LITTLE SNOW WHITE AUTOMATA
Designing and making Automata has become a fun and exciting hobby, embodying a range of skills such as Art, Engineering and science, through to craft skills using card, wood and metal. Automata has been seen to go back centuries of years however we can now see Automata emerging as a modern art form and are sold as specialist pieces that range in price. Automata projects are also not only seen in the hands of artists as they have been known to be introduced to school children as projects.
I was tasked with researching and choosing one fairy-tale by the Grimm’s brothers that I could turn into a moving story (Automata). Once the story was chosen a scene from the story had to be chosen and methods of movement had to be investigated in order to represent this movement (linear, rotational, oscillating etc, or a combination of different movements)
The scenes that were to be created had to have a running time of a minimum of 9 seconds, this could be a constant motion or a motion that ran for 9 minutes, then could be reset to its starting position. All mechanisms needed to be exposed so as to witness how the scene was moving.
I chose the story of Little Snow White by the Grimms Brothers, focusing on the scene of Snow White running from her step-mother through the forest. To me, this scene represents a vast amount of movement and emotion and I wanted to capture this in the form of Automata.
The scene that I created involves Snow White running from one side of the scene to the other while animal as jump up at her in the background and the trees move from side to side. These movements were created using various mechanisms, gears, cams, inverted cams as well as a pulley/conveyor belt system.
