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Published on August 9, 2007

The Thailand Creative and Design Centre - a place that usually makes you think too hard - has hit the popularity jackpot with its latest exhibit. All kinds of intriguing gadgets spring to life at the touch of a button, like one of those backstage prop rooms in a horror movie about an insane magician.

Children are queuing up to press the buttons at "Mechanics Alive", which continues all through September, but this is far from just an exhibition of kids' stuff.

The kangaroo that hops at the turn of a crank, a man eating his way through a bathtub of spaghetti and a cat swallowing fish are thoroughly entertaining, but there's also some biting satire involved.

There are 50 hand-made mechanical sculptures in the show from London's Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, all introduced with a few pieces that demonstrate how the levers, shafts, cams, ratchets and gears conspire to work their wonders.

In Paul Spooner's "Poisoned Milk", it's a ratchet pushing a white strip of leather up and down that gives the effect of a cat lapping up its milk. In Peter Markey's "Kicking Ladies", a pair of cranks work the cabaret dancers' legs and a third their bouncing chests.

Spooner, 60, has earned fame in Britain with his acerbic humour and attention to detail, bringing mythological and religious characters to life, as in the Anubis series. The jackal-headed Egyptian god, judge of men's souls, leaves the pyramids on horseback, enjoys a cup of coffee in Paris' funky Montmartre quarter and even does some exercises to tone up his abdominal muscles.

"When gods descend to seek worldly distraction," Spooner is asking, "what has humanity left to believe in?"

"How to Live, No 17" - the piece with the spaghetti glutton - satirises consumerist culture. In "Body Language", a wife just keeps nodding as her husband prattles on.

Spooner best displays his keen eye for muscle and bone movement in "Hopping Jackal", a jumping kangaroo, and "Wiggling Figure", which captures the essence of a rotating belly with astonishing calculation.

In contrast, Peter Markey's work is stripped down to as little detail as possible, with wooden segments left uncarved, but, trained as a painter (as illustrated in "Artist"), he uses a lot of colour in his automata. His pieces rely on cams to transmit the movement. Animals are his favourite subjects.

"I want people to say, 'There's a dog', 'There's a tree', and derive pleasure and interest from looking at them," says Markey, 77. "I have always drawn and painted and made things. It is a way of keeping in contact with the outside world."

Keith Newstead's background is in graphic design, so his automata balance narrative and engineering showmanship. His metal "Peacock" is a fine indicator of the intriguing beauty of mechanisms. The bird spreading its tail feathers is captivating to watch.

A large, rotating cam wheel connected to pulleys and nylon-thread linkages opens and closes the peacock's mouth and tail. One movement lifts the tail up, two more on either side open it out. A spring draws the feathers back together.

"The simplest mechanical device can be quite elegant when in action," says Newstead, 44, who cites as his inspirations the labour-saving devices of William Heath Robinson and Roland Emmett's "Vintage Car of the Future".

"Labour-saving" would certainly apply to "The Junkas Giles Agriplane", in which an airborne farmer simultaneously transports his pig, waters his crops and dries his socks.

Matt Smith goes for super-realism. "Fish" is a startlingly accurate depiction of a pair of fish suddenly bolting in fright, while "Gambling Dog" puts a Dalmatian in a race.

You can see naive art and icons of Native Americans at play in Michael Howard's "Beastie" and "Lickity Split". Though Howard's quirky world is populated by plump-cheeked, smiling characters, there's something distinctly sinister about them, even if he insists they are quite innocent and friendly.

"My pieces often imitate natural phenomena in form and movement," he says. "Their internal mechanism, to a great extent, determines their form and character. And my love of Indian and South American art influences my sense of colour."

Ron Fuller's "Equestrienne" and "Dancing Man" are pure nostalgia, evoking 19th-century tin toys. Specifically, he says, he loves the mechanical toys made in turn-of-the-century Germany.

Having marvelled at the creations from Britain, visitors to the exhibition can have a go at making their own. There are workstations with tools, components and instructional videos. No glue is required - just imagination.

The Thailand Creative and Design Centre is on the sixth floor of Bangkok's Emporium mall and is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10.30am to 10pm. Call (02) 664 8448 or visit www.tcdc.or.th.

Khetsirin Pholdhampalit

The Nation