Skull I

Typewriter parts

9”x12”x15”

23cmx30cmx38cm

Jeremy Mayer 

2012

Back of the skull.

Contemporary automata are often fun and whimsical. This playful nature can mask the fact that they are also capable of taking on serious social issues. Here is an automaton by Nick Hunn that makes a statement about the a serious political debate in the UK.

The artist explains the background of this automaton:

In the UK there’s a political debate raging about reform in our National Health Service, which is polarising opinion at a national level. I thought it might be fun to try and represent the limited abilities of the political figures involved in the debate. And what better way than to reprise the theme of the three wise monkeys, oblivious to everything that goes on around them.

Not only does the artist get to say something about the socio-political debate, but he is able to do it in a humorous way. Like the political cartoon, automata can engage with a broad audiences — perhaps provoking them to think about and discuss important issues.

To see some other automata that address social issues:

• Jon Haddock’s automata entitled Andrew Meyer (Don’t Tase Me Bro’) and The Doctor’s Dilemma
• Arrogance, an automaton by Pablo Lavezarri
• Dominic Wilcox series of miniature kinetic sculptures
• The background history of Tippoo’s Tiger – automaton and organ
• Shipwreck, an automaton by Carlos Zapata
• Against the Idea of War – automata exhibit by the Modern Automata Museum

Big Thanks to all who came out to Natural Selection last weekend!  For those who couldn’t, I’ve uploaded a collection of images to Flickr and Facebook.

If you can’t see the slideshow below you can view the images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nemomatic/sets/72157629728025960/

Or here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150969884489187.482278.66801769186&type=1

I am very excited to announce that my recent string piece was accepted into the 2012 Beam Festival hosted by Brunel University, Uxbridge. The festival is dedicated to the physical nature and live performance of electronic music.

From their web site – “ BEAM is a high-tech music weekender, a playground of homemade instruments and sonic installations, where you can listen to, watch and learn how to create your own physically living electronic music.  BEAM was devised by Artistic Director Sarah Nicolls to explore the potential physicality of electronic music. The focus on electronic music being created LIVE is explored through a programme of performances, demonstrations, installations and workshops. BEAM brings together a global audience of artists, researchers, DiY electronics builders and enthusiasts, from beginners to veterans.”

I am honored, and a bit intimidated, to be a part of something that is not only a huge interest of mine, but also full of people that are far more advanced in this kind of stuff than I am. I hope to rob them of as much knowledge as I possible can.

-Stay tuned

I am very excited to announce that my recent string piece was accepted into the 2012 Beam Festival hosted by Brunel University, Uxbridge. The festival is dedicated to the physical nature and live performance of electronic music.

From their web site – “ BEAM is a high-tech music weekender, a playground of homemade instruments and sonic installations, where you can listen to, watch and learn how to create your own physically living electronic music.  BEAM was devised by Artistic Director Sarah Nicolls to explore the potential physicality of electronic music. The focus on electronic music being created LIVE is explored through a programme of performances, demonstrations, installations and workshops. BEAM brings together a global audience of artists, researchers, DiY electronics builders and enthusiasts, from beginners to veterans.”

I am honored, and a bit intimidated, to be a part of something that is not only a huge interest of mine, but also full of people that are far more advanced in this kind of stuff. I hope to rob them of as much knowledge as I possible can.

-Stay tuned

Big show tonight folks!  Don’t come if you don’t like awesome.

305 Center Street, Oakland CA 5-9PM

Street art in India is very different from the its relatives in the US. During my recent trip through the sub-continent I saw lots of murals especially in the city of Varanasi. Some were new and fresh while others were quite old and showed years worth of wear and tear.

The more I saw, the larger my questions grew about the lineage of the imagery. Some of the more recent works seemed to have been influenced by contemporary American artists like Shepard Fairey. (Someone please direct me to some reading on the interface between post-modernism and non western art.) However Fairey, like many American and European street artists employing the notion of “mash-up culture”, borrow heavily from many sources, including ancient religious art, especially Hindu works.

Radiating lines emanating from the subject’s head, vivid colors,  geometric shapes, animal imagery, halos and incorporated text all have strong roots in Hindu art and (by far) pre-date contemporary street art, and yet I still don’t think all of the imagery I saw in India was directly decedent from their ancient religious work. It seemed as if some of it had passed through a cultural (western) filter and came out on the other end slightly modified.

So, for any art history geeks out there I ask, is it fair to say that traditional Hindu art had a large influence on western street art, but through globalism, that western street art has come back around to influence the artists working in India today?

-Stay Tuned

Almost done. Skull I. 

Here is a quick video of master carpenter, Norm Abram showing a tool box designed and built by a piano builder from Boston named Henry Studley. 

Studly’s level of skill is so high that I am intimidated just by looking at it. This is to say nothing of the consideration I have given to the patients he must have exercised while building it.

Work like this is truly Zen like as the builder must achieve a focus so sharp that it actually begins to blur the lines of consciousness and different states of mind. In my experience, the closest I have come to this is still miles away from the radiance of this tool chest.

One day I hope to be half as skilled as Henry Studley.

-Stay Tuned

Another good friend of The Automata / Automaton Blog, Charles Mak, has an article in the June edition of Creative Woodworks & Crafts magazine.

From the article introduction:

Why limit your scroll sawing skills to making plaques, puzzles, or portraits only? With a scroll saw, you can build one-of-a-kind mechanical sculptures (a layman’s term for automata) that are not only fun to design and make, but also to play
with. I titled this wildlife piece “Running for their Lives” because it depicts a herd of moose running away from their
predator (a grizzly bear crank handle)! The mechanism used in this project is called a crank slider, which converts rotational
motion to back-and-forth motion. You can use the same mechanical design to feature other characters (joggers,
for example) or other scenes. The character and design choices are limitless.

Here is where you can order the issue of Creative Woodworks & Crafts magazine with Charles Mak’s automaton article.

As you may already know, Daniel Yasmin and I had our proposal approved for funding by the Burning Man art dept this year.

We submitted a design for an interactive, immersive sound sculpture that uses vibrating springs and visitor participation to create a low frequency environment.

This is especially exciting for me for two reasons:

The first is that I am collaborating with a new friend and musician and hope to learn a lot about percussion, the behavior of sound waves and their influence on the human body. The second reason is that for the first time I am in the manager’s seat. All of my previous collaborative work was on the design and fabrication side. With this project I hope to gain the necessary skills to push my career forward.

I signed the contract this afternoon and our first check is on its way.

Make sure to check back here to see our progress with this piece over the next few months.

Here we go!

-Stay Tuned

The What:

The Sub-Sonarium is an exploration of the psychology that surrounds the associations between sound and emotions. It is an immersive, kinetic, interactive sound sculpture that synthesizes uncontrollable forces in a controlled environment. Standing eighteen feet tall with an equal footprint, it encourages visitors to sit, relax, listen and participate.

The How:

The Sub-Sonarium mimics the chaotic sounds of rolling thunder via acoustic, percussive mechanisms. Its chamber contains a series of long, dangling springs that are connected to large membranes embedded in the ceiling. Interacting with these springs causes movement to travel up to the membranes creating vibrations in the surrounding air.

The Why:

At times it seems there is little escape from the fast pace, high frequency existence that we have created. RF signals blanket the air, satellites clog our atmosphere and electrons flow through endless of miles of cable woven in a network that insnares almost everything on the planet.  Similar to the way a thunderstorm releases the humid tension in the air, Sub-Sonarium is a physical, mental and spiritual re-boot. It was designed to bring temporary relief from hyper-reality based anxiety through immersion in an audible, low frequency environment similar to those used to bring shifts in consciousness and achieve meditative states.

Throughout my childhood, when the deaths of celebrities from my parents generation were reported, I was always fascinated by the sincere reactions and expressions of loss by my family members.

I  wondered  what it might be like in the future when musicians and artists that I looked up to began to pass away. For some reason I had always thought that Ice-T would be the first to go and wondered how that would effect me.

Today I am beside myself having just heard of the passing of MCA. Not only was he one of my favorite musicians, but also a pioneer of Hip Hop, a genre of music that belonged exclusively to my generation.

The Beastie Boys formed as a group in 1979, two years after my birth. When I was eight years old I got the License to Ill album in 1985 and have closely followed the group since.

MCA had always been my favorite member of the trio representing that which attracted me most to the group’s music. His scratchy voice seemed antithetical to the flow of the rhymes, but because the genre was still so young and shapeless, it worked perfectly. He was perhaps one of the least likely people to have such a large part of  the evolution of Hip Hop. Nevertheless he was a strong presence in the Beastie Boys and the genre as a whole who brought lyrics and content that always resonated with me.

Ad Rock and Mike-D, the other members of the group were the source of energy and humor respectively, but MCA was the soul of the group and I am deeply saddened to hear of his death.

-Stay Tuned

Further progress on Skull I. Almost done. 

I’ll be showing it next Friday at this show.

Come by if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

I have been buying from and recommending ServoCity.com for a very long time for RC servos and small motors. I just found that they have added an even wider range of gearmotors, including micro-gearmotors in a block shape with nice mounting holes on different axes. Their selection of chains, sprockets, gears, wheels, and brackets is fantastic, and I have always appreciated the accessible way they present it all. Oh, and their prices are great too. Click here for the gearmotor page.

Automata maker Pablo Lavezzari has just gotten in touch to tell me about his new piece entitled Vintage Training Robotic Arm. The piece depicts a mechanical hand and arm made of wood, copper, and bronze. The automaton is operated via a complex system of levers, pulleys and wires, as though it were a robot from the Victorian era that had yet to be hooked up to a steam power source and Jacquard loom punch-card program.

As usual, the artist has a keen attention to detail. The robotic arm comes with a test which entails grasping a ball, picking it up, and moving from one station to another while an hourglass tracks your time to the grain.

A round-up of posts and links about robotic training arms:

• Fantastic robotic arm made entirely from wood 
• Build and operate a Darth Vader robotic arm 
• Edge Robotic Arm Kit 
• The Robotic Chess Companion
• LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System 2.0 – Robotics
• OWI Robotic Arm Trainer

The Tech Hive Beta Blog posted this yesterday about the ArtGameLab currently on exhibit at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

My friend and collaborator Sudhu Twari and I, along with three others, answered a call from the SFMOMA to design an interactive game that engages museum visitors in playful ways.

We based our game on a series of physical movements that correspond to common words used in art discourse.

The exhibit runs until August so the next time you are at the SFMOMA, swing throught the education center on the second floor and check it out.

-Stay Tuned

Our good friends Michael and Maria Start who run the House of Automata in Scotland are two of the world’s foremost restorers of antique automata. Michael served as the horological and automata expert on the recent film Hugo. The couple is featured in this short BBC audio-enhanced slideshow, in which they talk about the long history of automata, their love for automata, and why other people are drawn to these mechanical wonders. Well done!

Here’s where you can see the the Automata in the modern age audio-enhanced slide show.

In case (no pun intended) you missed it, this video shows a marvelous Rube Goldberg (or Heath Robinson, if you prefer) contraption contained within two suitcases. Its purpose: stamp a message on a postcard and apply the postage.

From the Vimeo description:

Conveniently built in two old suitcases, Melvin the Mini Machine is a Rube Goldberg machine specifically designed to travel the world. Each time Melvin fully completes a run, he ‘signs’ a postcard and sticks a stamp to it – making it ready to be sent.

You can more about this machine and it’s bigger brother on the Melvin the Machine web site.

[ Thanks Aaron! ]

Here is the video for my new piece: ”High Voltage“ 2012 (102” x 65” x 24”)

New piece to share: “High Voltage“ 2012 (102” x 65” x 24”)

This sculpture uses an effect known as a “Jacob’s Ladder”.  A high voltage arc is produced by way of a neon sign transformer, and then transmitted up the electrodes in the sculptures head.  I’m personally very pleased with the movement with this one.  All the action is generated within the abdomen.  The little pistons in the ankles act as shock absorbers to smooth out the motion.

Materials:

Industrial water valve, scaffold tubing, street light support arms, glass tube, vacuum cleaners, lamp fixtures, bicycle pedal cranks, neon sign transformer, gears from floor polisher, magnifying lens, drain cover, high voltage vacuum tubes, hydraulic dampers, plastic, phenolic, motor, LEDs

Here is the video for my new piece:

“Cycloptopus” 2012 (65” x 57” x 29”)

Cycloptopus is a fearsome hybrid of two of my favorite monsters, one real, one mythical.  This creature is particularly dangerous because of its irritability.  You’d be irritable too if you were powered by an open flame and your body was made of wood.

Materials:

Radio cabinets, rocking chairs, fake fireplace, decorative clock elements, cabinet knobs, wall paper, chair parts, lamp parts, wheel hub, motors, LEDs

In 2007, the marvelous Maillardet automaton at the Franklin Institute was in need of some attention. Andrew Baron from New Mexico was selected for the restoration work. How does it come to pass that a man best known for his clever paper engineering for pop-up books ends up work on a two hundred year old metal automaton?

Andrew Baron has created an essay and web site to answer this question. On the web site, we also learn about his association with the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian O. Selznick. The essay offers other fascinating details of Baron’s time with the Maillardet automaton. Take for example, this excerpt in which we learn that he was able to restore motions to the automaton that had not been seen in recent history:

The restoration detail I’m most proud of is that I was able to restore the graceful, life-like movement of the automaton’s head and eyes, as though the moving figure is thoughtfully engaged in its own act of creation. Although the automaton had seen prior and major restoration efforts between 1871 and 1981, this elegant movement that imparts so much character was lost for more than a century and hadn’t been seen by any living person.

The web site also features some nice photographs and imagery — some of it drawn by the automaton itself. For those who really want all the details of the restoration work, Andrew Baron has included his Automaton Restoration Report.

Here is where you can visit Andrew Baron’s web site, My Time with the Hugo Automaton.

Baron will also be presenting two different Hugo/automaton related slide shows, at the invitation of the Midwest Watch and Clockmakers Association in Minneapolis on May 4 & 5. For further details on the event visit: http://www.mwca.us/

The good folks over at MAKE have created an awesome step-by-step video showing you how to make a paper automaton featuring the video game character Mario. The plans are free to download, and the video shows you exactly how to go about assembling it for yourself.

I provided a bit of guidance to the video’s creator, Meg Allan Cole, and am honored to have been featured in the post on MAKE and in the video itself as an example of the kind of automaton that can be made from wood. Thanks Meg! Thanks MAKE!

Here is where you can down the free plans and parts for this paper Mario Brothers automaton. For additional plans for paper and wood automata, check out the automata plans page on dugnorth.com.

I’ll be showing this here skull at the May 11-12th group show, “natural selection”, here at my studio.

Click on the image for details about the show. 

Kinetic sculptor Tim Prentice is profiled in this lovely video. Prentice makes large hanging pieces that interact with the air to create captivating patterns of motion, light, and form. The 18 minute video follows Prentice around his pastoral home and studio in New England as he works on various pieces. His narration leaves no doubt in the viewer that Prentice has thought deeply about his art, but he does so in a way that is clear and unpretentious. It’s a pleasure to hear him speak.

There is a new book available about the work of Tim Prentice titled Drawing on the Air: The Kinetic Sculpture of Tim Prentice. Due out in June of 2012, the book features the work of of a man whose sculptures “allow you to see the air” in his words. His sculptures may be seen in public spaces and corporate headquarters throughout the United States as well as in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Australia. His work is also in over 150 private collections. The book is a beautiful 9″ x 9″ hardcover format. The book may be pre-ordered now at Amazon.

Science Fiction has had an immeasurable influence on the work that I do and the person I am. Having been born in the 1970′s automatically makes me a member of a special group of people who got to experience Star Wars when it was fresh and new, and let me tell you, it was a powerful force on my, and many other young minds.

No small part of that was because of Ralph McQuarrie, the concept artist responsible for creating the look of some of the most famous and infamous characters in the history of Sci-fi.

Ralph passed on this week at the age of 82. With the passing of Mobius a few months back, 2012 has been a sad year me, for sci-fi, and the art world.

Thanks guys, I own you one.

-Stay Tuned

This is channel 7’s report on the Open Make: Tools show at the Exploratorium on March 17th. A hilarious moment around 1:01 with me explaining in a nutshell why I build a machine to lick lollipops…

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Fassignment_7&id=8630367

I had the honor of being interviewed for a brief history of automata. The documentary was included as a featurette on the two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo release of the movie Hugo, a Martin Scorsese film.

A few short segments in which I speak have been released previously. I posted about them here, here, and here. The producer of the documentary, EMC West, has just created a page for the project on their site which includes the first 5 minutes of the 13 minute long featurette. Other speakers in the film includes director Martin Scorsese, special effects expert Dick George, automata artist Thomas Kuntz, and several others.

From the EMC West web site:

One of the key elements of the five-Oscar-winning Hugo is the part of the story which revolves around an automaton. Did such an automaton exist? If it did, how would it work? These questions are answered in this fascinating tour of the history of automata, from ancient Greece to modern-day masters of creating clockwork life.

Here is where you can view the first 5 minutes of the documentary The Mechanical Man at the Heart of Hugo on the EMC West web site.

Here’s a video that shows Cabaret Mechanical Theatre when it was located in Covent Garden, London. Founder Sue Jackson provides a tour 1997 for a Thai TV program (in English with subtitles). For those of us who never made it to Cabaret in these years, this is a wonderful taste of what we missed. For those that did visit, I am sure it will bring fond memories flooding back.

From the video description:

Have a tour around the original Cabaret Mechanical Theatre which had 69 machines all operated by push button. See Paul Spooner’s amazing Last Judgement, and his famous Manet’s Olympia. Watch Keith Newstead’s Economic Cycle and Domestic Bliss in action, and Tim Hunkin’s Barman serves the drinks.

This second video is from the mid 1990s. In it you will see founder Sue Jackson, automata from Keith Newstead, Peter Markey, Paul Spooner, and Ron Fuller. All classics!

You can still visit Cabaret Mechanical Theatre’s web site and their traveling exhibits.

Here is a video of my short presentation at the Exploratorium in San Francisco last weekend.  It takes you through the basic process of making a sculpture, followed by an overview of my work in general.

Thanks for all of those that attended last week’s Cambridge Mini Maker Faire. Thanks also to everyone who stopped by my table and said hello. I hope you enjoyed my automata and turning the cranks for yourself.

Thanks also to:
the organizer, Chris Conners
the host, Cambridge Science Festival
the sponsor, Artisan’s Asylum
and of course….MAKE Magazine!

For more info on the event check out the Cambridge Mini Maker Faire web site and this Flickr pool covering the event.

Found this beautiful typewriter repairman’s logo decal on a doomed Olivetti today.

Wow Paul Spooner, he’s huge!

Seriously though, one of my heros.

Sudhu Twari and I contributed a piece to this social / art experiment conducted by Erica Gangsei in the SFMOMA’s Education Dept. 

This is an archive of the Twitter conversation that took place during our ArtGameLab panel on 4/19/12. The panelists discussed game design, gaming culture, gamification, and the rise of so-called “serious games” — games played for an educational or training objective instead of for entertainment.

-Stay Tuned

The master of mechanical paper sculpture has done it again. Here is Rob Ives’ latest project — a shaking chameleon whose motion is powered by a swinging pendulum. It’s an ingenious new application for a well-know mechanism. The chameleon project will be available for to purchase and download very soon.

See more paper sculpture and automata by Rob Ives on his web site.

I’m doing a show here at my studio May 11th and 12th, along with the fine fine work of Aimee Baldwin (vegantaxidermy.com), Scott Hove (mshove.com), Nemo Gould (nemogould.com), and Jesse Small (jessesmall.com). 

If you’re in the Bay Area come by and check it out. Hope to see you here! Yeah, you.

Click through to the Facebook invite. 

Here’s a really interesting antique French clock dating to around 1890. The automaton figure points to the hour and the minutes.

From the eBay description:

The gilded robed goddess standing atop the marble base has her arms outstretched. The hand of her right arm points to the hour, and the left hand points to the minutes, which are delineated in 5-minute increments. The gilding contrasts most beautifully with the blue enameled backdrop behind the goddess.

The platform escapement movement works perfectly, translating the clockworks through a clever linkage to the two arms, which when they reach their uppermost point fall dramatically to the lower starting position.

Here’s where you can see the full listing including many nice photographs of this Antique French Bras en L’air Clock Automaton.

This is my latest attempt to solve the puzzle of user interface. You’re looking at a photography dark room timer routed to a high amp relay. The user pushes the bright red button to activate up to six sculptures plugged in to the back of the box for a period of one to sixty seconds. This provides people with something they can interact with without exposing the art to mishandling. UV LEDs make use of the timers glow in the dark face.

I’m thrilled to be one of the exhibitors at the Boston-area Cambridge Mini Maker Faire to be held this Friday, April 20th. The Mini Maker Faire this year will be coordinating with the Cambridge Science Festival and their Carnival event.

I’ll be bringing a bunch of carved figures, prototypes, and finished wood automata. You will also be able to see videos of my other work. Come turn a crank, ask me about good books on mechanical things, and hear about how I got on the Blu-ray release of Hugo. If you get there early, the kids (old and young) can score a nifty Dug North Automata sticker.

This recent video profile of me shows most of the pieces you will be able to see in person at the Cambridge Mini Maker Faire:

Cambridge Mini Maker Faire Details:
Date: Friday, April 20
Time: 12:00PM to 4:00PM
Where: Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, tennis courts
Cost: Admission to the Cambridge Mini Maker Faire is free!

See you there!

Engineer and Toy Designer, Roberto Lou Ma, has done it again! He has come up with a new take on a classic wooden toy. He has created a rope-climbing monkey toy out of wood. As is his custom, he has provided free plans for making the toy. The plans are in Spanish, but with the detailed pictures and measurements provided, most people should be able to figure how make the toy themselves — even if they don’t know Spanish.

Here’s what the climbing monkey toy looks like up close:

Here is the link to the free plans for a wooden rope climbing monkey toy.

Standoff.