'Randomiser' Non-Sequential Timer Programmer developed and built by Dr. Jack Tait

'Randomiser', non-sequential timer programmer developed and built by Dr. Jack Tait, 2020-2023

Artist-engineer Dr. Jack Tait has been investigating the role of machines in making art for over 50 years building and programming several analogue drawing machines to produce drawings called ‘taitographs’. To program his machines, Tait has also constructed sequential and non-sequential timers, and this is his most innovative, a ‘sea change’, according to his words, and the result of his research into chaos in graphic systems. Unlike digital computers instructed by specially written algorithms, drawing analogue machines’ programming is based on digital pulses resulting on not knowing what the outcome may be. Additionally, unlike sequential timers with a fixed pulses’ sequence, although of varied duration, the ‘Randomiser’, as its name suggests, allows a fully random distribution like the throwing of a dice which contributes to the creation of quasi-randomness in the final drawings.