The Mechanical Blog

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.

A fantastic new children’s book by Brian Selznick is launched in the UK this week. Set in Paris, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is an enthralling 526-page book in which the story of a 12 year old boy is told in both words and pictures. His adventures centre around the discovery of an old automaton, this is a real page turner!
To celebrate the UK launch, an exhibition of Brian’s original drawings opens at Waterstones Piccadilly, London tomorrow, alongside some automata from Cabaret Mechanical Theatre.

Exhibition continues until 14th October.

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.

A new work by the Colombian automata maker Carlos Zapata is currently being exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in London.

In the piece a man protecting a small child is being beaten by soldiers. Carlos has always been concerned about the ill treatment of innocent people, and the fact that very often nothing is done to stop it - even though it is known to be taking place.
Whilst turning the handle of this piece the audience realises that the he or she is actually taking part in the torture.

The exhibition continues until 19th August 2007.

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.

Here is something else to see on your upcoming visit to London. Danish artist Jeppe Hein has created a site-specific installation for The Curve at The Barbican.
The piece is called ‘Distance’ and you can see it working here.

Visitors trigger the rolling balls by entering the space, so the experience varies depending on how busy it is. If you can visit when it is quiet you will be able to follow your own ball from start to finish. Good fun.

On a visit to Southwold Pier last month with Tim Hunkin and his wife Meg (pictured) I was very privileged to pay an English Guinea (or £1.10) and get my own honour from Tim’s new machine ‘Decoration Direct’.

I also had a very satisfying £1 worth of fun with Tim’s Art Apocalypse - smashing the sculpture at the end very convincingly I thought - one could get addicted to such things…