Photographs on this subsite are property of Mira Boczniowicz & Sonia Kujawa

Error, at its core, is simply a deviation from something that is expected. We tend to perceive it as something bad and undesirable. Since I wasn’t able to fulfill my former ideas, I dropped all expectations of my work and embraced the uncertainty of that moment to see where it would take me. I went down to the basement and started to pick up all kinds of junk I could find, rusty metal parts, pieces of wood, rubber bands, and then I just glued and screwed them together into moving amalgamations. Each of them was equipped with a battery pack and a small DC motor. I stuck some chunks of graphite and markers to them and just observed what happened.   

The result was something I did not entirely predict; these machines were indeed creating drawings, but some of them moved in an enchanting, almost calculated movement. I was mesmerized — something that started out as a burdening inconvenience was surprisingly a beginning of a completely new kind of artistic process. One, where scarcity becomes valor and unexpected patterns emerge from machines that, in their essence, are quite silly and laughable.

This project underwent multiple iterations, initially conceived as my master's degree thesis. It was intended to be a sophisticated machine system that would visually represent random and pseudo-random events. The concept was challenging to grasp, as truly random events occurring without a discernible cause lie beyond the realm of mathematics. Nevertheless, I was exhilarated by the prospect of tackling this complex idea.

In the year 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to significantly disrupt supply chains for parts and electronic components, I found myself unexpectedly alienated from my usual work environment. This unforeseen turn of events would ultimately provide me with invaluable artistic and life lessons.

Small Machines