Captain Cook’s Imaginary Machine

The philosopher Adam Smith once observed that when two ideas become associated through frequent repetition, they form a pattern in the imagination of the observer in which one thought eventually seems to flow on naturally from the other, like an imaginary machine. Discovery and colonization have formed such a machine in the story of Captain Cook's Endeavour, in which artistic practice became implicated in its imperialist mission by transforming what the artists observed into objects of European desire. This photo essay is part of an ongoing investigation by the authors into the creative processes of discovery on Cook's Endeavour. It aims to bring the insights of contemporary artists as practitioners to bear on art history, by exploring the conditions for drawing on the ship and their discourses recorded in the methods of documentation. As part of the investigation, Chris Bond reproduced in plywood one of the artists’ cabins from the Endeavour plans, and Harriet Parsons has photographed previously unpublished drawings and manuscripts held in the Natural History Museum of London.