Bir otomata yaşayan nesnelerin hareketini taklit eder. İnsanın keşfedici yeteneğinin ihtişamlı bir ifade şekli..
Bu web sitesinde dolaşırken bir zamanlar İngiltere York’ta yer alan Otomata Müzesi ile ilgili yukarıdaki tanıtım filmine rastladım. Otomata ile ilgilenenler ya da otomatanın tam olarak ne olduğunu öğrenmek isteyenler için çok güzel bir film. Bu müze 1996 yılında Japonya’ya taşınmış. (kaynak:The Automata Blog)
An automaton mimics the movement of living things. It is a glorious expression of human inventiveness. Created by man for the sheer enjoyment and entertainment of his fellow creatures.
I ran into this video while I was browsing this website.
This is a promotional film of Museum Of Automata once located in York, England. A wonderful collection to see for automata enthusiasts and for people who wants to understand what is automata. Museum was located in York, England but was closed in 1996 and collection moved to Japan. (via The Automata Blog)
Bluefish – Prince of Bosphorus from mert gokalp on Vimeo.
My friend Mert Gokalp is a marine scientist, photographer, videographer and documentary film maker, who spent his entire life on exploring the blue depths. After making of IRME an award winning “Sponge diving movie” in 2014, Mert and his team is now working on a 1.5 year long underwater documentary project about disappearing of Bluefish from Bosphorus waters.
One by one fish is disappearing from Bosphorus waters, the narrowest and most productive sea canal in the entire planet. The canal waters are busy in all terms, both underwater and above. Ferry traffic, small boats, water taxis, oil tankers coasters, private boats, fishing fleet. Nearly 20 million people living around, 20 million hungry people ! All that industry, pollution heavy fishing!
I was involved in making of IRME; his first underwater film. Now, I would like to invite you to either fund or promote through social media to help this wonderful project to come to life.
If you think that you could introduce the campaign to the people whom can aid, please do that. We will be most grateful.
Mekanizmalar.com is one of the websites I would recommend for automata makers. I am working on a new automaton and animations here help me a lot to plan the mechanism. There are videos of different mechanisms. On some of the pages, there are flash animations where you can change the values and see the result immediately.
Here I am attaching two screenshots from the website:
For more you can visit mekanizmalar.com..
Hayatta olmak ama olmamak garip birşey. Hayal gücümüz ve neye inandığımız ile neyin yaşıyor, neyin yaşamıyor olması arasındaki ince bir çizgi. Ve kolay ve basit. Binlerce yıldır var.
-Basil Twist
Bazı kitaplar var, tekrar tekrar okuyorum. Bazı filmler var, yıllardır arada bir mutlaka açıp tekrar izliyorum. Bazı şarkılar var, dinlemekten hiç yorulmuyorum. Kukla sanatçısı Basil Twist hakkındaki bu video onlardan biri. Kukla sanatını anlatma şekli ve gözlerindeki tutku…
Basil Twist bir yönetmen ve kukla sanatçısı. Su altı kukla şovu “Symphonie Fantastique” çok ünlü. BasilTwist’in şovlarını canlı olarak izleme fırsatım olmadı ama internetten takip ediyorum. Özellikle eski bir Japon sanatı olan kayan ekranlar tekniğini kullandığı “Dogugaeshi” inanılmaz.
Daha fazla bilgi için wikipedia sayfası, websitesini ziyaret edebilir ve The New Yorker tarafından hazırlanan belgeseli izleyebilirsiniz.
There is something kind of freaky about it being alive but not. And it’s a line between our imaginations and what we believe in and what’s alive and what’s not. And it’s basic and simple. It’s been going on for thousands of years.
-Basil Twist
There are some books, I read over and over again. Some films I watch again every once in a while. Some songs I never get tired of listening to. This video about the puppeteer Basil Twist is one of those. The way he describes puppetry and the passion in his eyes…
Basil Twist is a director, scenographer, puppetry artist. He is now best known for his underwater puppet show, “Symphonie Fantastique” I have never gotten a chance to watch his shows alive but have been following him online. I especially like the “Dogugaeshi” show where he uses the Japanese art form of sliding screens.
For more info wikipedia page, his website. and a video by The New Yorker about him..
Birkaç ay önce tekrar ahşaptan el yapımı otomaton yapmaya başladım. Kiftaro benim tamamlanmış ilk otomaton çalışmam. Bir kaç yıl önce stop motion film projem devam ederken bir atlı karıncaya başlamıştım ama o bitmedi.
Kiftaro’nun kabaca hazırlanmış bir videosu. Işıklandırma iyi değildi. Cep telefonuyla çektim ve Windows Movie Maker ile düzenlemek zorunda kaldım çünkü After Effects bilgisayarımda yüklü değildi. En azından Kiftaro’nun çalışması hakkında bir fikir verebilir diye düşünüyorum. Kolu döndüren el kocama ait bu arada 🙂
Kiftaro’yu bitirmem bir hayli zaman aldı. Mekanizmalar hakkında bilgim ve bir takım el aletlerim olsa da; doğru malzemeyi bulmak zaman aldı. Kullanılacak ahşap, vidalar, çubuklar,…
Arkada çalışan bir çubuk mekanizması var. Balığın yukarı aşağı hareketi bir kamdan geliyor. İlk önce bilgisayarda proje olarak çizdim. Sonra MDFden bir prototip hazırladım. Basit bir prototipti ama mevcut problemleri çözmemi sağladı.
Kiftaro adını kızım Zeynep koydu. Zeynep 8 yaşında. Yaptığım her çalışmada onun fikrini almayı, onunla oturup tartışmayı çok seviyorum. Bazen tamamen ayrı bir evrenden fikirlerle, yorumlarla karşıma çıkıyor. Bu otomaton şekillendiğinde baktı ve adı “Kiftaro” dedi. Hiçbir dilde anlamı olamayan bir kelime…
Bu tarz çalışmalarda en çok sevdiğim aşamalardan biri boyama. Ahşapla çalışmayı çok seviyorum. Yeni, eski, kullanılmış her türlü ahşabı alıp onu yıllar içinde eskimiş bir hale sokmak… Tarkovsky bunu “zamanın patinası” olarak tanımlıyor. Wabi-sabi… Bu inanılmaz Japon felsefesi ile ilgili detaylı bir yazı daha sonra yazacağım.
İlk çalışma olarak Kiftaro beni memnun etti. Ama tarz konusunda emin değilim. Başka bir tarzda otomaton daha tamamladım. Onunla ilgili yazıyı da hazırlayacağım.
Aşağıda yapım aşamaları ile fotoğraflar var. Tıkladığınızda büyükleri açılacak.
Dremel el motoru ve gerektiğinde elle oyma yapıyorum. İstediğim sonuca ulaşabiliyorum ama çoook fazla toz çıkıyor. Bakalım.. başka bir yol var mı…
Finally I am posting here about Kiftaro. I started making handmade wooden automaton couple of months ago. There was another try dated back couple of years ago when I was working on my stop motion film. It was going to be a carousel but I just made some wooden gears, etc.. and did not finish.
Here is a quick video. Lighting was not good. Shot with a cell-phone and edited using windows movie-maker because of the problem with my actual editing software. Next videos will be better hopefully. BTW, hands belong to my hubby…
Making of Kiftaro took some time. Even though I knew about mechanics and working with wood, had some hand tools; it took some time for me to find the right materials. Which kind of wood to use for what part, screws, rods, wires…
There is a linkage mechanism working behind. Rods connected to a crank. For the up/down movement of the fish there is a cam and follower. I transferred movement from back to front. I started out with drawing the mechanism in the computer. And then made a prototype using mdf wood. It was a simple one but helped me a lot to overcome the problems I ran into while applying the drawing from computer.
I am not a kind of artist who produce exactly what she sketches at the beginning. I start with sketching and the piece shapes itself along the way. When I first see the end result, it is like seeing someone for the first time in my life. So, same happened for Kiftaro. The design was very different on the paper and computer screen. After I carve pieces of the puppet and put together, meeting her was a joy for me and for my daughter as well. My daughter Zeynep is 8 years-old. I really like talking to her about whatever I do. We have discussions over the design, art, etc… Kids are just amazing! Sometimes she comes up with some ideas from another universe. You know… So, when she looked at the first montage of this piece, she said “Kiftaro”. I did not know what was she talking about. She said the name of this puppet was “Kiftaro”. There is no meaning in any language.
Painting part was fun. I like working with new, old, used, any kind of wood and try making it look very OLD. As if the thing got old over the time. Wabi-sabi… Let me not get into this right now. I will make a separate post about this beautiful Japanese philosophy.
So, going back to mechanism: I studied textile engineering. Kind of like textile machinery engineering. Mechanics was one of the subjects I liked a lot. But over the years, I did not use my knowledge except 4 years of engineering career. It has been 20 years.. So much huh!! Now I am familiar with automata mechanisms but barely remember details. I drew this simple linkage mechanism for Kiftaro. But for complex ones I am studying the resources I have found on the net. Hey.. another post to come about resources.
Here she is Kiftaro. I like this as a first piece but not sure about style. I have completed another one which is in a totally different style. The next one I started thinking about will probably be a mixture of these two in terms of design style.
Pictures are self explanatory. Please click thumbnails to enlarge.
There is a wooden duck without the head on the second picture. A friend of us found that on the street and brought for my daughter. It was a perfect thick balsa for puppet’s pieces after Zeynep’s permission ofcourse…
I use Dremel and carve in hands where needed. All works fine but just soo much dust with Dremel. Oh well….
I want to start my automata blog with a Rowland Emett video post. His kinetic artworks take me to a fantasy world; the other side of the mirror. Flying pans, windy spoons, sliding dishes, turning bicycle wheels, toy passengers… I happened to learn about him last summer. I run into this video below while I was browsing about automata and I got totally fashinated by the art he created. This video was made by David Sweeney using a serious of clips he shot during Rowland Emett machines exhibition in The Ontario Science Centre in 2012.
Rowland Emett was an English cartoonist and constructor of whimsical kinetic sculpture as it is described in this wikipedia page. For further information this is the homepage for The Rowland Emett Society Society..
Yes, I was never able to finish Chronos. After my post dated Feb 2011 here, I kept working on my stop motion film for more time but did not post here. During that time, I added more scenes, puppets, ideas, etc.. And eventually we moved out to a new house one more time. (fall 2012) A long term rental, small stone house inside a big tangerine garden with a lot of renovation work. (my dream house..)We almost had the house rebuilt. After we moved, I spent most of my available time making things like kitchen cabinets, bathroom renovation, tables, chairs, sofas… so much fun, effort and time. I was working like a half carpenter, half artist for about a year .
After all, I needed to spend more time on my professional graphic design works,… you know life. And now, I am here at the end of 2014. Couple of months ago, I started doing automata artworks and I will be posting about it regularly.
So, I want to post some more from my latest work on Chronos dated 2012.
Latest addition to Chronos was a puppet of Madam Anahit. She was a street accordionist playing her beautiful songs on the streets of Istanbul Taksim. (more info / in turkish) I remember hearing the amazing sound of her accordion while I was walking down the Istiklal Street when I was in collage. She died in 2003. I wanted to have a puppet play accordion while Adem was spending time in my stop motion set.
Here is a test shot from 2012:
(This video was meant to go with an accordion song. I tried finding a royalty free clip but I could not. I am adding an URL for a nice accordion sound right after video. You can click both play buttons and try watching this little animation with accordion sound.)
These are one of the things came out very good to me. I really liked how those looked on the set. I found some old pictures on the net, printed out and then made look old by using walnut ink (from my dear friend Shelley Noble) and a piece of sand paper.
I tried many shots with mirrors inside the set. I was thinking about animating mirrors. I got some cool pics. Here are a couple of those:
And you see there are one more puppet and a small sculpture in the set. I was not going to use those in Chronos. Those are my experimental puppets and test shots.
So, it is time to say goodbye. I know I have not been posting here for a long time… but, my film was there in my studio and in my life. It was like it would come out someday and continue its adventure. Now…, I know that Chronos’s time is up. During those years I was working on Chronos and posting the process here, I learned sooo much AND more important than that I met so many wonderful people. I would love to THANK ALL who were here supporting me all through the way.
It is time for new; art, life and all. I am going to be here sharing with love!!!