Ralph Slatton
A collection of my early ink prints and drawings: The Religious Machine

This site is dedidcated to some of my early works, consisting of intaglios and ink drawings. These were a study of "art and technology," the subject of my MA thesis at Arkansas State University.  Interestingly enough, my featured pieces pre-dated the era of the personal computer.  Who would have guessed back then the extent of our Orwellian nightmare now? 

A strong influence on my work was the swiss painter and sculptor, Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 in Fribourg, Switzerland -- 30 August 1991 in Bern)  He is best known for his bizarre machines or Kinetic art, in the  tradition of Dada.  He created a kind of pseudoscience, coining the phrase, "meta-mechanics," which referred to the universal law of disorder.  He created inefficient machines, or usless machines.  These would literally self-destruct with whirling gyrations of motors and gears.  I have vague memories of seeing one of his machines on the nightly news, in the early 50s.  It was entitled, "Study for an End of the World," which was an assemblage of junk and motors that self-destruct in an explosive blaze.    

Machine is defined in Webster as, "an assemblage of parts that transmit force, motion and energy."  This applies not only to mechanical devices, but also to living organisms and even political systems.  My goal is to define "machine art" as inclusive of ideas, symbols, and human efforts, or extensions of technology on the human experience.  An almost religious attitude prevails; humans push the control buttons of their faith, bowing before the high priests of technology. My machine images, created in 1986, were humorous, surreal, and sometimes evil, yet relevant to even this decade. 

See Ralph Slatton's animal imagery on ArtSlant

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