Automata Carrousel (6+)
Geert Hautekiet | BE
Geert Hautekiet creates 100% mechanical storytelling machines: automata with recycled wood, old copper, and a fine sense of humour. Each one is small in size but has a big impact. Powerful images with a story. They affect, amaze and make you laugh. You set all other mechanisms in motion by turning a lever yourself. Fascinating!
NOTE: Automata Carrousel can be visited continuously daily between 2.30 PM and 10.30 PM. So if you book a ticket for a specific date, you can see this installation at any time of the day.
You view the automata from a separate lodge with a maximum of four available places. You buy a wooden token at the cash register, with which you open the hatch in your lodge (like a peep show). Then you see all the automata slowly passing by on a carousel. The automata each have one lever that you can turn yourself. The lever sets creaking wooden gears in motion, which, via copper rods and axes, brings the animations carved from pear or linden wood to life. The repetitive stories are short and sweet, and the fragile-looking, rattling technique knows how to move you. This special peep show puts a smile on the face of young and old. After about 10 minutes, you have seen all the automata, and the hatch closes again.
Geert Hautekiet, Mik Anthoni & 12 automata.