BCS Article: Jack Tait: The Drawing in the Machine
Title: BCS Article: Jack Tait: The Drawing in the Machine
Date: 2nd May 2024
Group: BCS
Sean Clark explores Jack Tait’s analogue drawing machines in a BCS article accompanying a CAS exhibition in Leicester. Motors, cogs and linkages generate unique drawings, complemented by digital editing and light photography. The article examines Tait’s experiments with order and chaos, his machine donation, video interview and freely available book.
BCS Article: Jack Tait: The Drawing in the Machine
In this BCS article, Sean Clark explores the analogue drawing machines of Jack Tait, a longstanding Computer Arts Society member whose experiments begin in 1960.
Tait’s machines use motors, cogs and linkages to guide pens across paper. Their mechanisms embody the rules of the artwork, while adjustments, flexibility and differing starting positions make each drawing unique. Mechanical programming introduces further variation, allowing Tait to investigate the boundary between order and chaos.
Clark also describes Tait’s digital embellishment of scanned drawings and his use of LEDs with long-exposure photography to draw with light. Tait’s Homage to Henry machine responds to the work of drawing-machine pioneer Desmond Paul Henry.
The article accompanies a CAS exhibition at Phoenix in Leicester, featuring twenty artworks spanning 1972–2023. It also discusses Tait’s donation of machines to the Computer Arts Archive, a video interview and his freely downloadable book, Programmable Analogue Drawing Machines.
https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/jack-tait-the-drawing-in-the-machine