Possible link between Philosophy and Henry's machine-generated art?
A former Philosophy follower of Henry's has perhaps thrown light on a link between Henry's pictures and Leibniz's system of metaphysics involving MONADS.
This student, Christopher Coope, emailed Elaine O'Hanrahan the following on Nov 29, 2022:
“And when the time came to make sense of what Leibniz had in mind by a "monad," assuming this possible, he (Henry) had recourse to one of his machine drawings. Up it came on the screen, and bingo! one got the idea.”
In Leibniz’s system of metaphysics, monads are immaterial basic substances, similar to atoms, that make up the universe. Monads are all perfectly synchronised with each other by God in a 'preestablished harmony', which was also a favourite saying of my father's when things "magically seemed to come together for the best" (Henry quote).
Each monad is a unique, soul-like entity, like one of Henry's machine-drawings?