Notes on Constructivism and Marcel Duchamp

'Critiquing Absolutism: Marcel Duchamp's 'Etant Donnes' and the psychology of Perception' by Linda Louise (Michigan: Yale University, 1995) pp. 1-173.

Overtly sexual theme- did so by resorting to mechanical analogues
The spectators themselves must ‘decipher and interpret’ a work of art, ultimately contributing as much to its meaning as the artist
Manifests a mechanical function as well as an elaborate demonstration of the material and technical skills practiced by many different types of craftsmen and engineers
Electrical systems design and wiring, bricklaying, metalworking and carpentry, as well as more traditional artistic functions such as photography, painting and sculpting and architectural design
Machine aesthetic and craft techniques
Initiated a remarkable strategy to distance himself from the traditional function of ‘fine’ artist, which involved posing ambiguously as artist, craftsman and engineer
Particular set of ideas circulating around the Deutsche Werkbund Movement in Munich 1912
Defy classification as a work of art: is it a painting, sculpture, photography- comprised of characteristic elements of all of these- blur to the point of meaninglessness and add considerably to the viewer’s disorientation and discomfort
Use of scientific and quasi-scientific jargon, concepts and methodology reconciled with his pervasive scepticism
In terms of complexity, size and length of execution
Determination to address the notion of the social construction of gender

In ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Walter Benjamin observed that in the modern era ‘what one is entitled to ask from a work of art’ is ‘an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment’- ‘the sight of immediate reality has become an orchid in the land of technology’[1]
Careful orchestration of spatial relationships and attention to every detail in the design and construction

Motor driven apparatus (motor, circular-metal disc with punched holes, fluorescent lamp cook’s box, frosted Scotch tape, various wooden supports and metal attachments) provides the illusion of a moving waterfall.
An example of mechanical-technological art? It ‘functions’ through the power of electricity. The motor turns the metal disk which creates the waterfall effect, the electric lights contribute enormously to the viewer’s perceptions of space and mass
There is even a ‘switch’ to turn the whole apparatus on and off: namely, the viewer, who activates the electrical power by stepping on the mat outside the door
There are clean analogies with the cinema at work here: the spectator peering through the dark space at a bright illusionary scene, the spectator’s view controlled through a lens (peepholes) and, even the light projected through film to produce the waterfall effect.

Italian Futurists’ devotion to ‘man multiplied by the machine… [a] new mechanical sense, a fusion of instinct with the efficiency of motors and conquered forces’, and, particularly, of Boccioni’s sculpture manifesto, which advised the artist:

‘Refuse to accept the exclusive nature of a single material in the construction of a sculptural whole insist that even twenty different types of materials can be used in a single work of art in order to achieve plastic movement. To mention a few examples: glass, wood, cardboard, iron, cement, hair, leather, cloth, mirrors, electric lights etc.’ Umberta Boccioni, ‘Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture’ (1912), in Appollonio, Futurist Manifestos. Pp. 65

Russian Constructivists’ also raised the issue of the use of mechanical and technological materials and processes for the creation of art. For example, Tatlin wrote, ‘the task… is to find a single form, simultaneously architectonic, plastic, and painterly, which would have the possibility of synthesising the separate forms of these or other technical apparatuses.
[1] Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, ‘Illuminations’, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schcken Books, 1969), pp. 233-234.