"Even the most advanced tools and machines are made of the raw matter of the earth. Today's highly refined technological tools are not that much different in this respect from those of the caveman. Most of the better artists prefer processes that have not been idealized, or differentiated into "objective" meanings. Common shovels, awkward looking excavating devices, what Michael Heizer calls "dumb tools," picks, pitchforks, the machine used by suburban contractors, grim tractors that have the clumsiness of armored dinosaurs, and plows that simply push dirt around. Machines like Benjamin Holt's steam tractor (invented in 1885)--"It crawls over mud like the caterpillar." Digging engines and other crawlers that can travel over rough terrain and steep grades. Drills and explosives that can produce shafts and earthquakes. Geometrical trenches could be dug wih the help of the "ripper"--steel toothed rakes mounted on tractors..." --Robert Smithson, A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects, 1968
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"Even the most advanced tools and machines are made of the raw matter of the earth. Today's highly refined technological tools are not that much different in this respect from those of the caveman. Most of the better artists prefer processes that have not been idealized, or differentiated into "objective" meanings. Common shovels, awkward looking excavating devices, what Michael Heizer calls "dumb tools," picks, pitchforks, the machine used by suburban contractors, grim tractors that have the clumsiness of armored dinosaurs, and plows that simply push dirt around. Machines like Benjamin Holt's steam tractor (invented in 1885)--"It crawls over mud like the caterpillar." Digging engines and other crawlers that can travel over rough terrain and steep grades. Drills and explosives that can produce shafts and earthquakes. Geometrical trenches could be dug wih the help of the "ripper"--steel toothed rakes mounted on tractors..." --Robert Smithson, A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects, 1968
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