"World Machine"

On Thursday I was on a firm's day out. The last part of our program was the visit of the so-called "World Machine" in a village in Styria. The machine was created by the farmer Franz Gsellmann (1910-1981) over a period of 23 years, translating his thoughts into a unique piece of technology. Everything on this machine turns, moves, flashes, blinks, rings, rattles, clatters and whistles. Gsellmann wanted to become electrician, but he had to succeed his father on the family farm. When Gsellmann saw a ohoto of the Atomium in Brussels in the newspaper, he immediately traveled there by train to see the building in reality. He returned with a small scale model of the Atomium, emptied a room of his farm, situated the model there, and began constructing his machine around it. He went to junk yards, second-hand dealers, and flea markets to obtain devices he could use to add to his construction. The machine grew to almost 4m high, 4m long, and 2m wide. Please click here for a video of the machine.