Arthur Ganson’s Kinetic Sculpture

Arthur Ganson’s new exhibition, ‘Machines and Mechanisms’ can be seen at the McColl Center for the Arts in North Carolina until November 4th 2006.

The Sultan’s Elephant, Calais 28 Sept 2006

One the highlights of our summer here in London was the visit by the magical French Street Theatre company Royal De Luxe and their street spectacle The Sultan’s Elephant. It was an extraordinary experience for everyone who saw it, and just looking at the images again still sends shivers down my spine.

The enormous mechanical elephant walked through the streets of London, (traffic lights and street furniture had been removed just so that it could get around) accompanied by the time travelling little girl, who arrived in a rocket early one morning.

If you can make it to the Jours de Fete in Calais 28th Sept – 1st Oct, France you can re-live the experience. Thoroughly recommended.

Cabinet of Curiosities DVD available to pre-order

You can now order your ‘A Cabinet of Curiosities DVD’ at the online shop. They will be dispatched in early November.
The Cabinet of Curiosities is a virtual exhibition and will include new work and curiosities from Paul Spooner, The Fourteen Balls Toy Co, Will Jackson, Arthur Ganson, Rodney Peppe, Robert Race, Melanie Tomlinson, Tim Hunkin and many others.

The on-line Private View will be held on 30th November at 16.00hours GMT.

Visit MindFest at Fort Worth,Texas 8-9 Sept.

Some great activities and workshops are on offer at the 6th MindFest at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History this Friday and Saturday.

CMT took part in the original MindFest, ‘a gathering of playful inventors’ at MIT in 1999. It was here that the Designing Automata Kit in it’s original form was used in workshops.
During the event we sat on the ‘Artistic Machines’ panel along with Kinetic Artist Arthur Ganson, Hiroshi Ishii and Anne and Mike Eisenberg, the creators of Hypergami, (and now JavaGami) – if you enjoy making our paper cutouts, take a look at the Hypergami Sculpture Gallery.
The success of the original MindFest led to formation of the PIE (Playful Invention and Exploration) Network. You can get a taste of some the activities from the PIE Scrapbook which has been put together by veteran PIE-oneers, Mike Petrich and Karen Wilkinson of the Exploratorium, San Francisco.