Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre

Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre opened their new permanent exhibition in Glasgow at the new Trongate 103 Centre last September.

They have a daily programme of performances of their incredible machines, (prices from £4 per adult, and children are free).

Sharmanka also do a lot of work with school groups, and other educational activities.
http://www.trongate103.com/129,162/partners/sharmanka_kinetic_theatre/

There is also a fantastic Russian restaurant in the building, making a good community of Russian culture. If you visit on a Sunday make sure to book a table, and listen to the live music.
http://www.cossachok.com/

Living Mechanicals

A small collection of CMT automata from AutomatomaniA will be shown during the Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival from 2nd Feb to 6th Feb 2010

Living Mechanicals
Travis Theatre
Edinburgh

Automata: Contemporary Mechanical Sculpture

A new exhibition has just opened at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI.

The exhibition features the collection and work of Michael Croft, who will also be giving a lecture “Automata: The Art of Animated Figures” on January 28th at 17.30hrs.

Exhibition continues until 14th March 2010

Image - Man Drinking in the Moon, Dean Lucker, 2009

Click here to download a PDF of the exhibition guide.

Autómatas - Teatro Mecánico

The 2nd of our series of automata exhibitions at El Parque de las Ciencias in Granada was opened on Friday evening by their president Mar Mareno, she is seen here with the museum director Ernesto Paramo.
“Autómatas. Teatro mecánico” This year’s exhibition includes a new presentation of 8 works by Carlos Zapata - entitled, ‘Theatre of Colombian Dreams’. This is the first time that Carlos has exhibited in Spain, and he was greeted with fantastic enthusiasm by the Spanish audience. Artist Ron Fuller also attended the opening and enjoyed showing his Armchair Aviator, which dates back to the Ride of Life over 20 years ago. Visitors were thrilled with Patrick Bond’s new Flying Saucer as it elevated and crash landed throughout the evening. Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre brought their Noah’s Ark, with beautiful lights and music, it really set the scene. Stephen Guy and his team from Rose Bruford College gave a performance of their street theatre work, The London Jungle Book. They are now working with Spanish professionals on workshops for children and adults throughout the exhibition, which continues to 31st January 2010.

La Opinion de Granada Article

Teleprensa Article

News Video

CMT in Dortmund

There was great excitement in Dortmund, Germany with the opening of our touring exhibition at DASA yesterday.

Hundreds of people arrived around 11 a.m., and were treated to the sounds of steel drums before entering through the Drifting Apart sliding doors into the exhibition hall. Walter Ruffler and Falk Keuten were guests of honour and curator Hans-Gerd Kaspers welcomed us all with a talk about the history of automata.

You can see some more pictures of the exhibition here. As well as a great article about the show here (English translation).

DASA is well worth a visit, and has very informative permanent exhibits on the theme of the workplace. You can take a ride which extols the dangers of operating a fork-lift truck, learn how an electricity power station works, and children can construct their own buildings and try out a pneumatic drill.

Rock My Boat

Moooving Sculptures by Johnny White and Amanda Wray.

Artists Johnny White (Ride of Life veteran) and Amanda Wray have created a fantastic new exhibition currently at Scarborough Art Gallery
The exhibits are created from junk -surplus nutcrackers and redundant fire extinguishers, amongst other things.

August 6th 11 - 4 pm Kinetic Creations Workshop.
August 14th - 12.30 Lunchtime talk with Johnny White and Amanda Wray and arrival of new exhibit “Storm in a Teacup”.
August 15th - (all day) Wiggly Wires Workshop with Johnny White - booking essential.

Click images to enlarge.

Mechanics Alive!! in Glasgow

Mechanics Alive!! is now open at the Scotland Street School Museum in Glasgow. The exhibition is an essential on your itinerary if you are in Scotland over the summer.

The Museum setting is a Victorian school (a beautiful Mackintosh designed building) which closed exactly 30 years ago on the launch of the CMT exhibition. Children (and adults) are welcome to take part in the free workshops to Design Automata, and there are 35 pieces on display.

Click here to see the Facebook album of the exhibition.

CMT in Tokyo

Our permanent exhibition in Japan, operated by Entertainment Bowl, that was in Otaru, Hokkaido for over 15 years, is now on the move.

It opened in the Ginza area of Tokyo earlier this month, and the tiny shop has been inundated with visitors (over 5000 in the first 10 days).

This is a great exhibition with some large scale versions of some of our favourite pieces such as ‘The Mill Girl and the Toff’. Entrance is free and the machines are coin-operated.

The exhibition will continue until mid-September. For more information see our touring exhibits page.

Spooner’s Tree of Life

Falmouth Art Gallery  opened the first of their series of Darwin related exhibitions, ‘Voyages of Discovery’ on 14th February.  The exhibition includes several pieces of automata, including this piece ‘Who’s Who on the Tree of Life’ by Paul Spooner.  Paul says ‘after a lot of messing about, I went with this thing that shows firstly the tree of life with a little man raised on a stalk and a selection of animals nestling among the roots.  When the machine works, the animals are elevated so that the roots become branches and the man swings down to settle among them.’
The subtitle is; “a 3-dimensional diagram showing the mental adjustment required to accommodate Darwin’s ideas concerning man’s station in life”.

Keith Newstead and Carlos Zapata have also made works for the exhibition.

The exhibition continues until 18th April 2009.
   

Sharmanka Exhibition

Following the success of Sharmanka’s new Gothic Circus exhibition at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, and more recently as part of MimeFest in London, the pieces move to the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock.

SHARMANKA (Russian for hurdy-gurdy) was founded by sculptor-mechanic Eduard Bersudsky and theatre director Tatyana Jakovskaya in St.Petersburg (Russia) in 1989.  Audiences in many countries have been fascinated by its magic, and based in Glasgow since 1996 it has gained a reputation as one of the  city’s hidden treasures.

 

‘Bizarre, hilarious, ghoulish… unmissible’. - The Sunday Times.

The exhibition opens on February 11th and continues until March 29th.