Respeck to Mr. SB, but here’s an earlier suicide bot from artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991).

Homage to New York was a 1960 assemblage of junk found objects that painstakingly destroyed itself over 30 minutes.

Here’s a video (and a recollection that will sound very familiar to anyone involved in machine art):

The last few hours of the day were frantic. Jean insisted that we shouldn’t test anything. Instead he kept adding new stuff to the machine. Not until 6 o’clock did I get a cable for the electricity. The event was scheduled from 6:30 to 7:00. At 7:30, I asked Jean “On va?” Jean answered, “On va.” and I closed the switch.

Homage to New York video and commentary

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 8:42 am and is filed under History, Neat Stuff, Sometimes We Deal In Kinetic Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.