Page 45 - WTP Vol. IX #9

hope, his dream of flying.
A modern-day Icarus, our hero, time and time again, ascends a rocky eminence, a dizzying height, a windswept promontory and, standing momen- tarily astride his summit, his heart filling with expectation, suddenly hurls himself into the empty air and—time and time again—comes crashing down to earth.
And so, you see him, his hopes dashed, his body bro- ken, his one arm in a sling, his leg in a brace that more resembles a tree trunk than a leg and, irony of ironies, may even have taken root. Pityingly, one has to ask: What use his one wing to a creature planted in the ground? But do not judge our hero by his fail- ures, or by his feral grimace or his contorted limbs, for these—Herr Klee seems to be saying—these are the scars of his idealism, his nobility.
The body of Herr Klee’s winged hero may be gnarled, knotted, broken, but who among us is not broken
in some way, either on the outside or on the inside? This creature—so cruelly treated by fate, this grim physiognomy, this twisted lineation, this crooked man—who is he, Herr Klee seems to ask. Is he you? Is he me? Is he Herr Klee, himself? Or is he all of us?
For, who among us has not dreamt of flying? And who among us has not suffered for his idea?
Twittering Machine
or Tobias Lütke at the Kunsthalle Bern
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Without a user’s manual, one can nonetheless guess at how the machine would work. A continuous rotat- ing of the crank converts to a reciprocal motion both up and down along the curved bar causing the birds to move in an eccentric, almost agitated way, their heads bobbing erratically.
From its appearance, one can almost intuit how the birds might sound.
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A three-dimensional replica of Herr Klee’s twittering machine is on exhibit at the Kunsthalle Bern on the Helviaplatz.
Four metal posts and a braided cord of blue velvet strung from pole to pole form a rectangle that barri- cades the machine. The machine, you understand, is delicate and so must be roped off to protect it from the clumsy gallery-goers that frequent the Kunst- halle Bern.
Tobias Lütke is here. He looks very dapper in his brown corduroy suit. Thanks to a small inheritance, six more just like it hang in his wardrobe back at home.
As so many of us are, Tobias Lütke is an admirer of Herr Klee’s art. He is also a hobbyist inventor and au- tomaton enthusiast. He stands before the twittering machine contemplating the sign which hangs from the braided blue velvet cord. It reads: “KEEP OUT! This means you.”
Tobias Lütke understands that the twittering ma- chine is both fragile and precious and must be pro- tected from the clumsy gallery-goers that frequent the Kunsthalle Bern. But Tobias Lütke is not your typical gallery-goer and the sign cannot possibly mean him. He is, after all, an admirer of Herr Klee’s
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Herr Klee has imagined a wonderful contrivance for making birdsong.
The device, which he calls a twittering machine, is ingeniously made without any inner workings. There are no cogs to slip or gears to grind, no sprockets, spindles, pulleys or chains. In its simplicity as hum- ble as a bucket, the machine operates by virtue of a simple crank mechanism.
When turned, the crank makes a gentle whirring sound—a murmuration.
The crank is attached to a shaft which is a curved bar along which four mechanical birds are perched, some- what precariously it seems, on long, thin legs. To all appearances they are water birds, possibly cranes.
The general impression of the entire apparatus is one of extreme fragility.
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