Taking a ride on Carlisle's magic roundabout
Theodore Simmons visits 'Tick Tock Marvels, the Playful World of Automata', at Tullie Museum and Gallery in Carlisle.
ANY SUFFICIENTLY advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' wrote British futurist Arthur C. Clarke in 1968.
With its whirring gallery of automata, Tullie's latest exhibition seeks to quickly cast a spell over you. On entering, a large doll's house version of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast castle glows in welcome. With the press of a button, lights flicker over the Tim Burton-style characters, and they come to life in their rooms.
The curators clearly want younger visitors to feel equally at home and animated as they explore the Playful World of Automata. But the castle introduces an exhibition that's also darkly whimsical, with flashes of surrealism and sharp satire aimed at all ages.
A few steps further in, and we meet a cheerful Roman soldier riding a winged horse. The horse looks exhausted. Most visitors turn the handle to make it fly anyway. Unlike the castle's hidden mechanics, this time we can watch the elaborate mechanism at work.
People often interpret Clarke's quip as referring to the way technology hides complexity. Tullie's exhibition reminds us that revealing it can be just as enchanting. There's a magic in seeing ingenuity up close.
Visitors peer into the horse's miniature cogs and pulleys. Then move on to help a witch dangle an apple out of a child's reach or feed a man in a bath with spaghetti streaming from the taps.
Not all the jokes are at the automata's expense. By halfway through, it's clear we are playing with the models, but they are also playing with us.
Satirical artist Tim Hunkin began exhibiting his weird and wonderful machines in the 1970s, only a few years after Clarke's line was published. He later helped to found Cabaret Mechanical Theatre (CMT), the group behind the show.
Neither are strangers to Tullie, with Hunkin contributing to their collection as early as the 1980s, and CMT creating the Fairground Factory exhibition for the gallery in 2019. It's a relationship that makes curatorial sense, given Tullie's history.
Established in 1893 as an 'Institute of Science, Literature and the Arts', Tullie has always had to balance its founding aims. Until the 1950s, it offered art and technical education on-site and at various points hosted the city library.
Today, it remains home to core collections celebrating the region's history, as well as the Cumbria Biodiversity Data Centre. All these strands can be found woven through the Playful World of Automata.
Roman and Egyptian figures greet us in various stages of repose. Sailors make a meal of the last dodo, which went extinct in 1681. In the corner, a mischievous beaver chews his way through a textbook chapter on water infrastructure management, the piece titled 'Ecosystems At Work'.
Another titled 'Biodiversity' features a tumbling mobile of human-animal hybrids and biblical figures orbiting a black globe. As someone who's worked on ecology projects, I'm very tempted to use it from now on to illustrate 'stakeholder management'.
Interpretation boards guide us through the history of automata, referencing the North East's famous Silver Swan by John Joseph Merlin. The influence of its 18th-century style is evident in the various ornate metal birds and steampunk crafts on display.
Badged as Tick Tock Marvels, the exhibition's historical journey will also leave many thinking about issues of modern-day automation. The machines' repetitive motions uncannily evoke the short, addictive loops of TikTok videos.
These are playful automata that celebrate human creativity and craft skills. They require human input, even money, to work. But they also poke fun at our mythologies and attempts at control. It feels like a warning as we continue to watch some algorithms distort our minds, automate skilled knowledge work, and fast-forward robotics.
Of course, it's possible to ignore all of this and simply have fun with the machines. In search of context for Tick Tock Marvels, I attempted to switch off at Hunkin's permanent home, Novelty Automation, a satirical amusement arcade in Holborn, London.
But taking a ride in his 'Holiday Machine' during the June heatwave made that difficult. The machine features a moving armchair hooked up to a heat lamp and a Monty Python-style airline safety video. Never has climate change been so funny. At least to the passers-by.
Tick Tock Marvels, the Playful World of Automata is certainly a fun afternoon out for the whole family, but they may leave with questions. Go for the magic. Then head to the café to process the ways our technology can be more black magic than white.
Tick Tock Marvels, the Playful World of Automata, Tullie House, Carlisle till October 11.
