Die Zwitscher-Maschine

Klee, Paul. Die Zwitscher-Maschine (The Twittering Machine). 1922.

From the publisher's note on Richard Seymour's study of Twitter, The Twittering Machine: "In surrealist artist Paul Klee’s The Twittering Machine, the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation."[1]

From the description by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA):

A violent marriage of nature and industry, the crazy contraption in Twittering Machine mechanizes the songs of birds. All but one bird are tethered to a perch that can be turned by a handle over a pit, a potential trap for the latest choir member. Constructed with Klee’s characteristic wiry, agile black line, the birds lurch and cry out, their tongues resembling both musical notes and fishhooks. Klee described drawing as “an active line on a walk, moving freely” and connected his liberated line to his belief that “through the universe, movement is the rule.” In this drawing, humans turn movement and song against nature, making them activities of enslavement.[2]

RDE, Initial Compiler, 30Nov19