The M.A.D.Gallery’s 15th Anniversary Festivities continue with
Martin Smith and the Solar Orbiter Watch Winder.
This year, the M.A.D.Gallery is inviting several of its mechanical artists to imagine special limited editions for its 15th anniversary. The creative celebrations started with Berlin-based designer Frank Buchwald and his ML15 Helios, a sculptural light built around the idea of a mechanical sun. Now it is the turn of British designer Martin Smith, who also found inspiration in the M.A.D. Gallery’s 15 journeys around the sun with his Solar Orbiter watch winder.
Like Buchwald, Smith was one of the first designers to contribute to the M.A.D.Gallery, working under the name of Laikingland, the creative collaboration he founded with lifelong friend and engineer Nick Regan. Laikingland brought a playful mechanical spirit to the gallery with kinetic sculptures that played with themes of humour, nonsense and futility. Together, they created works including The Applause Machine and Fingers, the latter designed by Nik Ramage.
The Solar Orbiter Watch Winder
For this anniversary creation, Smith has designed and produced a sculptural watch winder from his own studio in West Yorkshire. The brief was simply to create a kinetic object that would signal the M.A.D.Gallery’s 15 years. Smith had been working on a number of wind-powered works which naturally led him to the idea of the sun. “When Max saw the design, he asked if it could become a watch winder, which was funny because I could kind of see that coming!” explains Smith with a smile.
Called the Solar Orbiter, Smith describes it as: “chaotic, mesmerizing, sophisticated in its construction, and a bit quirky”. Keen eyes will notice that it incorporates elements from all the works Smith and Laikingland had previously created for the M.A.D.Gallery, including the clapping hand and heart. The design draws upon his love for toys with interchangeable parts and captures the spirit of the Eames Solar Do-Nothing Machine, an aluminium solar-powered sculpture created in the 1950s to demonstrate solar electricity long before it was a thing.
For Smith, it was important that the mechanism should not resemble a watch movement. His original idea was to use 15 wheels as a nod to the 15th anniversary, but unfortunately a few more had to be added to make the sculpture function! Each piece is crafted from over 300 handmade parts in steel, aluminium, brass and carved-wood and comes with an interchangeable heart, hand, and star. Measuring 60 cm in height, with a width and depth of 40 cm, it is powered by custom electronics that allow for different winding speeds that operate in total silence. There will be 10 numbered pieces. Each one comes in a custom shipping crate that features a screen printing of the Solar Orbiter on the outside.
“My sister and brother-in-law have a screen-printing business so we decided to screen print a design of the Solar Orbiter on the outside of the crate. It turned out so well that you could almost hang it on your wall, which then made us worry that it might get damaged in transit. So now the crate is protected inside a cardboard box.” he shares. There is also a numbered and signed print inside the box that serves as the certificate of authenticity.
Part kinetic sculpture and part horological accessory, the Solar Orbiter captures the spirit that has defined the M.A.D.Gallery since its inception by showcasing mechanical creativity in all its forms. Martin Smith’s latest creation reminds us that mechanical art is at its most compelling when it brings together imagination, engineering and playfulness.
