Wintergatan Marble Machine Text: Martin Molin Photo: Samuel Westergren
Most intense period
When I was completely buried in the process of building the Marble Machine, time and space seized to exist. Pleasant as it may sound this feeling did not come out of any creative overflow. It was the sheer pressure from trying to make the machine work that blurred days and weeks into a never ending problem solving marathon. In the middle of the most intense period, late summer 2015 I had a visit from Samuel Westergren. Samuel was at that point one of the very few persons that had seen the machine. I noticed immediately that Samuel grasped the main mechanisms of the machine and meanwhile he was shooting all the pictures you will see below we talked and discussed some of the problems with the machine. It was that day and when discussing with Samuel that I realized that I had built in a design mistake in the machine concerning the marble gate function. The day after he left and with our discussion in fresh memory I removed six months’ worth of work and started over. Seeing these pictures reminds me of that feeling. A very mixed feeling. Sure, you just stepped six month back in time but at the same time it’s the only way forward!
It’s a couple of months now since we released the video. During this period I have seen a viral avalanche from the inside. Seeing these pictures takes me back to the middle of the process. Back to the workshop. I hope you will enjoy it.
8 months later!!!
The day before starting to film the video!
Hannes Filming!
Hannes shared my feelings for the machine and worked tirelessly to get the good takes. The machine kept malfunctioning but he never complained once. When I was down after a hard days recording when the machine was worse than normal Hannes told me that the Steven Spielberg film ”jaws” became successful because of the malfunctioning mechanical shark. Thanks to this malfunctioning shark we don’t get to see the shark at all during the whole first hour of the film. And this is the magical thing with the movie.