Untitling Machine







Originally developed as a collaboration between Mark Selby and artist William Bradley, the Untitling Machine was constructed over a two-year period. The work exists as a custom designed and constructed CNC machine, controlled using an automated G-code program. The machine pumps (non-toxic/eco) paint stripper onto the surface of a painting that is then brushed back and forth across the surface of the painting before being automatically washed away via water.
The paintings were made onto an aluminium substrate and were developed specifically for the machine. The duration each work is left being ‘altered’ can be decided upon by the gallery or user.

Parodying the conceptual stringency of Modernism, both in approaches to painting and issues of authenticity in the age of mechanical (and digital) reproduction, the work took at its starting point the destructive collaboration as seen in Rauschenberg’s Erased De Kooning Drawing (1953). 
A limited edition newspaper was printed for the first installation of the work in Berloni Gallery, London (2014).

Custom CNC machine, paint stripper, water and brush 2014

Installation Images