"If you care at all about cars and you happen to be born of these Sceptered Isles, it's a little difficult not to feel a bit smug this week. As a nation of people passionate about their cars and motorsport, "
![](https://cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk/uploads/2009/04/3378103188_55f3afd895_b-960x540.jpg)
Steven Laurie & the Art of the Motor
![3337114814_dca9a2a43d 3337114814_dca9a2a43d](https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/influx/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/3337114814_dca9a2a43d.jpg)
My work consists of designing and fabricating functional homebrew prototype machines, handheld power tools and site-specific installation projects. Crossing the traditional disciplines of performance art, kinetic sculpture and mark-making, I develop tradeshow style displays and tool demonstrations that pare down subversive activities like burning rubber, engine revving and subwoofer thumping to a form of sub-cultural utterance.
![mudflap mudflap](https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/influx/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/mudflap.jpg)
It’s from a personal connection to a blue-collar lifestyle that my artwork hints towards pastime activities like customization, modification and maintenance as insightful moments of spatial production and cultural expression.
I am curious to the function of this mechanical ‘squawk’ and it’s connection to working-class cultural kinship. Considered by some people as “hyper-masculine” or “boy art”, my work provokes discourse around ideas of class based masculine identity through the material choices and reinforcement of automotive / technological horseplay.
![laurie_1 laurie_1](https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/influx/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/laurie_1.jpg)
The reading(s) of the machine work and public projects I develop cannot avoid being affected by technological, political and economic change. Designing machines with the soul purpose of paring down cultural practices like burning rubber and engine revving to a quasi utility is bound to attract both negative and positive criticism.
![3378103188_55f3afd895_b 3378103188_55f3afd895_b](https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/influx/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/3378103188_55f3afd895_b-300x225.jpg)
The images I am using in the Branding Iron project are derived from a range of sources, which include popular tattoos, automotive decals, branded accessories and iron-on imagery.
Riding both an iconic and nostalgic subtext, these silhouette images for the most part point toward some of the interests shared amongst blue-collar and working-class subcultures. Even though these images conjure up a “dated” and overshadowed approach to mechanical muscle, they still share the sense of loyalty seen in contemporary forms of horsepower pushing and customization.
![2668597808_a993fc5d2a 2668597808_a993fc5d2a](https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/influx/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/2668597808_a993fc5d2a.jpg)
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