The Mechanical Blog

Our first ever exhibition in Australia will open on Saturday 15th March at the Western Australia Museum in Perth.

Mechanics Alive!! is being shown as part of the UNIMA 2008 World Puppetry Festival to be held in Perth 2nd to 12th April - so plenty of reasons (apart from fantastic weather) to make a trip to Perth if you can.

The word on the ground (from our intrepid installation team) is that the venue is fantastic, local interest is growing daily (we think they will particularly enjoy Paul Spooner’s Hopping Jackal - jumping over The Ashes - above) and that there is a pioneering colour scheme for the exhibition!
Mechanics Alive!! continues in Perth until May 11th 2008.

Our Mechanics Alive!! exhibition is making a brief appearance (for two school weeks) at Oakham School Smallbone Library Foyer, in Rutland, Leceistershire, before heading off on tour to Australia for a year.

Thirty five classic pieces will be displayed including some of our old favourites like Keith Newstead’s Pegasus - The Birth of Fast Food. The exhibition highlights the different mechanisms used in the pieces (linkages in this case).
Opens 14th January until 25th January (closed 19th and 20th Jan). Free.

Opening on Saturday 23rd February at the spectacular phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany, this exhibition promises to be one of the best kinetic sculpture exhibitions in recent years.

Spread over 10,000 square feet in Zaha Hadid’s acclaimed new building, more than 70 exhibits will come to life and share their stories. The works include 40 from Cabaret Mechanical Theatre as well as 18 from Arthur Ganson (this will be his biggest ever exhibition outside of his native USA), Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre will provide a large scale theatrical element with Eduard Bersudsky’s awe-inspiring machines and American artist Norman Tuck, maker of artistic science machines will complete the show.

Wolfsburg is an hour from Berlin by the ICE train, there is a very frequent service, (and phaeno is a few minutes from the station). You can even book your train ticket online here.

The Falmouth Art Gallery are celebrating the 80th Birthday (a few years early!) of ‘the father of the Falmouth automata makers’ Peter Markey.
The exhibition ‘Markey and Friends’, will also feature the paintings of Peter’s son and artist Danny,  as well as plenty of automata from Peter.
Opens 22nd September 2007.

Peter’s ‘Kissing Couple’ paper cutout (seen here) is available to buy and make from our online shop.

Now on the last leg of it’s Far East tour, our Mechanics Alive!! exhibition was officially opened by Her Royal Highness Princess Siriwanwaree Nareeratana of Thailand on July 26th at the Thailand Creative and Design Center in Bangkok.

The Princess was enthralled by the exhibits, and also tried out the designing automata kit in the workshop area. The exhibition is proving to be a real crowd pleaser, as last weeks article in ‘The Nation’ reveals. The exhibition closes on 30th September 2007.

This Saturday, 19th May, sees the opening of our USA touring exhibit at the Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in Salina, Kansas.

A great place for a day out this summer, this fascinating place also has a collection of Animatronics, robotic humans including a Hindu snake charmer.
CMT exhibition closes 22nd August

Paul Spooner’s latest piece, ‘I Remember Gundestrup’ is currently on show at our exhibition at Kinetica. The two figures slowly move around in the vessel of blood-red Janus heads.
For those who can’t visit, the caption reads:-

‘This is not as bad as it looks: customs change in Denmark as they do all over most of the world. Long ago when customs were unlike those of today (in most places) a young prince of Denmark had had a bloody but ultimately successful battle. Luckily, he possessed a wondrous cauldron that had the magical property of reviving any corpse that was simmered in it. That sort of thing happened in those days. The woman is someone he won in the battle.’

Heads will roll.

Our latest show at Kinetica is no. 1 choice in TimeOut’s Around Town this week. If you’re in London, the local news slot on the BBC should have coverage today (Sunday) at 7:35pm. We were also on BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show yesterday - you can ‘listen again‘ (until Sun 15th April). Leave a message in the comments if you spot anything else.

There was a fantastic opening party for the CMT and Ride of Life Exhibition at Kinetica last night. Guests were enthralled by the range of automata old and new, it was a great launch for the show. Guest Chris O’Shea took some great pictures and as he says:-
‘I can safely say that this one of the most beautiful, playful and magical exhibitions I’ve been to for a long time. My photos don’t do it justice, you need to go and see them moving in real life. It has a real feeling of British crazy backyard inventor to it, mixed with detailed tiny models to large scale automata.’

One of the most exciting pieces is Will Jackson’s Robo Thespian (pictured) - Photo: Chris O’Shea.

Our travelling exhibition, Mechanics Alive!! will open at the Seongnam Arts Center in Seongnam near Seoul, South Korea on April 12th.
757 Yatap-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do.
It can be seen here until 19th May 2007.

The exhibition will then move to Chungmu Art Hall
131,Heungin-Dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea 100-880
(23rd May until 30th June 2007).
There will be a series of workshops for children and adults throughout the exhibitions.

This first ever Korean tour has been organised by our colleague Min Kyoung Cho, at UTOSPACE. Cho has been a tremendous fan of CMT since she first saw our exhibition at the Oxo Gallery in London 3 years ago. Cho’s current exhibition Cookie Architecture is a great favourite!