A new class of soft-matter actuator, the liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), shows promise for application in a wide variety of mechanical microsystems. Frequently referred to as an ` artificial muscle', this family of materials exhibits large actuation stroke and generates considerable force, in a compact form which may easily be combined with the structures and devices commonly used in microsystems and MEMS. We show here how standard microfabrication techniques may be used to integrate LCEs into mechanical microsystems and present an in-depth analysis of their mechanical and actuation properties. Using an example from micro-optics and optical MEMS, we demonstrate that their performance and flexibility allows realization of entirely new types of tunable optical functionality.