metamatic

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ætɪk

Noun

metamatic (plural metamatics)

1. (art) Any of a series of machines built in the mid-1950s by Jean Tinguely, able to produce drawings by means of a motor-driven arm.
   • 1994, Joann R. Prosyniuk, Lawrence J. Trudeau, Modern Arts Criticism, page 289:

     Tinguely organized a metamatic art contest for the best picture made on his machines and told a reporter that a metamatic was “an anti-abstract machine, because it proves that anyone can make an abstract picture, even a machine.

   • 2015, Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner's Art through the Ages: Backpack Edition, Book E:

     In the 1950s, he made a series of motor-driven devices that he called metamatics, which produced instant abstract paintings. He programmed these metamatics electronically to act with an antimechanical unpredictability when someone inserted a felt-tipped marking pen into a pincer and pressed a button […]