Now my work Website Project of Doom is complete (take a look at our gorgeous new site! www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk) I’m going to be getting some more posts up here, starting with this one, inspired by my summer holiday in Wales.

We visited one of those fantastic ‘attractions’ which consist of two or three entirely disparate items, plus a shop and a cafe. These places have a special place in my heart as they were everywhere in Cornwall when I was growing up and the king of the all is Flambards Theme Park near Helston, which has the following delights available in one place:

• Replica Victorian Village (in fairness, this is awesome)
• ‘Britain in the Blitz’ Experience
• Exploratorium Science Dome
• Aerodrome – plane and helicopter museum
• 3D Cinema
• Garden centre
• The Hornet rollercoaster and other rides
• Gus Honeybun exhibition (you will only know who he is if you were a child in Cornwall in the 80s)

There’s probably more stuff now, who knows. It’s also the only place I have ever seen to open a Santa’s Grotto in August.

Waiting for a train in the rabbit village

Anyway, we found a smaller specimen of this type in Llanbrynmair, Powys, in the form of Machinations which has a small collection of automata, a playbarn and a rabbit village. Yes, that’s tiny stone houses (and one castle!) with rabbits frolicking among them like giant disinterested furry Godzillas. It is utterly wonderful.

However, I dragged my companion all the way to Llanbrynmair from our base at Dolgellau *almost* as much for the automata as for the rabbits. Regular readers will know I am in love with the uncanny and have a thing for robots of all kinds. The kind of automata on display at Machinations were mostly contemporary rather than historical, and artistic and whimsical rather than rotted and creepy, which is my preferred type, but that’s where the interest comes from. Here’s a short video of some of the collection in action, with some fabulously grating creative commons piano roll music:

A Selection of Automata from Machinations Museum, Wales from Sarah Jackson on Vimeo.

There were a few examples from UK artists I was already familiar with, namely Paul Spooner and Keith Newstead of the smashing Cabaret Mechanical Theatre (which originated in Cornwall), but also some who were completely new to me and were very finely made. The silly music in the video doesn’t really suit the intelligence and wit that characterise these contraptions.

Some of them are gently uncanny, particularly the series of people absorbed in their work, I think – in the video there are clips of a potter at his wheel and a woman rolling out some dough. What I like best about these (apart from the carving and the detail in the clothes and settings) was the absolute absence of any sense of performance. The way that the figures are quietly getting on with their daily tasks and seem to be unaware of their audience creates a feeling of a private or intimate space and hints at the internal life of the figure. What is going through their mind as they perform these repetitive motions? The uncertainty of the presence of that internal life is at the heart of the uncanny.

Naturally I forgot to note down the name of the person who made them and now I can’t find it anywhere. If these are your creations, please claim them!

If you’d like to know more about automata here’s a brief history, and for the more robotty end I would recommend Gaby Wood’s book Living Dolls, which looks at the cultural and historical context of (mostly human-like) automata and takes in drawing room curiosities to scientific endeavours to create mechanical life. Spooky stuff.