Listen to this morning’s Woman’s Hour broadcast again.
Three generations of women were interviewed - myself, Sue Jackson and my daughter Max.
Also there is a great video of the opening event at Kinetica, which really captures the spirit of the exhibition (which has now been extended by popular demand to 7th May). See ya there!
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.
Ron Fuller is currently restoring the Adam and Eve pubic bar, the only remaining complete scene from the Ride of Life. The bar will be operational at our exhibition at Kinetica from 6th April to 5th May.
To give you a flavour of the completed scene, here are some of Ron’s words from 1989.
Welcome to the pubic bar of the Adam & Eve English Pub
Your average ‘Soup in the Basket’, gas ‘ever-burn fake log fie’, road house. Smells of stale cider, cigar buffs, & unemptied spittoons. The landlord (Adam) & the landlady (Eve) are in their ‘birthday’ suits - the landlord pulls pints (0.5lt) of Black Shaft English lager and wipes the drips off the counter. The landlady smokes, drinks, waves, & winks. The ‘Viking’ motor bike fruit machine man is the snake in the grass - the beast that bites. To be decent Eve’s breasts are hidden by the cider pumps, but to tell you they are still there they pulse with light. the whole scene pulses, throbs, goes up and down. in and out -
FERTILITY + CREATION. We can’t wait….
Tim Hunkin’s talk ‘Popular Art’ (11th April 6pm) will be the first in a series of talks at Kinetica to coincide with the CMT retrospective and Ride of Life exhibition which starts on Friday 6th April. Tim’s Chiropodist (1986), originally made for CMT in Covent Garden, will be treating visitors’ feet throughout the exhibition, which runs until 5th May 2007.
Other talks include Will Jackson, Paul Spooner, as well as an evening with Sue Jackson and Sarah Alexander looking back over the past 28 years of CMT.
To Kinetica last night for the launch of their exhibition, Magnetic Visions. It was a delight to meet Bruce Shapiro whose latest work, part of the Sisyphus (IV) series, was the centre of attention.
These pieces are mesmerising to watch. A magnet traces complex, computer controlled paths beneath, while above, a steel ball in a field of sand creates dune patterns in its wake. As in the Greek myth from which it draws its name, Sisyphus rolls its “boulder” endlessly, only to witness the cyclic undoing of this labour.
Bruce is giving a talk on the Art of Motion Control this Saturday 25th November at 4 pm at Kinetica.
If you are in the USA check out Bruce’s Ribbon Dancer which has just been installed at the Science Center of Iowa.
‘Life Forms’, the launch show at Kinetica will open on 6th October. Chico MacMurtrie’s Amorphic Robot Works (pictured) are part of this exciting inaugural exhibition. Make sure you check the programme of performances so that you can see them in action.
Artist Richard Brown’s talk ‘The art of creating illusions of virtual life’ this Friday is the first in a series of stimulating evening events at Kinetica. If you mention CMT when making your booking you pay £4 instead of £6.
Three machines from our collection, Paul Spooner’s ‘The Dream’ and Keith Newstead’s ‘Junkas Giles’ and ‘Peacock’ will be at Kinetica. Also, look out for our products in the Kinetica store.
Kinetica, a brand new museum devoted to Kinetic art will open in a fantastic new two storey building in London’s Spitalfields Market in early October 2006.
The first museum of it’s kind in the UK, Kinetica, is the vision of it’s artistic director, Dianne Harris. Dianne’s success with the Luminaries, (a series of three exhibitions in 2002) inspired her to pursue the idea of a permanent venue for this type of art.
As she says, ‘This ‘wave’ in reference to the metaphor of our ‘great’ machine ‘the Universe’, has inspired generations of artists to explore scientific discoveries and challenge technological life’.
Kinetica will showcase the most cutting-edge U.K and international contemporary New Media art alongside pioneering works from the recent past, with a revolving permanent collection and at least six temporary exhibitions each year, as well as seminars, workshops, discussions and special events.