On the Move November 27, 2007

Enjoy a screening of On the Move. Then there’s the opportunity to discuss the film with automata artists, mechanical sculptors and pyrotechnicians involved in the project.

In preparation for the opening of its new Launchpad gallery this November, the Science Museum commissioned Engineered Arts to create a film. This involved setting up an amazing temporary exhibit in a huge deserted warehouse near Falmouth. The ‘incredible machine’ ran for just two days before it was dismantled.

The machine embodied energy transfer and chain reactions in the huge Cornish warehouse. In the film you see a series of connections transfer energy in weird and wonderful ways throughout the machine: ejector seats trigger fire extinguishers, tyres with a mind of their own roll along planks, clockwork axes chop strings and fire arrows and robots send ball bearings running down tracks.

Made by Engineered Arts, specialists in designing and building imaginative, interactive installations, the machine demonstrated how energy can be transferred through a series of physical chain reactions. The creative team - who each designed their own part of the machine - consisted of Tim Hunkin, engineer, cartoonist, writer and artist; Paul Spooner, automata artist and illustrator; Rob Higgs, mechanical sculptor; and was led by Will Jackson, interactive exhibit designer and Director of Engineered Arts. Arthur Ganson, leading kinetic artist and artist-in-residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology also consulted on this extraordinary creation.

Find out what it takes to put together something this crazy.

Official Website: http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2007/11/27/338