JEAN TINGUELY

Jean Tinguely — Machine Without Productivity

Industrial machines are traditionally justified by function, efficiency, repetition, productivity and output. Tinguely appropriates machine logic but removes or destabilizes productive purpose.

His machines may move without producing, fail, waste energy, behave absurdly or destroy themselves. In Homage to New York, the auto-destructive machine turns machine logic toward expenditure, play, failure and destruction.

Productive machine → useless machine → absurd machine → self-destructive machine.

The conceptual reversal is:

MACHINE = MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY → MACHINE = EXPENDITURE / PLAY / FAILURE / DESTRUCTION.

The contrast with Taylor is structural: Taylor makes machine logic optimize productivity; Tinguely detaches machine logic from productivity. The connection to Gustav Metzger, where relevant, is a comparison of destructive practices, not an identity of politics or method.