The most interesting automata are often born before anyone knows exactly what the finished machine will be. The Hastings Contraption takes that idea almost literally: four makers, one week, a shared place and a deliberately open brief.
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre has brought together automata makers Tom Haney, Fi Henshall and Carlos Zapata with stop-motion filmmaker Joseph Wallace to create a large-scale mobile mechanical artwork inspired by Hastings, its seafront, fishing history and local mythologies. The piece is being built from locally sourced reclaimed materials and is designed to travel through public space rather than remain a static gallery object.
The collaboration is noteworthy because the four participants come from related but distinct practices. Haney, Henshall and Zapata all work with figurative mechanical sculpture, but their materials, mechanisms and narrative styles differ markedly. Wallace brings the logic of stop-motion: another way of making objects perform through carefully controlled movement.
For PaperPino, the project is interesting even though the final work is not a paper automaton. It exposes something central to automata making: movement is rarely an isolated technical problem. Mechanism, character, rhythm, material and story are developed together. A collaborative build makes those negotiations visible.
The completed machine will be unveiled on 19 September 2026 at The Printworks in Hastings. The event includes presentations by the four artists, a behind-the-scenes account of the build and a live demonstration of the finished contraption.
Source: Cabaret Mechanical Theatre — The Hastings Contraption
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