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.
mary thornton says:
Dear Paul,
We are hoping to run a Darwin exhibition from August 24 to Sep 5 2009.
A colleague told me of your mechanical machines.
Would we be able to borrow your ‘Tree of Life’ please?
We are looking to ask someone to make us a mechanical donations box, where the visitor puts in a £1.00 coin and the frog jumps through the hoop, or a dragonfly alights on a stalk, or a variety of Spooner type events occur.
How much do you charge for your contraptions?
Best wishes