For the conclusion of the Machines for Living project I managed to create a piece of work 2A0 in size using a typewriter as the predominant medium. I am very happy with the scale of the piece as a typewriter is actually a very imperfect and slow machine to use, with the average sheet taking around one our to complete. The time behind each sheet derived from not only the sheer amount of lines on each piece but also frequently having to reposition the paper in the typewriter for the text to reach the very edge of the paper, not only was this time consuming but it also created many mistakes (some of which i was not entirely opposed too) as it was very difficult to perfectly align the line of text and also get it at the right angle. This lead too text being out of line and overlapping in some areas and leaving small gaps in others. Another issue with the typewriter was that as you reach the bottom of the sheet, it would start to move out of position which meant the edges of some sheets go askew creating overlaps and gaps also.
As I mentioned a single sheet was a long process and the sheets hat were completely filled, whilst requiring no caution in having to stop to create a shape, did take longer than many of the others and after doing two I decided to photocopy them. I did this because i was running out of time, and as I would have later realised, out of typewriter ribbon also. Running out of ribbon was very distressing as I knew I would have to use computer generated text to finish the image, which was slightly disappointing and did takeaway from the overall quality of the image. Other small mistakes were covered using tip-ex which also didn't add to the finished image.
I was very happy with the final outcome as using a decrypt piece of machinery was always going to be a challenge, but to have some of it's flaws come through in the work highlighted the similarities in imperfection the of machines and living creatures. It's also strong as from a distance it does just look grey but as you move closer you can see the individual x's.
Ways in which I could have improved it's overall presentation would have been too mount it on one or two very large pieces of board so it would look smooth and not clearly be stuck onto the wall with blu-tack. Also i would have very much liked for the entire piece to be typed out as it would lend to it's overall finesse. In retrospect I also would have liked to communicated the mundaneness behind the creation of the piece itself as the production process is as important as the image itself. Essentially it is just repeatedly tapping one key over and over again, perhaps projecting film clips of the key being pressed to the ribbon being struck with the loud noise it produces being played at a much slower speed than it happens at in reality.
