Weights, Motors & Chimes

Experimenting with Piston Motion

I have been meaning to study different forms of motion for quite some time having been an admirer of Sharmanka (Russian Kinetic Sculpture) for several years now.

With this understanding of how to transform one form of motion into another I would be able to make large-scale kinetic sculptures. I have found the website flying pig to have been particularly useful and have been experimenting making a piston mechanism.




Ideally this would be powered by bicycle or wind power but I would equally like to learn how to use a car battery with an inverter. Below I have tried making a small wind powered piston which moves a small object on wheels back and forth.






There were several problems with this which were that the back garden is not windy enough and there was too much lateral friction from the weight of the car, however the resulting motion was as expected.

Found - Cybraphon

Preview at SWG3 Saturday 14th April


The objects which were sourced for this piece came from the incredible collection of Michael Bennet Levy's collection in Monkton House, described in an article of the Edinburgh Evening News and the catalogue of all the items which were sold at auction by Bonham's on the 30th September 2009, which included a collection of 20 pre-war television sets (rarer than a Stradivaius violin), is available to view here.

Triste Tryst, a tango for Cybraphon by Bernd Rest from Cybraphon on Vimeo.

Ron Pippin

Interactive art on display at the Kinetica Art Fair

Artworks that move, glow and react to human movement and sound are on display at the Kinetica Art Fair in London.

The show aims to push the boundaries between science, art and engineering.

The Kinetica Art Fair February 2009.

Jean Tinguely - Homage to New York (1960)

I am subscribed to the South London Gallery who issue small publications every month addressing some very interesting issues. This month in reference to Michael Landy's 'art bin' they mentioned Jean Tinguely who's I decided to do some further research on. Here is a short video of the work which made the most significant impression on Landy.

Jean Tinguely - Homage to New York (1960) from Stephen Cornford on Vimeo.

To grasp what he’s getting at here, one needs to appreciate Landy’s long-standing love affair with the Swiss Dadaist/performance artist, Jean Tinguely, who died in 1991. In 1982, Landy caught a Tinguely retrospective at Tate and the anarchic energy of the show, coupled with the joyous response of the audience, made a deep impression on his teenage mind. “There were machines you could ride or throw balls into; there were others where, if you put your foot on a pedal, they did a manic dance,” he explains. “They were all made out of junk, so aesthetically they were quite ugly-looking, but I was a textile student, collecting and making patterns out of junk. It was a revelation.”

(Read more...)

Circus of Illusion

Exhibition by James and Richard (3rd Year SEA Students)

Leonardo Da Vinci - Cannons

Having researched quite a lot about the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901, with particular interest in the Canadian water shute and the switchback railway I was somehow reminded of some of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions such as the flying machine and giant crossbow.

Giant Crossbow (1480-2)

I decided to do some further research on his work at the Glasgow University Library and found this rather arresting image:

Courtyard of a foundry (1487)

The Local army Barracks where I live in London passes by my house every morning around eight in the morning, parading a canon around the streets.

Similar Works

Làslò Moholy Nagy

Self-Initiated Project

Conrad Shawcross at Siobhan Davies Studios
shown as part of 'The Collection'
7th April 2009

Slow Arc inside a Cube (2008)

I was completely mesmerised by this piece of work which had been installed in the top floor of Siobhan Davies studios I managed to sit around for almost an hour filming it from various viewpoints. The effect of the intensely bright light coming from such a small source meant that the shadows cast on the walls of the studio shifted from feeling like a cage was being lifted off of you to then feeling entrapped again. I was very interested in this idea of an image being able to have such a tangible quality so much so that it almost feels physical.

Exhibition Piece

The composition of the final piece consisted of a Milk trolley frame to which various found objects were attached with cable ties or slotted into different levels. At the top we have a:

• bucket which is attached to a vacuum cleaner tube
• funnel slotted into the white plastic pipe
• smaller funnel inserted into a shower hose

A mixture of cornflour and water (oobleck) is then poured into these containers which then slowly dispense it into the satellite dish which acts as a sieve, however the mixture just passes through the holes.

It is then collected in one half of a briefcase which has been tilted at an angle so that the mixture runs down to one end where a hole has been drilled into one of the corners.

From here it is funneled down a piece of black guttering where it eventually drops into a vinyl which has been melted around a glass bowl to form a container.


At this point the vinyl in spinning and consequently the centrifugal force causes the mixture to be flung out causing a random accumulation of the mixture on the surface of the player which then soon dries out.

Trip to Sharmanka Studios (01.02.09)

Russian Kinetic Sculpture Studios - 64 Osborne Street, Glasgow

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.

In 1961 it was the time of the Khrushchev "thaw". People started to write and paint in private without joining the official Union of Soviet Artists and Writers. An 'underground' culture spread through people's flats , too widely dispersed for the KGB to control. In 1975 thousands of people queued for hours to get into an exhibition put on at Constantine Kuzminsky's flat.

A few days after closing, all participants were called to the City Department of Culture and told that nothing like that would be tolerated again and many of his friends were forced to leave the country, were arrested or just disappeared altogether. Eduard didn't actively oppose the regime. Like countless others he chose to resist passively. He was one of those known as 'internal emigrants' who left the Soviet Union Psychologically though not physically.

Self Portrait and monkey

"In the belfry of the millennium clock there was going to be the sort of traditional figures associated with mechanical clocks - figures that reflected the life cycle from birth to death. But then it came clear that something else should be remembered from this millennium, the millions imprisoned, murdered, maimed and vanished. Finally we named it Requiem..." Tatyana Jakovskaya (Eduard Bersudsky's wife)

Millenium Clock Tower

Words don't sit easily on Eduard Bersudsky's works:

"they are re-awakenings of old, half-forgotten myths. They spring from the collective memory of us all. When we see Eduard's work we recognise it; it's as though it's always been. This is the hallmark of great art - the rediscovery of what's lasting." - Julian Spalding

Portrait of Eduard Bersudsky