Automata

My first real fascination with automata started in middleschool, when, one boring afternoon, I watched a tiny segment on some random show about an old mechanical swan that would dip his head into a "pond" and snatch up a silver fish when you turned a crank. That 5 minute segment sparked such a fascination in me that even today I get excited at the mere thought of automata.

Photo from Flickr
Now, modern robots and animatronics have replaced the old, creaky, and slightly disturbing automata of yesteryear. There are still several artists who still practice this "lost art", but they are few and far between. Hopefully with this new trend of steampunk will come an interest in automata once more. But until then I guess I'll have to settle for videos from the 70s uploaded onto youtube.

I get all of my automata news from here, in case you are interested.