The art machines: an imitation of Laura Riding


Author's name (parents' draft). Terence Rajivan Edward (now Doctor)
Dialogue on names (fictional): "Now why do you want a name?" So that my works can be identified - that is one reason. "You need a number really."
Author's name (my first draft). 0161__Rajivan
PDF at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395827732_The_art_machines_an_imitation_of_Laura_Riding


We were neighbours and with nothing else better to do with our time, Tooth and I built machines. The machines would be our slaves, cooking and cleaning for us and of course calculating, but they soon took over and began making art instead, reducing us to slaves. At first Tooth and I said that it was mechanical art, but it was still art in its way, like the punning jokes of stand-up comedians. But then the machines began producing what I called real art. And what else can people like ourselves do in the face of real art, except put aside our own dreams and promote it and make life comfortable for the artist so that they can produce their art. If there is one thing artists need to produce art, it is comfort. But one day Tooth asked, "What is a machine?" Then he answered, "It's merely a thing, a thing that follows instructions." Yes, if there is one thing that human beings are not, it's things. And if there is one thing human beings cannot quite do, it is follow instructions. But then Tooth said, "And a thing which follows instructions cannot produce art. Because art is beyond instruction." Tooth then destroyed one of our machines. But he felt so guilty afterwards that he fell into a state of melancholy. And he wrote poetry. All the while I observed and recorded events in my diary, which I stole from a charity shop.