Lucas Ainsworth & Alyssa Hamel have a Kickstarter appeal going for these cool mechanical creatures made in kit form out of cardboard. The animal moves either with a manual winding mechanism, or by itself if you build in an additional the gear kit.
(via @dugnorth)
So many strange things to consider when looking at these at these – craftsmanship, opulence, ironies regarding guns and birds, what will the buyer do with them apart from keeping them…
(via @kottke)
Here are some photos of the playful fountains just to the south of the Centre Pompidou, in Place Igor Stravinski. Most of them move, for instance the big lips make a slow mechanical nod, and others turn while spouting water. They were created by Niki de St-Phalle and Jean Tinguely. The graffiti snake was high up on one of the walls surrounding the square; I like that it reflects the snake in the fountain.
When I was there, aside from the coffee drinkers, lots of people were sketching, a bunch of boys were playing football, and some other kids were playing an elastics game.
I had been ingnoring all the posts about Boston Dynamics developing state-of-the-art robotic quadruped, Big Dog, because I just get otherwise like that sometimes, but having just relented, it really is amazing. I hate to see such big defense involvement in it though, and to read it described as an army mule.
Update: Funny
Vladimir Gvozdariki is a Russian artist who makes whimsical figures, animations and images. Some are pleasing in their simplicity, but I particularly like his complicated drawings of mechanized animal structures. They are in numerous places in his galleries, like here, here and here and here. I also like how some, like this fish, have made the transition from drawing to sculpture. I could imagine them being used theatrically, and some aspects -the whimsy and the technical details – remind me of some of Shaun Tan‘s creatures in The Lost Thing.
I also like Gvozdariki’s interest in snails and miniature worlds. How would you like to live here?
(via the wonderful BibliOdessy)
Update: I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and it’s influence since this post. Click here to go to search links to all those posts.
Update 2015 – removed and struck out some broken links
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I’m blown away by the French street theatre company Royal de Luxe’s amazing street parade, ‘The Visit of the Sultan of India Atop His Time-Travelling Elephant’, which took place in Nantes last week, in honour of the centenary of Jules Verne’s death. A rocket landed just outside the cathedral in place Saint Pierre, and from it a young giantess emerged. Together with the Sultan’s huge 11 metre tall elephant with a house built into its back, she explored the streets of Nantes, taking time to eat an icecream, ride a scooter, take a shower and nap, be lifted up onto the elephant’s trunk, and eventually to return to take off in her rocket again.
I’ve been collecting links! If you are short on time go to the ones with asterisks. (edited Oct 2014 to remove defunct del-icio.us link).
2007:
2006:
The Sultan’s Elephant in Antwerp (added 8 July 2006)
The Sultan’s Elephant in London (added 21 Apr 2006)
2005:
Nantes official site (in French):
Other photo galleries:
At Flickr:
Blog entries:
Amiens:
About Royal de Luxe:About Royal de Luxe (French sites):
Royal de luxe at Wikipedia (added July 2007)
Machines of Spectacle
‘Hunters of the Giraffes’ photo galleries:
‘The Giant’
Catamini Attraction
Poster
Tour dates:
2005:
2006: (only London confirmed as far as I know)
Chomick & Meder is a wonderful site detailing the figurative art and automata of Peter Meder and Chris Chomick. Most of the figures are one-of-a-kind doll art, standing between 30 – 50 cm tall, and with heads, hands and feet sculpted from Cernit (something akin to Sculpy, maybe?). The figures are beautifully dressed, too. But its the odd and amusing characters that really draw me in. Take Elvisan, or Baby Dewey, or JouJou L’Amour for instance.
A number of the figures have hand made automata mechanisms. These have been designed and machined by the artist, and consist of ‘an internal crankshaft, which enables the Automaton to operate at varied speed, in forward or reverse. The brass hand-crank mechanism operates a counterbalanced armature, creating a rhythmic side-to-side motion with alternating leg kicks’. In the automata gallery are three monkeys, Cecil and Emo, and the mad scientist Dr. Messmore, MD. With the last, the artist has been developing ‘a programmable automaton using servo electronics controlled by a laptop computer’ enabling ‘customized movements, essentially creating one-of-a-kind moving figurative sculptures’. Its described as an ongoing process, in which the ‘ultimate goal is to have the automaton operate independently of the computer, evolving from an educational tool to an art object desired by collectors of automata’.
Sometime last year I happened across the Flying Pig Gallery, a site which houses whimsical paper automata models for you to cut out and make. There are numerous models in kit form, such as this hopping kangaroo, while others like the Agreeable Sheep are free to download. There’s also a very cool section of animations that illustrate mechanisms that are used in automata. They assure us that no sheep were hurt in the making of the trebuchet animation :-).
Of course if you are interested in automata, and haven’t come across them already, you need to know about Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, a Museum of Automata (Mechanical Sculpture). In particular, follow the artists links to see some wonderful creations.
