Ingenious box for a Japanese automaton serves as container and performace stage

Check out this cleverly designed box that houses this tumbling acrobat automaton and serves as the base for its performance! A description of this box may be found on pages 152 and 153 of the book Japanese Automata, Karakuri Zui: An Eighteenth Century Japanese Manual of Automatic Mechanical Devices by Murakami-san (Murakami, Mr. Kazuo .

The man in the movie is Edo period karakuri specialist, Minesaki-san (Minesaki, Mr. Sougo). The container and the automaton are replicas of 18th century items which he made.

Here is where you can download sample pages and order the book Japanese Automata, Karakuri Zui: An Eighteenth Century Japanese Manual of Automatic Mechanical Devices.

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A trio of zipper-mouthed film canister creatures by Nemo Gould

Check out this recent piece by artist Nemo Gould titled Zip Synch. The heads for the strange and endearing creatures are small zippered film canisters.

From Nemo Gould's web site:

The inspiration came from the little film canisters that form their heads. I had done this once before with the piece "Head Case #2". Recently I came across several more cases at a flea market and couldn’t resist making a chorus line of them.

In addition to the film canisters, the piece is made from sprockets, chain, gears, motor, LEDs, mirrored plastic, and wooden box.

See more kinetic sculpture by Nemo Gould on his web site.

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A short interview with automaton-maker Tom Haney

Head on over to the artistaday.com site to read a short profile of automaton artist Tom Haney. Haney's work has been featured on The Automata Blog dozens of times. He has a style all his own that many of us appreciate.

From the Tom Haney:

Any kind of mechanical movement has always been a fascination of mine and to combine this with figurative carvings became irresistibly compelling. After some time I learned about automata, "a moving mechanical device made in imitation of a human being", an ancient pursuit more thoroughly developed in the 13th – 19th centuries mostly in Europe but also in Asia. The work I create today is a modern offshoot of the time-honored European tradition of automata.

Shown above is a piece by Haney titled Departure. The distinctive carved figure, savvy use of motorized movement, carefully selected found objects, and lovely aged surfaces are all typical of Haney's work.

Here is where you can read the article about Tom Haney.

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How to build the box base for a wood automaton

The seventh article in my Automata Tips, Techniques and Tricks series for Cabaret Mechanical Theatre is now live! In this article, I write about how to make sturdy boxes to hold automaton mechanisms. There are dozens of good ways to make a box. I focus on one simple method using corner butt joints reinforced with wooden dowels. This method is easy to make, doesn't require any special cuts, and can be accomplished with a minimum of tools. Best of all, it allows you to assemble and disassemble the piece during the design and refinement phases of construction. This is a huge time saver!

Here is a link to the article on Building the Boxes for Wood Automata. Also be sure to check out the resources section for some recommended books and tools associated with this article.

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WALKING BOX - sculpture by Virginio Moutinho

Back in June of 2007, I wrote a short post about the Virginio Moutinho -- a portuguese architect, sculptor and photographer. The video above shows a very charming work of kinetic scuplpture by the artist. The piece features a wooden box with a human-like hand. When activated, the box pulls itself forward with the hand. Very creative!

You can see more artistic works by Virginio Moutinho on his web site.

[ Thanks Joe! ]

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How to make a surprise pop-out dragon box

A great little mechanical toy is shown in the video above. When you slide the top of the trick box open, a small but nasty little dragon suddenly pops out to tag you.

Here is the full set of instructions with photographs so you can make your own surprise pop-out dragon box.

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Sisyphus in Hiding by Dave Johnson

Dave Johnson continues his series of automata featuring Sisyphus of Greek myth. The results are impressive as always!

From the video description:

Here's our old pal Sisyphus again, this time trying to avoid his responsibilities by hiding in a box.

My core inspirations were these:
1) Claude Shannon's Ultimate Machine
2) The availability of a nice old microscope box.
3) The astonishing human capacity for denial.

This machine is a sort of cousin to the "Most Useless Machine" or "Ultimate Machine", originally built by Claude Shannon. (See http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archive... for some history.) Many versions can now be found on the internet, almost all of which use electronics. I wanted to get a similar effect purely mechanically.

Your can see still photos of the Sisyphus in Hiding automaton in this flickr set.

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Modular kinetic objects in boxes

Shown here is "The Sysiphos project" by Marco Iannicelli.

The Sysiphos project consists of modular kinetic objects in boxes. Made of aluminum, stainless steel, brass, and plywood, the modules are interchangeable and can be connected in a variety of combinations.

Here's a link to the artist's web site with more pictures of these modular kinetic boxes.

[ Thanks Joe! ]

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