajous curves or related drawings of greater complexity. These devices began to appear in the mid-19th century and peaked in popularity in the 1890s, used as a parlor game.
The drawings, while produced by the machine, rely on human intervention. Once must pace the paper and begin the motion. I find that the shapes produced echo the formations that starling birds make when they congregate in the hundreds of thousands, forming quickly changing swirls in the sky.
The first time I saw this was in Rome in 2001 while studying abroad there. When asking the locals what I was looking at, they said starlings and complained about the terrible mess they make on the streets below. Something I was in complete awe about also brought a real nuisance to those living with the reality of so many birds in one place. A dichotomy that I think about still.