Art

People suffering from a nervous disposition should stay away from this show of household devices with unsettling lives of their own.

A motorised, ‘amputated’ arm digging into the torn and stained ‘intestines’ of an upholstered chair, a power drill viciously attacking a vacuum cleaner, or a creepy two-legged pony pulling an empty cart around the gallery are just some of the more gruesome delights in this bizarre home show which seeks to re-establish kinetic art beyond its reputation of mere adolescent gadgetry.

Technologically, kinetic art may have come a long way since the ’60s, when founding father Jean Tinguely first experimented with moving-part sculptures. But as the juxtaposition of his early work with that of contemporary artists shows, playful satirisation of our society of mass-produced material goods is still at the core of the movement. This is evident in Ian Burns’s quirky live video feed of colourful cleaning tools or Max Dean, Raffaello D’Andrea and Matt Donovan’s answer to your Ikea self-assembly nightmares: a ‘Robotic Chair’, which slowly re-assembles itself.

The Dadaesque highlight is Antoine Zgraggen’s destructive machine allowing visitors to dispose of unwanted rubbish. If you’ve ever wanted to trash a pointless piece of art (and not just metaphorically), here’s your chance. Just pick an object from the collection of charity shop tat, press a few buttons and watch it be pulverised by hammer, axe or crusher.

Art or gadget? Probably the latter. But still, this entertaining show of motorised curiosities feels like a breath of fresh air in the all-too stuffy environs of most pristine, clean, white-cube spaces.