Chris Bathgate KDS1-VW

The KDS1-VW is a revived kinetic detent slider sculpture from Chris Bathgate’s Kinetic Detent Slider series, returning after a 7-year gap with refinements in machining, process, and material exploration. It reintroduces a signature piston-based detent mechanism that blends functional mechanical design with sculptural form and handcrafted wood and metal elements. This masterpiece come with its COA Specifications Designer: Chris Bathgate Model: KDS1-VW Series: Kinetic Detent Slider series Type: Functional art / kinetic sculpture / machined pocket sculpture Mechanism: Piston-style slider with spring ball detent locking system Materials: Machined metals combined with stabilized/exotic hardwood inlays (varies by selection) Wood examples shown: Boxelder (red and blue stabilized), Amboyna Burl (including sapwood variants), Chechen, Ironwood Design Features: Refined machining approach, updated process development, improved integration of wood elements Edition: Sign-up / edition release (as stated in announcement) Availability: Limited availability implied through sign-up format About the maker: Baltimore-based artist Chris Bathgate is a self-trained machinist. He utilizes handmade tools and automated CNC (computer numerical control) milling and drilling machines to create precisely-crafted elements that assemble into complex sculptures. Machining is his method of artistic expression. He has spent more than fifteen years adapting metalworking machinery from salvaged and repurposed equipment. Bathgate’s aesthetic considerations stem from the very machines that he uses to create his sculptures. Each piece that he makes is informed by the one it is preceded by, and he modifies his machinery accordingly—not for improved practical function but for the aesthetic developments that can be produced. Bathgate is unique in his formalist approach to precision machining as an art form. His entire body of work is an ongoing investigation into this concept. Process lies at the heart of his practice and it serves as the primary catalyst for his ideas. He evaluates his sculptures for form and visual composition in a continuous cycle of ideation, problem solving, fabrication, analysis, and revision, similar to systems engineering. Bathgate’s carefully composed technical diagrams are evidence of his gestaltist outlook in which the whole may be deconstructed into its elements. Playing with the tension between aesthetic vs. utility, form vs. function, and industrial vs. handmade, Bathgate’s interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of art, craft, and design. It serves as an example of how computer-mediated fabrication may bridge the divide between art, craft, and industrial production in the Digital Age.