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brandonjohnbarnard · 1 month ago

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Production history around: Tinguely Feeling

Tinguely Feeling was one of the most complicated projects I have done so far. The seed of this idea was originally planted in June of 2024, when I started reading into Nouveau réalisme. Jumping down rabbit hole after rabbit hole eventually dropped me onto a page about Jean Tinguely and Métamatics.

Métamatics was a series of works started in the 1950s which used robots and automation to create works of art. Often, these works would use chance elements, meaning that each work created by these machines was unique in some capacity, with interesting results being churned out.

That really simplifies it, though. There were pieces that exploded, many water fountains, and pieces that evoked many of the themes that Duchamp’s readymades did as well. I really recommend reading further into the topic yourself.

At this point, I was still on a DADA high, so the similarities between the areas was compelling to me too.

I was really drawn in by many of the points made with Métamatics, and how they parallel a lot of the arguments currently around AI art and ownership, creativity, and the ‘soul’ present in art.

Métamatics also explores an aspect of chance which I am very interested in: destruction. Often Tinguely’s machines would destroy themselves in the process of being shown off, with this being part of the performance. Homage to New York (1960) and Study for an End of the World №2 (1962) are both examples of this.

I had explored destruction before with Eggistential, but like most chance investigations I want to explore them all more thoroughly. This destruction aspect of Métamatics influenced the dancing stages in the film having debris that got knocked around everywhere, like the buttons, rice, and sea glass.

It was also inspired by the works of Robert Morris, like his untitled 1968 piece. The way the work fell was inspired by chance, further amplified by the actions of non-human actors, which I thought was a fun idea.

This film is also an offshoot of my exploration into non-human agency. Previously I had explored that idea with animals in ‘Doggy Style’, with its medium article explaining the reasoning.

Having the robots decide what the narrative of the piece ending up being was actually a lot more fun that I expected, and not nearly as stressful. The robots did actions which would have been so difficult to plan, but ended up being the heart of the piece. Them dancing in the ring, both falling over at the same time. The comedy they brought was great. In a way, it feels similar to improv.

A week after this reading into Tinguely (July, 2024), I found a cosmojetz wind-up toy, created by the company Kikkerland, at the Children’s Hospice charity shop on Mutley. At that moment, I knew what I was making next.

This led me down the path of trying to see if I could learn more about these Kikkerland robots. I learned way more about the designer, how many robot variants and colours there were, and also about how hard they were to acquire on the second-hand market. The UK and Europe do not have many available compared to the USA.

I ended up getting: a pink Pea, a Cosmojetz, a Pintacuda, a Cranky, and two Katitas. I still look occasionally to see if any are listed, as they are fun to collect and play with.

Originally, I wanted to merge this Kikkerland robot idea with a separate found object idea. I used to regularly litter pick in Plymouth (this stopped after I got my dog Toffee — not enough hands when walking), and while litter picking, I would find people’s faces. Torn up IDs, polaroid pictures, key charms, etc. I saved these oddities, among others, as it was something fun to do. I was thinking of sticking these face to the robots to add a weird ‘look where you ended up’ type of energy to the film. The main one I wanted to use was found in 2021 at Freedom Fields Park.

Though, the robots moved around too chaotically for this to work, and I also worried about privacy concerns.

I bought the walking robots from Cancer UK charity shops. These were Halloween themed since it was October. I bought 2 of them, thinking I may use them for something. Early on in production, I wanted there to be some purity of only using Kikkerland robots, though this waned over time. After playing with them, decided to buy many more.

These robots meant the idea of attaching faces to the non-human actors came back, but in a different way.

The nodding sunlight cat was bought in Japan, back in April of 2024 during my honeymoon (when Gacha’nce was filmed). The cat normally sits on my wife’s desk, agreeing with everything she says.

Originally, I wanted the robots (bugs) to be dancing around in a vase. I bought one and tested it out, and while the sound was cool, it didn’t really have further directions it could have gone (feel free to play with the idea and prove me wrong).

The rule of three was there in the beginning, in terms of there being 3 dances, and 3 skits. Also, having a wind-up phase, a release, and the slow down captures was thought of near the beginning as well.

Recently, I have been thinking more about visualising chance, and why film is a good mechanism for its capture.

With an explosion, what do you capture? The object before it explodes? Well, that’s just an object. After, it is just a mess on the floor. In the middle, it is neither a mess, nor an item. There is no semblance of what type of transformation took place, just that one is taking place. That’s why I think its best to show pre-prompt, prompt, and post-prompt.

As such, I wanted to capture the wind up, the placement, the movement, and the eventual stop.

Before filming, one of my major initial stresses was trying to figure out where the dance scene going to take place. I decided on using a shelf in one of our under-used rooms.

It’s funny how engaging in an activity can transform a space for ever. Now whenever I see this shelf, I think about the film. The film transformed a mundane part of my life into something special. This is a reoccurring aspect of my filmmaking journey.

My wife and I had just finished watching Twin Peaks, so creating a red room felt like a fun idea. I’m very happy with how the curtains turned out.

I also wanted to reference my other films in some capacity. So, I made one of the rooms tinfoil and M&Ms to match Tinfoil Candy. I was also going to have a scene with the dogs that called back to ‘Doggy Style’, but I changed my mind as I worried about the robots either scaring or hurting the dogs.

Though, after making Disseminate, and how many self-references that had to my practice, I decided to tone back other ideas, and rather create something more original.

All of the buttons were a last-minute find, from the Barnardo’s charity shop in Armada Way. I really like how the robots kick the buttons around.

The Pintacuda robot (we called it the Snitch) broke during the dance. Interesting to think about items breaking mid-production as a chance event. It also echoes back to Tinguely’s robot’s destroying themselves mid-performance.

I knew I wanted to do three skits, but really struggled on finalising the final one. I knew that the boxing scene would look iconic, and that the painting scene would be a mess/potentially break a robot, so doing the former scene first was a priority.

Robot wars was an inspiration: gameshows where two robots would be put in a ring, and the last one to survive would be the victor. I used to watch these shows a lot as a kid, and they really stuck with me.

As a side note, I love that in robot battle events, often a ramp is the most powerful piece of offensive tech. The ability to wedge and flip. It does feel kind of judo in a way.

Seeing how crazy the Kikkerland robots looked bouncing around, I thought they could easily do a faux clash in the middle of a ring.

Making the ring was not too difficult. It was, and still is, a box which is being used to store some anime figurines. Madoka Magika x Bakemonogatari figures to be specific. The idea that they are hiding under the ring while the battle is taking place is kind of funny. I stuck some cut up sosatie (kebab) sticks into the corners, and surrounded them with string.

Someone on one of the Discord servers I frequent said that the boxing scene reminded them of Raging Bull but in colour. Another friend, Ocean, made a comment that when the boxers started holding hands, and going around in circles that it evoked thoughts of yin and yang.

I love these accidental associations people are making from my works — that they poke the brain and something else falls out.

As can be seen in the film, my original plan of using Kikkerland robots for the boxing scene failed dramatically. They instantly shot off and got stuck in the ropes. So, from this I decided to use the walking robots instead. Seeing how well they did instead of the Kikkerland robots are what inspired the marathon scene, as well as broke me away from the idea of having the film being so ‘one type of robot’ oriented.

The participants of the marathon, from left to right, were Isobel (my wife), me, my friends Zoe and Louis, Chico Bicalho (Kikkerland robot designer), my dogs Toffee and Noodle, my PhD supervisor Dylan Yamada-Rice, and the creator of Métamatics and namesake of the film, Jean Tinguely.

Getting them all to stand at once and not run off from the starring line was quite difficult. I tired many times to somehow hold them all at once by myself but failed. So, my wife helped me with it the moment she came in the door from work (sorry hun, and thanks!).

My robot winning at the end was not planned at all — I feel like it actually looks quite bad! I did consider re-running the race to avoid this, but that would be completely against my ethos of embracing chance, so it is what it is.

I wanted to do this since the start. An homage to Tinguely’s own drawing robots, as well as a homage to many of the chance methods I have learnt about so far being focused on mediums like painting more broadly.

The moment where the one robot would not walk is so funny. They got stuck to the paint, which I guess completely countered their mechanics.

The ending of the film was the cherry on top in my opinion. Hanging a painting to say, ‘it’s done!’ is such a fun way to end something. The painting is a permanent fixture in our home now.

Originally, we wanted to use a music box as the backing of the piece. We bought a Kikkerland make-your-own-music box kit, and were working on producing our own three songs for the piece. This mechanical energy, and the doubling down on the Kikkerland brand I thought would be fun. Though, the energy of the songs produced did not match the fast energy I wanted from the robots dancing around.

For the dancing scenes, I ended up using the song Den Wölfen by Fania_Katz. I really like its chaotic energy, and it has elements which remind me of older machines twirling. Beeps and boops.

A note I got from my friend Abi has stuck with me a bit: “love that in all your films you have a distinct aesthetic and vision 😊 you’re really consistent with your work”. A week before posting Tinguely Feeling, I did a talk, and one of the lecturers after came up to me and said my works all have a cohesion to them, a shared style. This has been something I have thought about a bit. What are the hallmarks of my films. What is that intangible energy that I leave behind?

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