Lecturer gets on his bike for art

STUDENTS at MMU may know Dr Dave Southall as a senior lecturer in electrical engineering, but few might realise he is also responsible for the custom-made motorbike currently on display in the School of Art as part of this year’s MA degree show.

Dr Southall decided to study towards an MA in 3D Design “to keep the little grey cells ticking over” and soon found that his scientific background created an interesting culture clash when he was among the artists.

“If you have come up through an engineering background your thinking can be very rigid; in the Art School it’s very open and that raises some interesting questions,” he says.

“Doing something outside your comfort zone, your area of expertise, really challenges you to think differently.”

Custom-made

The racing bike, which Dr Southall calls “The Shillington Jap” was inspired by the “boardtrack races” held in the USA in the early 1900s.

The bikes were notoriously dangerous – reaching more than 100mph, fatalities were common and one unfortunate rider had his cause of death listed as “splinters” – and had a distinctive look that was very similar to bicycles of the time.

Dr Southall’s bike is not a direct recreation of one of the bikes, but a new design drawing on their history and reacting against modern standardised building processes – right down to the hand-made nuts, which have been deliberately made in non-standard sizes.

“It was important to me that the bike was a complete one-off,” said Dr Southall.

“Useless machine”

Other items made by Dr Southall that are on display in the lobby include “A Useless Machine”, first created by artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, and whose only purpose is to switch itself off.

“Everything that I’d designed up until that point had a real purpose, so I wanted to make a device that was totally pointless,” said Dr Southall.

He also created a “Kes” catapult, working from the notion of catapults as a typical “naughty boy’s toy” and forming it in the shape of the V-sign famously given by the boy on the cover of the Penguin edition of Barry Hines’ novel.

Dr Southall said: “Many of my designs have a theatrical element reflecting my past as a street performer and I have had a number of commissions to design and build contraptions intended for performance.”

Butterflies

Also on display at the MA show will be work by textiles graduate Chloe Hammill, who has created an installation of real butterflies that can be walked on, with the intention of forcing the audience to question their involvement in the issues that affect our society today.

She has also inscribed personal stories into the soles of shoes which are then arranged to show the current demographics of people sold into sex trafficking.

The MA degree show previews tonight, Thursday 26 September, before opening to the public tomorrow, Friday 27 September. It runs until Sunday 13 October.

Work by graduates from MA Filmmaking will be screened at Cornerhouse on Monday 30 September between 3pm and 5pm. More information is available at http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/mashow/