Materials:discarded motors, wires, screws, wood, wire, metal

A mechanical, motorised drawing machine that scribbles drawings on paper. I thought the drawings looked like my haircut at the time so I named the machine Self Portrait Machine. All components were taken from things thrown away in skips. They were cut up, repaired, altered, taken apart and then re-assembled. The wheels for the bands were hand-made by cutting circles and then filing groves around their edge. The result is this meta-art machine. The mechanism consisted of a spinning plate, on which the paper was attached. A pendulum was pulled back and forth and a pen was on a spinning disc attached to the end of this pendulum. The motors produced a lovely sound and the rubber bands would hum as they vibrated when a resonant frequency was hit. It also had a counter, taken from a tape player, which could be used to count how long it was to be drawing for, this also making ticking sounds. To operate the machine I used 3 variable resistors, which would alter the current going into each motor. These could be used to change the individual motor speeds, which alter the relation of the movement and the drawings. At higher speeds the pendulum bar would start to bounce on the paper, etching stronger marks.