The tremendousness of it all! the colours, sounds and shapes! the dread and nausea, the joy and euphoria! and, the sad demise of the muso scope…

It’s been somewhat more of a rollercoaster than usual. The descision was made to ditch the musoscope, as it was a bit delicate and we were expecting people to interact with it, so it’s lifespan would have been somewhat limited. Certainly a project to reprise in the future though – i think with development it could be wondrous.

But what of our other two mechanical wonders? The Red Carbuncle and the PPP? They both blossomed beautifully into more than we could have hoped for them, and earned their names.

Dynah – she’s tall and red, playing an infomercial from Shelley Smith Industries in glorious 3D!

She has an internal periscopic system, and a hand-cranked flap. After all, no-one knows what will happen to the human brain if you stare too long into Dynah’s eyes. It’s only been tested on coffee monkeys.

Kitty – the little sister, with a reel which plays the ‘menagerie of Ms Roden’

Kitty is a customised mutoscope kit from Barenpresse, an excellent German company who specialise in this kind of cut out kit. Check out their site, it’s wonderful. The images in the film represent three totems, or fetishes, related to my personality – the ET doll represents my childhood realities, the jenny haniver my childhood fantasies, and the coffee monkey is something i see as that element manifesting itself in my adulthood. i love the fact it pulses like a heartbeat, but, onto pictures!

The projection… didn’t work how we initially intended it to, like the musoscope it deserves a lot more attention than to just be a hasty add on. However, we got the effect we were after by allowing the light to spread across the wall behind the machines, rather than back projected on a screen

Vicky Roden and Tom Smith – All My Dreams Came True! (but now i have a bunch of other dreams)

It was excellent to get such a wide range of responses at the Private view – i found i was getting locked in trains of thought, as i’d been working with it for so long, so to get so much fresh perspective made it completely worthwhile. It reminded me why i enjoy art so much.