The Ride of Life

Overview

In the late 1980s a group of radical artists and automata makers were commissioned to make a theme ride to fill 15,000 square feet of the Meadowhall shopping centre in England. It was to be a journey made on a sofa trundling through more than 20 scenes of everyday life. The project was inspired by the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in Covent Garden and features a dozen or so makers including Paul Spooner and Tim Hunkin and a completely bonkers maker called John White who made three of the scenes "disorientation, the upside down bedroom and motorway madness" in the film he demonstrates his giant gear wheels made of ice. There was also a magnificent 'Heaven' made in Cornwall and a 'Hell' made in Hebden Bridge. The project was completed but never installed. Most of it is now lost (except for the 'Pubic Bar' scene).