“Man is Naked” (1965) belongs to a collection of Poem Machines initiated by Liliane Lijn (1939, New York) in 1962. This series epitomizes Lijn’s exploration of kinetic art, light, movement, and text. Inspired by the light refraction research of French physicist Augustin Jean Fresnel, Lijn aimed to manifest the visual representation of sound. In the initial Poem Machines, a motorized metal drum rotates at such great speed that the audience is confronted with the vibrations of words, rather than a legible text. “Man is Naked” – the first component of the series to incorporate Lijn’s own writing – rotates at a slower pace, allowing the words to hover and disrupt the linear syntax of the poem. This creation preceded Lijn’s utilization of computers and can be perceived as anticipating the symbiotic relationship between machines and language, as well as computers and code. It also evokes early computing machines that utilized a system of revolving wheels to execute calculations.
The POEM MICHINES publication from 1993 is now available at www.ftn-books.com
