Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk I

Kraftwerk ergo “How To Build Your Own Automaton”.

Chapter I: A red plastic cone.

A cone (a solid obtained by the rotation of a right triangle around one of its legs) of plastic (a material resulting from the polymerization reaction of a quantity of base molecules, called monomers, belonging to the same compound or to compounds of very similar chemical nature, whose union produces macromolecular compounds with high molecular weight, in which the monomeric units repeat regularly) red (color of the spectrum perceivable by the human eye, with a lower frequency than all other visible colors (~479-405 THz) and, consequently, with the longest wavelength compared to them (~625-740 nm)).

All clear.

Yet something escapes: what does this red plastic cone mean?

What does a plastic cone mean in general?

“Work in progress”.

The nature of work in progress is to be “in progress”, not yet completed; consequently, the nature of the plastic cone denoting work in progress is to be provisional.

Upon discovering the human artifact, calibration works follow to grasp its extent, to perfect its understanding, and especially to implement its serial reproduction.

Finally, the workers [Arbeitskräfte] set to work [sich ans Werk machen]: their industriousness is an attempt to enact some of the inexhaustible energetic potential inherent in this industrial force [kraft]. Their product is still raw.

Concretely analog— the icy abstraction of the completed discovery is far away— the sound resulting from this research; their research of refinement and exploration.

If refinement is required by the very process of organization (from the chaos of noise, to the order of sound, until noise reemerges in sound), the exploration of the newly discovered industrial universe is peculiar to the curiosity of the explorers themselves; it is left to their discretion.

Only by taking various paths, can some be discovered blocked; others instead fruitful.

They have in their hands ironworks, rhythmic industrial noises, levers, accumulated energy to be deployed. Where to deploy it?

In the roughest rhythm; in the incessant noise (or sound?) that causes the energy— whirling of coils— to accumulate once more.

Testing and re-testing, in the clangor of a kling-klang, seems to find the contact point, the pivot between different paths, the keystone of the research.

Research, constituted at once by centrifugal force (research of exploration) and centripetal force (research of refinement).

This, the double movement “in progress” that this plastic cone denotes.

CHAPTER 2: https://www.debaser.it/kraftwerk/kraftwerk-2/recensione-123asterisco