Last week, in a world premiere at the MB&F M.A.D. Gallery, Zurich clockmaker Miki Eleta presented his latest timepiece and largest creation to date.

HIPPOCAMPUS is a 2.8 metres high clock, with an Eleta escapement –escapement of his own- set in action with an anchor of the shape of a sea-horse, and featuring a musical movement in which the melody does not repeat itself over a hundred years.

Miki had been creating kinetic sculptures and didn’t know anything about clock making until 2001 when a client questioned the precision of his pieces... Miki took up the challenge and offered to create a full-fledged clock to prove that his work was precise. Knowing absolutely nothing about clock-making design, it takes him only a year to become fully knowledgeable and complete his first horological piece.

Left: Miki Eleta’s HIPPOCAMPUS piece - Right: Miki Eleta

It is more out of tenacity than anything else that this unconventional completely self-taught clockmaker, 63, focused his life just over a decade ago to the creation of two extraordinary clocks every year. Since 2005, Miki has been a member of the prestigious Horological Academy of Independent Creators (AHCI) which has led him to exhibit at Baselworld in the academy section.

THE ‘NON-CLOCKMAKER’ – CREATOR OF 28 CLOCKS

“Nothing is impossible. I’m not more intelligent than other people,” he says, “just more tenacious.”

Completely self-taught, Miki Eleta has become a full-fledged clockmaker. He created his own escapement called the ELETA-HEMMUNG and regulates many of Miki’s complicated clocks.

Six of Miki’s unique pieces will be on exhibition at the MB&F M.A.D. Gallery from the 19th of January until mid-February.

The CONTINUUM MOBILE is a timepiece powered by a falling weight and features a tourbillon visible above the oblique axis. The weight powers the gear train, causing it to advance. Miki calls the Continuum his “inspiration clock.” When he doesn’t have it, he is lost. When he is lost for inspiration, a situation that occurs, by his own admission, very rarely, Miki gazes at this clock. The winding mechanism is located within the column and it is rewound using a key to generate 100 hours of power reserve.

The PENTOURBILLON is a timepiece with a flying double tourbillion and two distinct mechanisms. On the left part of the clock was created the tourbillion to showcase the magic and beauty of its escapement. The petals of the flower at the back of the timepiece open and close as day transforms into night. The right part features a “simple” clock where the indicators are two long dials

Left: LA LUNA - Right: CONTINUM MOBILE

LA LUNA is a double pendulum clock constructed from a 1.2 metre steel and chrome column. The jumping hour becomes visible before the full hour. In addition to the indication of the hours, minutes and seconds, the timepiece displays phases of the moon, signs of the zodiac and the different seasons.

N°26 has an Eleta chronometer escapement that produces an impulse every two seconds and holds a power reserve of eight days. The winding weight is astonishingly light – only 200 grams. The phase of the moon indicator makes up part of this weight and is linked ‘mysteriously’, i.e. without a visible mechanism, to the movement.

DIE SIEBEN is not a clock but a kinetic sculpture possessing tiny steel balls that travel through passageways, creating an interplay that is both visual and acoustic. Measuring nearly 1.4 metres in height and 60 centimetres in diameter, DIE SIEBEN chimes 16 different tones using 16 passageways around the clocks circumference, where the steel balls move along touching 16 pentatonic cylinders and 47 gears. These gears return the balls through the passageways to the sound of a tune that only repeats itself every seven years.

Source: MB&F