Rowland Emett was a cartoonist for Punch magazine, artist, inventor and builder of whimsical, mechanical machine in the ’50s and ’60s. Some of his more famous work to younger generations are the car and inventions that appeared in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But to older generations his ‘Emettland’, ‘Much Baking Halt’, ‘Featherstone Kite’ and many other weird and wonderful mechanical devices stick in the memory.
With a few exceptions like the Emett Clock in the Victoria Shopping Centre, Nottingham and another clock in Basildon, there is little of his work on permanent display in the UK. Exhibitions of his machines can be seen in the US and Canada in both permanent and seasonal exhibitions but much in the UK is in private collections only rarely being seen in public.
For the first time in decades, many are now on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art in a special exhibition from 12th May until 26th September before being exhibited in other museums including the Science Museum in London. Birmingham, as Emett’s birthplace was chosen for the first showing.
In preparing this exhibition, and work by the Emett Society in their restoration, it was found that most of the electrical control systems that controlled working sections were either missing or simply beyond repair to bring in to operation. In particular, his’ grand piece de resistance’, “A quiet afternoon in cuckoo valley” which was his latest and largest sculpture had not been seen in public since the great exhibition of 1951.
To bring these back to life for the exhibition, DirectionForward were commissioned to develop a modern computerised control system, originally for the ‘A quiet afternoon…’, but later for all the machines on display, and thereafter to also control the individual musical accompaniments for each.
We developed bespoke software written in Visual C that drives a USB controller board connected to a laptop PC that in turn is connected to various components of the automata. This is highly flexible and adaptable and is easily monitored and controlled by museum staff.