I can sit down in front of my washing machine and meditate while it is operating in a very very confident fashion :) Maybe I am compensating the deprivation, caused by the chaotic and non-managable equations of life, with the comfort provided by my reliable and simple machine.
Machine has always been a powerful symbol for the ones who think of life. It is beyond time. The concept of machine affected lots of influencers of different epochs: I can consider René Descartes, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Roger Waters, Alan Mathison Turing and Nazım Hikmet Ran as the ones who had songs, books, ideas and poems on the machine. Descartes was saying that human body is a sort of machine that works according to the deterministic rules of the nature. Although Deleuze and Guattari were proposing the concept of rhizome and "body without organs", they were talking about the desiring machine for explaining the social system. Alan Turing devised a simple and beautiful abstract machine, which is capable of implementing any possible algorithm in the universe of mathematics, and the whole computer industry has been growing up under the shadow of Turing machines. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd was positioning individuals as passive and highly controlled units against the machine that is able to rule the entire world: The Big Brother, The System:
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.Roger Waters, 1975
Where have you been?
It's alright we know where you've been.
You've been in the pipeline, filling in time,
Provided with toys and 'Scouting for Boys'.
You bought a guitar to punish your ma,
And you didn't like school, and you
know you're nobody's fool,
So welcome to the machine.
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream?
It's alright we told you what to dream.
You dreamed of a big star,
He played a mean guitar,
He always ate in the Steak Bar.
He loved to drive in his Jaguar.
So welcome to the Machine.
And finally, Nazım Hikmet was desiring to become a flawless machine:
Trrrrum,
trrrrum,
trrrrum!
trak tiki tak!
Makinalaşmak
istiyorum!
Beynimden, etimden, iskeletimden
geliyor bu!
Her dinamoyu
altıma almak için
çıldırıyorum!
Tükürüklü dilim bakır telleri yalıyor,
damarlarımda kovalıyor
otodirezinler lokomotifleri!
Trrrrum,
trrrrum,
trrrrum!
trak tiki tak!
Makinalaşmak
istiyorum!
Mutlak buna bir çare bulacağım
ve ben ancak bahtiyar olacağım
karnıma bir türbin oturtup
kuyruğuma çift uskuru taktığım gün!
Trrrrum,
trrrrum,
trrrrum!
trak tiki tak!
MakinalaşmakNâzım Hikmet RAN (Kaplan, 2005: 329)
istiyorum!
I am living on machines. I am automating, developing, integrating machines in order to compose reliable and cost effective systems. No matter what your occupation is, your interaction with the machines may make you feel satisfied and happy or make you anxious and tired at the end of the day.
When I am dealing with the machines, such as my washing machine above, I am full of warm feelings :)
Am I odd?
2 comments:
No, you are not odd.
We are wired to appreciate that most complex and inscrutable of machines: society.
Simpler, mechanical machines are easier to understand.
Thank you for your participation Jaime. Actually, I have big doubts wheter or not society is a deterministic and manageable machine.
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