Nearly 30 years ago, sculptorJeremy Mayerdisassembled a typewriter.
Like most people of a certain age, Mayer remembers growing up with a typewriter in the home.
As a child, he was fascinated with its design and movement.
Each sculpture is assembled from the parts of different typewriters that Mayer has collected over the past several decades.
The whole process is kind of like Legos or an Erector set, he tells My Modern Met.
It can be immensely frustrating, but always, ultimately, rewarding.
What about all of the people who typed to each other with this machine?
How can [he] destroy a machine that seems to be imbued with a personality?
What does this say about our personal relationship to machines, particularly as technology and society advance and evolve?
This includes, but isn’t limited to AI, the power of social networking, and programmable DNA.
Mayer asks, What is a machine?
All of these are questions that I can only answer by doing my work.
I don’t have any answers yet, but I always feel like I’m getting closer.
For nearly 30 years Jeremy Mayer has been using vintage typewriters to create sculptures.
His work includes an ever-growing series of bird sculptures, some of which move.
There is no glue or welding involved; everything is held together using only typewriter parts.
