A 3meterhigh cattleshaped and four smaller calfshaped mechani cal sculptures featuring traditional Chinese elements debuted on the stage ofthe China Central Television Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Ox in February, attracting more attention to their creator Xiao Di.
With his steampunkstyle crea tions, the 45yearold entrepre neur based in Dalian, Liaoning province, aims to be an icon of “giant creature mechanical instru ment art”in China.
According to Xiao, the cattle shapes were inspired by traditional woodworking forms such as carv ing, mortise and tenon and wooden connecting rods.
“Actually, they are the smallest ones I’ve made. I love to make giant sculptures that look like they’re alive,”he said.“Something huge is something amazing.”
The first one Xiao made was an 11meterhigh mechanical horse that weighs 47 metric tons.
It was transported to Kaifeng, Henan province, in 2019 and has become a tourist attraction at a theme park.
A video clip showing Xiao inter acting with the horse has attracted more than 1.8 million clicks on the shortvideo platform Douyin. In the clip, the horse blinks, lowers its head, opens its mouth and puffs toward Xiao while he gently fon dles its face.
“The horse can reach 12 meters high while rearing up, and its head is nearly 3 meters long. Undoubtedly, its‘interaction’with people can have a strong visual impact,” Xiao said.
He said it is the first giant, bionic mechanical art sculpture in China.
Using intelligent control and rea sonable logical programming, the horse is operated by four people who make it“walk”using wheels, rear up and move its face like a real horse. It can move as fast as 5 kilo meters per hour.
It took Xiao and his team about three years and 15 million yuan ($2.3 million) to make the horse. They won more than 20 patents and made more than 3,000 drawings during planning.
The main body of the horse is a complex steel skeleton with 98 joints. It is powered by a diesel engine, which is also a generator. The fuel directly powers the larger pieces of equipment, including the wheels, while the electricity gener ated is used to move smaller parts such as the ears and eyes.
The overall shape of the horse emulates that of the tricolored glazed pottery horses from the Tang Dynasty (618907).
Xiao said his educational back ground and lifelong love of sculp ture were the primary drivers of his works, which require the perfect combination of art installation and hightech mechanical design.
Xiao has shown great interest in structural design since he was a child. His office is stuffed with all kinds of toys from the world of ani mation, film and television.
Although Xiao was determined to study at a fine arts college, he was admitted to the Dalian University of Technology, majoring in power engineering.
“Four years of studying power engineering didn’t stop me from pursuing my dream of art. Instead, it laid a foundation for me to enter the hightech cultural tourism industry later,”he said.
After completing his undergradu ate studies, he sought a master’s degree in sculpture. In fact, tricol ored glazed pottery, the inspiration for his mechanical horse design, was the subject of his thesis.
In 2005, Xiao established his own company, Dalian Betop Culture Technology. The company, which focuses on the development and operation of hightech cultural excursion products, has earned a good reputation among domestic theme parks.“The idea of making ‘giant creature mechanical instru ment art’comes from our continu ous efforts to help our clients attract more tourists,”Xiao said.
Besides the first mechanical horse in Kaifeng, there’s another in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and a mechanical ox is in Zhengzhou, Henan.
Xiao’s team is making a bixie, a creature from Chinese mythology which is believed to turn calamities into blessings, for a theme park in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. It will be 13 meters long, 8.8 meters high and weigh 60 tons.
“This is a huge market, but we don’t want to sell them like mass produced commodities. Each one should be unique,”he said.
With each weighing dozens of tons, it is not easy to make the sculp tures look exquisite.“Fortunately, we’re based in Dalian, a port city that boasts the best shipbuilders,” Xiao said, adding that they have found a dozen reliable factories for mechanical design, manufacturing and other related business.
In addition to the industrial foun dation, Dalian, with beautiful scen ery and a comfortable environment, is especially suitable for creative work, he added.
Xiao said he wants to build a theme park full of his mechanical structures depicting cultural ele ments.“There are so many good inspirations from Chinese mytholo gy,”he said.
Xiao also said he dreams of going global.“Maybe one day I can sell a team of 10 giant mechanical camels to a theme park in the Middle East,” he said.
