“It’s easy to demonise someone nowadays.  Anyone with an index finger can start a campaign against someone else by posting rumours on a device and watching their fingerwork flower into something gratifyingly unpleasant.

This machine looks back to the days when just smearing a reputation on a malevolent whim couldn’t achieve much of a result. To demonise someone in the old days, mechanical skills were required. This finely crafted model of a nineteenth century demoniser, which processes possibly blameless individuals into out-and-out enemies of all that is decent and praiseworthy, was inspired by an auction of some old toys from the Erzgebirge region of Germany. This is from the catalogue.

I tried to make something as casual and scruffy as the Erzgebirge watermill and dog but succumbed to a fit of neatness, taking quite a lot of care over the jointing of the woodwork and the spraying of the paint. I have 14 parts left over: four demons that were very slightly too small, four dogs and four cats that I wanted to put on the turntables with the other figures (dogs for the victims, cats for the demons) but they compromised the purity of the design. Two roofs failed quality control. Luckily I have an idea for a new piece that they might fit into. All except the roofs.”

Paul Spooner, 2026

Height: 33cm
Width: 26cm
Depth: 15cm incl. handle

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