|
|
|
| PAGE | 1 | 2 | |
| Intrigued by the mystery and mastery of China's legendary south pointing chariot, British artist Kit Williams set about reconstructing it and in the process created a singularly beautiful work of art. |
|
 |
| What inspired you to build a South Pointing Chariot? |
| KW: Recreating the South Pointing Chariot is particularly challenging because none of the original technical drawings remain in existence. It's something that many people have done, or have tried to do, over the years and it involves a complex mechanical process from the ancient world that I find fascinating. |
| What exactly is a South Pointing Chariot? |
|
KW: Legend has it that the original South Pointing Chariot was built in China three to four thousand years ago for the Yellow Emperor, Huang Di. Although made using primitive hand tools it was a precision instrument with sophisticated differential gearing that enabled a pointer to constantly indicate south no matter which way the chariot was pulled, pushed or turned.
The original item looked like a little hand cart with the figure of a man mounted on a platform between the wheels. The man's outstretched arm always pointed south.
|
| Why south? |
| KW: In practical terms the South Pointing Chariot was a simple direction finder. It could have been made to point in any direction - north, south, east or west. The reason the ancient Chinese chose south is probably because north was inauspicious to them. That was where the marauding hordes came from. |
| You mentioned that no technical drawings of the original chariot remain in existence. Where did you start? |
| KW: I started by looking at what others had done before me. You see, over the years there have been attempts by many different people to reconstruct the chariot. In the 1930s, for example, Mechano ran a competition in a magazine asking readers to come up with a solution using mechano pieces; many schools of engineering in England have set it as a project for students. I decided that I wanted to create something that was much more elegant, both visually and mathematically, than what had been done before, a chariot I believed would be fit for Huang Di himself. |
| How can something be mathematically elegant? |
| KW: Well, a differential feeds from both sides equally and oppositely so the problem, as I saw it, was to get the power back out without using some clumsy construction that would detract from the chariot's beauty. I thought about it a great deal and then one day while I was out walking the dog it came to me. Two drives! Snap! That was it. Having designed and built several clocks during my career it suddenly occurred to me that when you look at the face of a clock both hands have the same center. It was the answer I was looking for. I was so excited I rushed home and immediately made a drawing. |
| How long did it take you to build the chariot? |
 |
KW: Around eight months. I made every single piece myself, each individual component, so it was quite time consuming. |
| I understand the chariot has since been sold, was it difficult to part with it? |
| KW: I think most artists find it difficult to part with their work but it's the parting that keeps us alive and keeps us working. In the case of the chariot, although it's been sold I actually still have it, just in another form. I took lots of photographs and had planned to write a treatise on how it worked, but I quickly got bored with that idea and wrote a scientific fairy tale instead. |
| You mean the book, Engines of Ingenuity? |
| KW: That's right. You see, my ambition was not to confound the engineering world but simply to create a beautiful piece of art. I chose materials - timbers and metals - of the best quality and worked as though I was creating this particular South Pointing Chariot for the Yellow Emperor himself. It inspired all sorts of whims and fancies that I ultimately wove into a fairy tale complete with muse, the earth, the moon, some famous inventors, a dog and a rabbit. |
| What kind of whims and fancies? |
| KW: One example is the orrery. As I was working I noticed that the way I designed the differential gearing actually created a spare drive that sat directly below the emperor's feet, or where they would be if he were to sit in the chariot. It occurred to me that if I added something to this drive, whatever it was would end up between the emperor's legs and he would have complete control of it. By placing an orrery there it meant he had control of the world. |
| What exactly is an orrery? |
KW: An orrery is a mechanical model of a solar system which uses clockwork to show the relative motions of the planets. They were very popular in the 18th century. The one I made for the chariot is a simple version that features only the earth and the moon.  |
|
|
| back to top |
