Robb Higgs is a British artist who believes that the more effort people put into relating to his interactive art, the more enjoyment his art provides.

If his premise is true then the taste of the wine poured by his integrated corkscrew/wine pourer contraption must be absolutely sensational because its operation demands considerable effort.

It took Higgs four years to create his first Corkscrew. It weighs three-quarters of a tonne and is made from nearly 400 scrap-salvaged components that he replicated in bronze, including two cannon balls, a clock spring, and the speed governor from a steam engine.

And all to remove the cork from a wine bottle and delicately pour a glass of wine.

Biggs was commissioned to create the first Corkscrew, but it has since become a limited edition of 25 pieces. And if you think that it might be the perfect addition to your wine cellar, consider that Christie’s recently auctioned one that sold for more than £100,000, wine not included.

Higgs describes himself as a mechanical sculptor, automata maker, and inventor. He designs and makes mechanical sculptures, contraptions, and eccentric machines largely using repurposed materials such as old gears, wheels, chains, and mechanical items found on old farmsteads, in boatyards, and on scrap heaps.

Other crazy kinetic sculptures Higgs has created include a ten-tonne, ten metre-high nutcracker, miniature clockwork robots, a milk exploder, apple squashes, comedy mouse traps, man traps, drawbridge-powered coffee grinders, a pepper-grinding trebuchet, seagull-triggered fog horns, a thespian-operated, fire-breathing dragon, axe clocks, time bombs, collapsing ladders, wine bottle exploders, medieval siege engines, giant dangerous kitchen utensils, fruit bazookas, a jack-in-a-box flying steam train, and flaming baguette cannons.



For more information on Rob Higgs, please see www.oneofone.org.uk/rob_bio.html.