Andrew Macdonald’s upcoming show at RAYGUN on Friday 13th April will make for some intriguing viewing and handling.

Machinations of Desire

DESIRE- Object of want, yearning; lust for another. The reverse, to be wanted in return. Therefore reciprocal.

RECIPROCATING- Give and take, backwards and forwards, up and down. The ubiquitous reciprocating mechanism, the internal combustion engine with its piston and cylinder, and the basic MACHINE used as sexual imagery.

MACHINATION- the use or construction of machinery; to contrive or construct; a plan, plot, or intrigue; to scheme.

DESIRE is tied to MACHINATIONS. From the start- the flirting- the plot is enacted, the strategy of seduction, to the physical culmination: an intrigue with intent and outcome, contrived or constructed, machinations of desire. 

How to express the essence of DESIRE using sculptural form, while trying to avoid text or representational imagery:

      To map the stages (dare to call it the plot) of a relationship, from nascent desire to consent, to the aftermath, by a form that encapsulates intent, action and result. A simple machine, an instrument- musical, surgical, or metaphorical- with the intrinsic manual component: to be handled, to be tactile and sensuous. Instruments are tools: extensions of the hand, an extension of reach, a multiplier of capabilities, empowerment.

      The phallic manifestations of desire, with little ambiguity but sensuous enough not to alienate, to seduce. Made in solitude, erotic reverie; patient, serial acts of unrequited lust, meditating with tools. Concrete, palpable experiments of the external, formed with their opposite as reference.

       The hand-cranked (with the obvious connotations) allows an empowerment in the act of making the move; change the situation; imposing your vision or arrangement. The body, more specifically the hand, determines the view, and thereby reinstates the primacy of the body. And a complicity of working with the maker, not simply participating but colluding.