Simple Machines2012

In the first half of the 20th Century, a massive diesel engine in Copenhagen, Denmark was the world's largest. Still preserved and working, it fires up monthly. "Simple Machines," as a short visual study, takes this occasion to explore the notion of human machinery: not just what we create, but circling back to the systems inside us, before us, and beyond us. "Simple Machines" also lays homage to communication in culture, especially our printing machines that so recently and vastly accelerated civilization, seen at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, France. R. Luke DuBois' electronic score, much like his visual work, combines programming process and creative inspiration into an evocative, motoric result that is at once organic and digital.

"Simple Machines" debuted at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in concert with the 21st Century Consort, and subsequently screened at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City, the Rosebud Film and Video Festival in Washington, D.C., and Magic Lantern Cinema at Brown University.