A huge machine to create abstract paintings. This is the shape of the Giant Painting Machine, a project by Douglas Irving Repetto. It's an electro-mechanic system mainly assembled with waste materials. It paints complex and abstract pictures on the four transparent canvas surrounding it, stimulated by different inputs. Because of the mechanical nature of the installation, the signs made on the canvas, determined by the canvas size / engine speed relationship, are often less than perfect (smudges, blots, ...) and various. Under the sign of metamorphosis is also the installation soundtrack. Indeed it has been set up using an adapted (self altering) version of the Larry Polansky's software 'Anna's Music Box'. Beyond its interactive traits, Giant Painting Machine is a system susceptible of continuous software and hardware alterations, depending on the different events it has do deal with. For instance, during the MORE jewel's fair in Milan, that commissioned it, there were four hand-shaped metal detectors installed that could be used to influence the brushes' movements. When the jewels were put on one hand, the corresponding brush changed direction. The work's metamorphic nature on one side unveils the ancient 'completeness as absolute value' question, on the other side it also supports an irreversible contemporary trend. Nowadays the 'author' concept move over for an hybrid 'user/author'. The work is not self sufficient and it becomes the result of an interaction where it's at the same time the first and the last work itself. The work uniqueness is not anymore in the work itself, but it's shifted to space and time.
Francesca Tomassini