Artist/Engineer
Tenhertz Projects
2012 - 2016
Tenhertz was a company which specialised in creating machines for ground-breaking experiential campaigns, interactive media projects, retail displays and art installations. Working alongside engineer Jon Sly, Felix’s role was often focused on creating concept sketches, CAD design, and fabrication. Using a CNC machine, lathes, and a 3D printer, the team was able to produce specially machined components in-house to create a range of awe-inspiring projects.
Selected works are documented below.
Glenfiddich
The Finishing Touch (2015)
Tenhertz was approached by Sibling and Rival to build a fully functional and sculptural installation for the Glenfiddich 21YO campaign. The idea was to use cymatics to create a visual display with whisky in response to live music performed by the Co-operative Scottish Orchestra and a Caribbean band.
A total of seven apparatuses were built specially designed to pick up different frequencies and manipulate the whisky making it ‘dance’ in time to the music. Four of them created geometric patterns on the surface of the whisky while others caused downward-flowing liquid to spiral and curl each time a note was played.
The most complex device was able to levitate the whisky itself; literally suspending a droplet of the 21-year-old in mid-air using ultrasonic sound waves. As a grand finale, the hovering droplet settled into a perfect sphere before gracefully falling into the bottle.
Sky
DVD Launcher (2014)
A one-of-a-kind DVD shooting machine made for a live-streaming competition event held by Sky and administered using Twitter. The ‘Sky Launcher’ was designed to randomly sway while launching DVDs at a large set of purpose-built shelves illustrating the name of their new Sky Store product “Buy & Keep”. Users tweeted to enter the competition with their Twitter handle assigned to each shot. Prizes included a 4k flat curved screen TV and long-term cinema passes.
The Sky Launcher project was built in-house from concept sketches to delivery. Tenhertz prepared designs with CAD software and ran simulations to determine its mechanical movement and firing range. CNC cutting and 3D printers were used to create the one-off components ready for finishing with help from a dedicated polishing team.
Nastro Azzuro
The Sound Brewery Project (2016)
Tenhertz created a custom DJ booth to transform the textures of beer ingredients into music. Using water-filled tubing they developed a water based touchscreen and a pair of cymatic turntables that used a high specification laser. The laser turntables were designed to read the characteristics of the raw Nastro Azzuro ingredients similar to grooves of a record.
Pringles
Pringles & X-men: Days of Future Past (2014)
‘X-men: Days of Future Past’ and ‘Pringles’ co-branding YouTube ad campaign. The team designed and manufactured an elaborate machine that extracted ‘The Last Pringle’ from a can with help from the X-men. The machine represented major characteristics of three main X-men mutants and demonstrated their abilities through a chain reactive electro-mechanical sequence.
Using a range of motion control components and custom-built structural parts, our setup included: a robotic version of Wolverine's claws; a large speaker magnet for Magneto, and an air-duct leaf-blower system for Storm. The technically extravagant journey ended with an aperture style container to present the last Pringle in all its glory.
The film was directed by Chris Vincze and produced by Artists & Engineers. The production included scenes shot with Phantom 4k digital camera to capture the delicate movement of the crisp through the air at 1000 frames per second.
Cadburys
Twirl Bites TV Advertisement ‘Twirly-gig’ (2011)
A large-scale whirligig machine for the Cadbury ’Twirl Bites’ TV advertisement. The objective was to capture an elegant mixture of mechanical rotating objects to represent a playful and lightweight feel for the product.
Working with Yoann Lemoine and agency HSI London, many drawings were produced for the client. We worked with special FX company Mattes and Miniatures for the build. We designed the central section of the ‘Twirly-gig’, which was featured as a focal point in the film.
The director specified that everything had to be built for real without the use of CGI. The complexity and scale of such a project brought about many challenges for both us and the special FX team, but the whole thing was successfully completed within a very tight build time of one month.
