7/24/20 - art
by Daniel Devlin
Posted in: art, I AM STILL ALIVE 2020, people, portraits
I AM STILL ALIVE 24.7.2020
ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 206
24.7.2020.
I often have projects on the go and some are slightly absurd and probably impossible to pull off but I keep them open. Although my aim is always to make them happen I feel comfortable with failure, what I am trying to say is that my projects are about the journey and all the interesting things that my happen along the way are as important as the final outcome which might never happen.
I had the idea of having a Socratic conversation with Sòcrates five years before I eventually managed to film it. In fact, the outcome I imagined was me going to Brazil looking for him and never finding him and documenting that failure.
A project I have been thinking about for ten years is Susaki Expo.
Susaki is a city in the Kochi prefecture in Japan and Susak is the small island in Croatia where I organise Susak expo. I would like to organise a double expo where firstly the usual expo artists go to Susaki and we try and organise a Susak expo. Then I would like to invite only Japanese artists (preferably with connections to Susaki) to take part in Susak expo. It’s an absurd idea to link these two locations because their names are almost identical. For this I would need funding so that I can pay artists and also have contacts with the Susaki art world. I doubt it will ever happen but I will keep it as a possibility.
I have been planning to make a Turkish Coffee Vending Machine since 2005 and I believe that one day I will do it.
The idea is to have a construction the size of a vending machine (I imagine covered in engraved brass or copper) and a small table with two chairs in front of it. When you put a pound coin in it, the area behind a glass window would light up and you would see robotic arms making Turkish coffee over a gas fire.
basically like this:
Then the coffee would need to rest for a couple of minutes before it can be drank. The whole process would take 10 / 15 minutes. I would like to place this machine in places which are very busy like Victoria Station and get people to sit down and “waste” 15 minutes.
First I got in touch with a company that made prototypes, they said that they would be able to do it but that it would cost at least £15000. I got in touch with Rex Garrod, he was an eccentric inventor who was famous for making the robots for TV’s Robot wars. I just discovered he died last year.
I got in touch with him and told him about my project. He seemed interested and invited me to come down to his home and workshop. I spent the day with him, explained my project and made Turkish coffee for him. He seemed to be interested and we talked about problems and solutions. We worked together on the project for a few weeks but i eventually lost interested for it.
here is the video of my visit:
I AM STILL ALIVE