Martin Smith (Laikingland) - Solar Orbiter (MB&F M.A.D.Gallery - 15th Anniversary)

[00:00:00][bell] [music] [music] >> Hi, my name is Martin Smith. I'm an artist and I mainly make kinetic sculpture ranging [music] scale from small to real large pieces often seen out in public spaces [music] and sometimes in galleries. Currently, I'm working in my studio in West Yorkshire in the UK. The studio is a sort of prototype studio across between sort of creative [music] space, engineering, art studio, comfy space, secret escape, all those things. And out of this studio we try to produce everything that I put out in the world. I first met Max about 15 years ago. He was interested in asking me if if I could make a special edition of a piece that he'd found >> [music] >> and bought which was my applause machine which is a little machine you press the button gives you a round of applause.

[00:00:58]And he talked about opening a gallery [music] at the time. So, it was before the M.A.D. Gallery existed. And then this is back 15 years ago. So, I think this is we were one of the first people that he sold in his gallery. [music] Our first delivery to the gallery was in September 2011.

[00:01:10]So, it was quite [music] a long time ago. Since that day he's always been super supportive, you know, promoting us and and taking more and more [music] work and opening us up to new audiences.

[00:01:22]So, after being [music] asked by and being asked to make a piece for their 15th birthday, I thought that appropriate place to start would be a piece I'd recently [music] made for a perfume brand cuz this summed up where I was within my little machines pieces.

[00:01:34]So, I approached Max with this idea but I I tweaked [music] it and because it was his 15th anniversary or birthday so to speak, I had this idea of making a machine that had 15 times around the sun. So, 15th birthday. But quite quickly we sort of realized that there there was an opportunity here to make something a bit more complicated, a bit more elaborate by turning this part into what hopefully could be a watch winder to wind one of the MB&F watches. Yeah, so that one quite quickly led on to this first [music] prototype, which was about getting the idea together. So I was showing the proportions of the machine, how big it would be, where the movements would be. We then move on to approval, and then on to the third prototype, I suppose you'd call it. Which starts to sort of really [music] settle on some ideas and some shapes and some forms, and most importantly on some movements.

[00:02:15]So the materiality is starting to change now. We're We're working in brass and aluminum and steel. Steel is becoming painted, the brass and aluminum becoming polished. And one of the most challenging things is how to lock a very expensive watch that could [music] rotate. As the piece was rotating, the arm was rotating in the correct orientation for to wind the watch. So we did this through a series of gears and linkages >> [music] >> inside inside the pieces. There's a static gear that then the gear for this walks along the static gear. So one rotation of the watch will be one rotation of the piece.

[00:02:41]>> [music] >> And then the next thing is to deal with the weight. So the watch and the holder itself may be half a kilo, so we have to make a mechanism strong to hold half a kilo and still rotate [music] smoothly.

[00:02:49]And on the final piece, we have a locking device which brings a little lever that brings a little pin into the cushion. So it can't be pulled out. So it's all very very secure. [music] So the last 15 years of working with the gallery has been a really good opportunity [music] for me. My work's been seen by so many new people into a new world that I wasn't working in before.

[00:03:09]>> [music] >> A lot of those customers that have bought my work through my gallery have gone on to buy work directly from me, commissioned pieces for their homes and gardens. They've been so supportive, sort of enabling you to make things [music] that wouldn't always be able to make. So they give you the sort of safe space to say, "Okay, go Go ahead and make something new for us." My future plans, uh going forward from this, I'm currently developing a very large kinetic rainbow which for [music] a private customer, which will hopefully be materializing in the next couple of years. So it'll be a very highly mechanical chaotic piece as usual. And then my trees are going from strength to strength, and they continue to get larger and more complex. The movements in the ends of the leaves, the twigs are starting to move in more interesting ways as well.

[00:03:48]>> [music] >> And uh hopefully that continues.

[00:03:55]>> [music]