Here's a donation box made by John Morgan as a commissioned for the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University.
The piece is made of poplar, basswood, lacewood, birch ply, brass, copper, and various electronic components. The donation box is a kinetic interpretation of four works of art in the permanent collection of the Jule Collins Museum of Fina Art.
The first automaton-themed convention, AutomataCon, took place last weekend in Morristown, New Jersey. The event brought together hundreds of artists, collectors, historians, educators, and enthusiasts of automata and other forms of kinetic art. I haven't been to many conventions, but I can say that this one was truly great.
The two day event was held at the lovely the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey. If you haven't visited the museum you might wonder why the convention was held there. The reason is straightforward and compelling: it is home to the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata -- one of the largest and important collections of its kind. Attendees could view the collection throughout the course of the event.
The stated goal of the convention was to gather people from around the world to share ideas, build relationships, and grow interest in automata new and old. In my personal experience, that is precisely what happened. There was a lot of energy all around as people met one another and shared projects, knowledge, and ideas.
The convention programming was outstanding, with two parallel tracks which ensured that there was something for people with different interests and experience levels. I was pleased to be part of two panel discussions. The first was a question and answer session with modern artists who included Tom Haney, Thomas Kuntz, Steve Armstrong, and Cecilia Schiller. The second panel was on the use of horological tools and techniques for making automata. This panel included Brittany Nicole Cox, Thomas Kuntz, and David Lindow. I am honored to have sat beside each and every one of these panelists. Other presentations at the conference included a rare film and talks on restoration, history, magic, and the making of automata.
The event included some very big names from many fields and universal enthusiasm. It was a unique, educational, and inspiring event. I would do it all over again in a hearbeat.
Hats off to event founder Brett King for his good work. Thanks to Jere Ryder and the Morris Museum for being key partners is this extraordinary event. Thanks also to the panelists who made the event so fun and informative. Finally, thank you to everyone who attended. You made the event great.
If you want to share an experience from AutomataCon, I encourage you to leave a comment below.
The folks over at the amazing Atlas Obscura blog did a great round-up of animal themed automata the other day. Among them was this life size peacock automaton created in 1777 by James Cox. The automaton is The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
From the video description:
Peacock clock at the State Hermitage Museum in Russia. Made in the 18th century by James Cox, an English clock maker, and sold to Potemkin (a favorite of the Catherine the Great) as spare parts. It took 9 years for a Russian mechanic named Ivan Kulibin to put it together again. Well worth it. It is run only once a year during June to preserve the mechanism, so you have very few chance to see it work. Made of gilded bronze silver and glass, it measures 3 meters in height. The dial of the clock is embedded into the head of a mushroom with a dragonfly moving on top to indicate the time.
Here's a wonderful film about The Museum of Automata in York, England.
Sadly, the Museum closed in 1996, and the collection is now in Japan. At least we have this 30 minute documentary to get a glimpse at what it once contained.
In the film, you will see a wonderful variety of automata including everything from fine antique examples to contemporary makers such as Frank Nelson and Jan Zalud.
This video comes to us by way of automaton enthusiast Sergio Pinese who obtained the film from the late artist Frank Nelson.
The magician is a soothsayer, who will answer certain questions contained on small plaques. The plates are inserted into a drawer and, after the appropriate amount of conjuring, the answer appears in a window in the top of the piece. It may not pass a Turing test, but it is a remarkable feat of engineering nevertheless. One of the two automata of this sort held by the museum answers the following questions:
1. A rare thing? (A friend)
2. What is too easily given? (A piece of advice)
3. What brings only illusory happiness (Money)
4. What is the greatest treasure? (Wisdom)
5. What does a girl of fifteen want? (To be sixteen)
6. The confidant of a newly married lady? (A Mirror)
7. A happy error? (Hope)
8. If no plate is put the drawer and the machine set in motion, a small devil appears!
When I posted the other day about the Toc de Fusta's kinetic street art installation, I mentioned that it took place at the closing event held at the Museu de Joguets | Autòmats (Toys and Automata Museum) in the Catalan city of Verdú. Sadly the museum closed its doors this past January. Hopefully, their collection will find a suitable new home. More news on that later. In the meantime, enjoy this short film showing the many fine Golden Age automata once on display at the museum.
This short film features the many collections of Richard Garriott de Cayeux -- video game developer, entrepreneur, and space traveler. Garriott built Britannia Manor to serve as his observatory, home, and occasionally, a giant interactive haunted house. An avid collector of amazing and unusual objects, Garriott's home could fairly be classified as a museum. In this film, magician Brad Henderson from Austin, Texas takes you through this extraordinary collection, room by room.
Among the countless wonders and secret passages, you will find a collection of historic space-related artifacts in Garriott's office, complete with one of the original Sputnik satellites. In the dungeon, you can stare in awe at the shrunken heads and vampire hunting kits. In the laboratory, you will find esoteric scientific instruments and orreries, mechanical models of the planets moving around the sun.
I know you guys will be most interested in Garriott's automata collection, featuring antiques as well works by almost all of the modern makers. The automata collection, vast as it is, can only be covered in part, but you do get to see the works of three artists who surely deserve the limelight.
First, you see Paul Spooner's inimitable wit and ingenuity play out in his Sex Change Machine and Poisoned Milk automaton. The mechanism that makes the cat's tongue seem to lap up the spilled milk is a fine example of Spooner's cleverness.
Next, you get a close-up view of the Argentinian artist Pablo Lavezzari's piece Facing a Fake Foe -- a detailed automaton-within-an-automaton depicting a knight fighting a dragon. The dragon, as it turns out, is a fake controlled by a small demon figure. The piece is also notable for its mechanically produced dragon roar sound effect.
Finally, you are shown a few of the macabre and magical automata created by Thomas Kuntz. Kuntz hand sculpts each of the figures and scratch builds the all of the mechanical elements for his pieces, often on vintage watchmaker's lathes. His autoamta seem to be the direct descendants of the most exquisite automata of centuries past. His piece titled L'Oracle du Mort is a modern masterpiece, featuring an oracle who -- with the help of two imps, the Grim Reaper, and a burst of real flame -- will answer your questions.
Amidst so many incredible automata, and artists whom I hold in the highest esteem, I'm dazed and delighted that one of my own pieces made it into the footage. A Dug North original, titled The Birthing Engine is shown and mentioned early on. I couldn't be more pleased.
This film is rare look at one of the finest collections of contemporary automata in existence. I am glad it was made and I am glad to have had the chance to share it with you.
Keith Newstead was comissioned by Exeter Museum to create an automaton to serve as a donations box. The patron donates some money into the machine and in return, it runs for a set period of time. It's a great system if you ask me.
The theme of this piece is 'The Museum Store Room'. The idea is that some of the museum's exhibits come to life when no one is watching. Here's one of Newstead's original sketches for the automaton:
As you can see, the final automaton stayed true to the original idea and brought the characters to life. He managed to incorporate a lot of different elements into one piece. I love the skeleton at the end!
The Paris Review recently featured a great article on the the Morris Museum and its fascinating collection of automata and mechanical music machines.
From the article Among the Automata:
The collection's permanent exhibit, more whimsical than steampunk in aesthetic, attracts huge numbers of schoolchildren during the week. Even empty, though, it felt busy, alive with click and chime and jingle. The sound is artificial: the objects are designed to move, but in a museum setting and for conservation purposes, they mainly can't. Behind their glass cases, the automata look more or less like dolls, albeit gorgeous in a kind of Baudelairean "old acrobat" way. But the museum provides videos in which the visitor can watch them move: the blinking calfskin eyelids, lips pulling back over a mouth of sharpened teeth, jointed fingertips tapping as they meander over a flute. There are animals, too: suede pigs with bellows inside them so they squeal while walking around on their little wheeled feet, a wind-up peacock that spreads its real feathered tail, a mournful-looking tiger that jerks suddenly upright.
Here is where you can read the full article Among the Automata by Jenny Hendrix.
Some time ago, I did a short post about Tipu's Tiger (AKA Tipoo's Tiger) on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The best I could do at the time was to link to a video on another site. Here is a demonstration of the automaton in which you get to hear the organ-based sounds meant to represent the tiger and its victim. Not quite as terrifying as one might imagine.
There is actually an organ built into the automaton itself which can be played. For a fascinating look inside of the piece and to see a Conservator play the organ, check out this video.
This video shows the famous Silver Swan automaton. Attributed -- at least its mechanism -- to John Joseph Merlin, this amazing automaton dates back to the 1773.
The life-size bird is driven by clockwork. The swan floats on a pool cleverly made of glass rods which rotate to give the illusion of moving water. When sent in motion, a music box plays, the swan turns its head, snatches a silver fish from the pool, and swallows it.
The Museum Speelklok in the Netherlands describes itself as "the most cheerful museum in the Netherlands". This video, featuring their astounding collection of mechanical wonders, makes their claim seem quite plausible to me.
From the site description:
Carillon clocks, musical boxes, Flötenuhren, pianolas, the singing nightingale, orchestrions including the famous Violina, street, fairground and dance organs; Museum Speelklok (before: the National Museum ‘From Musical Clock to Street Organ’) has it all. Guided tours of the museum take place every hour, when the instruments will be playing their repertoire varying from Viennese waltzes and tangos to tear-jerkers and the very latest hits. Besides presenting its collection, the museum takes great pleasure in organising special projects with well-known artists.
Among the permanent collections at the Musée d'horlogerie du Locle in Switzerland is the Maurice Yves Sandoz Collection, which includes automata. About Maurice Yves Sandoz from the museum's site:
Sensitive and generous, when he learned that the city of Le Locle wanted to create a museum to house its watch and clock collections at the Château des Monts, he donated an important part of his personal collection of automatons to his commune of origin. Along with his friends, the Professor Alfred Chapuis and Mr. Fred Cornaz, poet and amateur decorator, he designed the layout of the room that since that time bears his name. Not only did Maurice Sandoz possess admirable collections of watches, jewelry and automatons, he also wrote literary works in French, English, German, Italian and Portuguese. Remarkably multi-lingual, he was a man of many talents who held Doctor's degrees in both Letters and Sciences.
Reader Jerry Johansson wrote to ask about this amazing automata orchestra that is currently on display at the Technical and Maritime Museum in Malmo, Sweden.
Jerry writes:
Little is known about the orchestra but it's said to be constructed in England sometime during the 1920s. A well known Swedish toy expert came to the conclusion that the orchestra must have been serial made, but due to the size (it is life size) of the orchestra, and the rather complicated machinery, I don't find that statement plausible. I was wondering if you might have any information regarding robotic orchestras, or indeed any robotics manufactured in England during this time period?
For so little to be known about such a large and complicated system does seem a strange mystery. If you happen to know anything about this or similar automata bands, leave a comment at the end of this post.
Our colleagues at the Spiel und Kunst mit Mechanik blog have alerted us to some exciting news. A new automata museum has open in Brussels, Belgium featuring the following automata artists:
- Keith Newstead - Robert Race - John Grayson - J Ch Detallante - L & A St-Léger - Wanda Sowry - Philip Lowndes - Peter Lennertz - Neil Hardy - Jason Cleverly - James Chedburn - Jacques Jauniaux - Ian Mckay - Dominique Corbin - Carlos Zapata - Jon Mills - Jan Zalud
Master carver Per Heldorff began carving in the Swedish slöjd tradition and progressed to mechanical work incorporating cogs, wooden gears, and animated figures. As with most contemporary automata artists, his work often contains a whimsical element.
The work of master Swedish carver Per Heldorff will be featured at The American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. The exhibit is entitled "Wooden Gears and Swedish Gadgets" and runs from August 6th through September 28th, 2008.
Marvin Yagoda has been collecting vintage coin-operated machines since 1960. Open since 1990, his little museum is located a shopping mall north of Detroit in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The interior is filled with historical and modern arcade machines, sideshow wonders, fortune tellers, automata, and curiosities.
In case you missed it the other day, BoingBoing.net posted about a wonderful flickr photograph set of The Toy Museum in Prague, Czech Republic know as Muzeum hraček.
