L’Oracle du Mort: One of many amazing clockwork pieces by Thomas Kuntz to be featured here in the Archive.

Thomas Kuntz, a professional artist for over 20 years, began as a sculptor of Commercial Toys, but later gained notoriety circa ’89-98 as a pioneer in the making of model kits based on old silent films like Nosferatu, The Man Who Laughs, Vampira, and others.

After a period of time Kuntz found that merely sculpting his dark creations was not nearly enough for him, and that he wanted to give life to his creations through mechanical, perhaps supernatural means… This change in method resulted in some of the darkest and most interesting automations known to man, and not nearly as many fatalities and disappearances as may be rumored.

You may have seen Thomas’ twisted creations in many places, though you may not have been aware of the crafter behind them, or the astounding degrees of meticulous craftsmanship responsible for their being. Mr. Kuntz’ creations have served in the armies and arsenals of many noteworthy people, interesting types such as Kevin Ogilvie, a.k.a. Nivek Ogre, frontman of theatrical post-punk industrial band “Skinny Puppy”. Thomas has made mechanical props for the band, and for Nivek alone, with pieces for use on stage, and for use in video.

In his workshop, Thomas Kuntz controls an army of clockmaking lathes from 1880-present, and each piece he creates is more said to be more exquisite than the last. There are only a handful of builders in the world who make automata, and no one does it like Mr. Kuntz.

“Death and Resurrection” (shown in the video below) is a self-portrait piece; One was sold, below are images of the artist’s copy.

The Alchemyst is a small but incredibly complex automaton who lives in a 9ft clock tower (pictures and video below). It is impossible to capture the whole moving tower inside the shop. There are many automatons living on and within this peice; on the top lives a procession of alchemists, a skeletal Templar knight rings a bell, libuse is a beautiful creepy princess who turns her head. The celestial clockwork and moon phases add even more life and motion to this large and complicated work of art. (continued below the following video)

This piece is the largest Thomas has ever done, and is one of several controlled not just by cams and levers, but an animation control system. All the movements are meticulously programmed in, and then put on to a “brain” computer that controls the servos, air, fire, and water effects.

Video of the Alchemist only

Video of the clock tower in action. The alchemist (clothed in this video) tells a story about a clockmaker.

“Fusion” (images below), another automation, controlled by clockwork, powered by hand cranking is a rather interesting piece in which two fused bodies dance around in dark and disturbing fashion (no video available yet).

The “Imp” is a stop motion character from a music video called Majik by Ogre. There are many more characters involved, but the Imp is the central piece. The entire video (below) was made by Thomas and director William Morrison.

The “Plague Hymn” is another beautifully creepy piece. Judging from the photos, it seems it would be an incredible piece to see in action. Hopefully there will be videos soon.

The “Levitating Head” Is said to be one of the freakier and creepier pieces to see in person. Thomas had a magician friend from London in the shop last week; For a few moments, he was astounded, and had a bit of pleasant difficulty figuring the illusion out.

Kundalini is another levitation piece, and was recently purchased by none other than Guillermo Del Toro, along with a new peice, “L’Oracle du Mort” of which there are videos of both (please see Thomas’ Vimeo page for video of “L’Oracle du Mort”, the link is listed at the end of this article).

Kundalini Video

Thomas Kuntz sells some of his smaller sculpted works on Etsy at anomalymachine.etsy.com, and you can visit his site (currently being renovated) at Artomic.com. He also has a video channel on Vimeo (including some Non-Work Safe automata videos censored on Youtube) as well as one on YouTube. Those are at (respectively) vimeo.com/user1180445/videos and youtube.com/haxanthrobo.

Share This

Please enjoy the videos below, and if you would like to see more of Keith’s wondrous works, visit him at his aetherweb home Keith Newstead Automata – and be sure to check this space again next week, we have more amazing things to show!

Share This

There are many, many new items here now, some even that he had forgotten to put in his regular store, some new exclusives to us.

There will also be many additions in the coming days by Bethalynne Bajema

Myke will also be putting up many many more originals here in the Archive over the next day or two as well, for those who like to collect original pieces – aside from what is already here, there will be a number of additional engravings of all sizes and themes, as well as some small scuptures and perhaps even some wood and brass works.

So, please do take a look, everything is one sale right now. I don’t think there is a thing in the store that has not been at least somewhat reduced. This week will be the very best time to acquire some original art, and a very good time to purchase prints and other merchandise as well.

Share This

The more eccentric tellers of origin tales claim Miss Von Swank was really discovered in 1893 at roughly 80 to 90 feet of digging in the notorious Oak Island Money Pit. These tales claim a stone box with a variety of strange engraved markings was found and brought to the surface. Upon opening the box nothing but emptiness was discovered, however the box was cleaned off and set aside so researchers could take their time studying the strange markings. The excavationer’s went to sleep and come sunrise were shocked to hear the gurgling of baby coos from inside the box. There sat the nude form of a baby happily playing with a very small and strange sliding wooden box camera. Explanations for how this child came to be here were wild and varied, even including a strange theory not unlike Schrödinger’s cat. When all was said and done the origins of the little girl were never discovered, but her gift for capturing the bizarre through the eye of her camera and the alluring and macabre nature of her craft cause most people to not really care if Von Swank is the product of blood raining from the moon or two uber-nerds getting jiggy with it.

Miss Von Swank can be found in the lovely and warm state of California bettering her photographic craft and working on specialized portraits or music videos. Miss Von Swank welcomes inquiries to work with her but cautions all to treat her well during these interactions or she might be forced to set her personal protection on you, which are rather vicious, hidden pokey-stick packin’ mechanical scarabs.

Please take a moment to visit Miss Von Swank at her portfolio: VonSwank.com
Photographs in this entry are copyright Robyn Von Swank, All Rights Reserved. They are reposted here with permission from Robyn. Many thanks to her!

Share This

You needn’t think I’m crazy, Eliot- plenty of others have queerer prejudices than this. Why don’t you laugh at Oliver’s grandfather, who won’t ride in a motor? If I don’t like that damned subway, it’s my own business; and we got here more quickly anyhow in the taxi. We’d have had to walk up the hill from Park Street if we’d taken the car.

I know I’m more nervous than I was when you saw me last year, but you don’t need to hold a clinic over it. There’s plenty of reason, God knows, and I fancy I’m lucky to be sane at all. Why the third degree? You didn’t use to be so inquisitive.

Well, if you must hear it, I don’t know why you shouldn’t. Maybe you ought to, anyhow, for you kept writing me like a grieved parent when you heard I’d begun to cut the Art Club and keep away from Pickman. Now that he’s disappeared I go round to the club once in a while, but my nerves aren’t what they were.

No, I don’t know what’s become of Pickman, and I don’t like to guess. You might have surmised I had some inside information when I dropped him- and that’s why I don’t want to think where he’s gone. Let the police find what they can- it won’t be much, judging from the fact that they don’t know yet of the old North End place he hired under the name of Peters.

I’m not sure that I could find it again myself- not that I’d ever try, even in broad daylight!

Yes, I do know, or am afraid I know, why he maintained it. I’m coming to that. And I think you’ll understand before I’m through why I don’t tell the police. They would ask me to guide them, but I couldn’t go back there even if I knew the way. There was something there- and now I can’t use the subway or (and you may as well have your laugh at this, too) go down into cellars any more.

I should think you’d have known I didn’t drop Pickman for the same silly reasons that fussy old women like Dr. Reid or Joe Minot or Rosworth did. Morbid art doesn’t shock me, and when a man has the genius Pickman had I feel it an honour to know him, no matter what direction his work takes. Boston never had a greater painter than Richard Upton Pickman. I said it at first and I say it still, and I never swenved an inch, either, when he showed that ‘Ghoul Feeding’. That, you remember, was when Minot cut him.

You know, it takes profound art and profound insight into Nature to turn out stuff like Pickman’s. Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare or a Witches’ Sabbath or a portrait of the devil, but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That’s because only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible or the physiology of fear- the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or hereditary memories of fright, and the proper colour contrasts and lighting effects to stir the dormant sense of strangeness. I don’t have to tell you why a Fuseli really brings a shiver while a cheap ghost-story frontispiece merely makes us laugh. There’s something those fellows catch- beyond life- that they’re able to make us catch for a second. Doré had it. Sime has it. Angarola of Chicago has it. And Pickman had it as no man ever had it before or- I hope to Heaven- ever will again.

Don’t ask me what it is they see. You know, in ordinary art, there’s all the difference in the world between the vital, breathing things drawn from Nature or models and the artificial truck that commercial small fry reel off in a bare studio by rule. Well, I should say that the really weird artist has a kind of vision which makes models, or summons up what amounts to actual scenes from the spectral world he lives in. Anyhow, he manages to turn out results that differ from the pretender’s mince-pie dreams in just about the same way that the life painter’s results differ from the concoctions of a correspondence-school cartoonist. If I had ever seen what Pickman saw- but no! Here, let’s have a drink before we get any deeper. God, I wouldn’t be alive if I’d ever seen what that man- if he was a man- saw !

You recall that Pickman’s forte was faces. I don’t believe anybody since Goya could put so much of sheer hell into a set of features or a twist of expression. And before Goya you have to go back to the mediaeval chaps who did the gargoyles and chimaeras on Notre Dame and Mont Saint-Michel. They believed all sorts of things- and maybe they saw all sorts of things, too, for the Middle Ages had some curious phases I remember your asking Pickman yourself once, the year before you went away, wherever in thunder he got such ideas and visions. Wasn’t that a nasty laugh he gave you? It was partly because of that laugh that Reid dropped him. Reid, you know, had just taken up comparative pathology, and was full of pompous ‘inside stuff’ about the biological or evolutionary significance of this or that mental or physical symptom. He said Pickman repelled him more and more every day, and almost frightened him towards the last- that the fellow’s features and expression were slowly developing in a way he didn’t like; in a way that wasn’t human. He had a lot of talk about diet, and mid Pickman must be abnormal and eccentric to the last degree. I suppose you told Reid, if you and he had any correspondence over it, that he’d let Pickman’s paintings get on his nerves or harrow up his imagination. I know I told him that myself- then.

But keep in mind that I didn’t drop Pickman for anything like this. On the contrary, my admiration for him kept growing; for that ‘Ghoul Feeding’ was a tremendous achievement. As you know, the club wouldn’t exhibit it, and the Museum of Fine Arts wouldn’t accept it as a gift; and I can add that nobody would buy it, so Pickman had it right in his house till he went. Now his father has it in Salem- you know Pickman comes of old Salem stock, and had a witch ancestor hanged in 1692.

I got into the habit of calling on Pickman quite often, especially after I began making notes for a monograph on weird art. Probably it was his work which put the idea into my head, and anyhow, I found him a mine of data and suggestions when I came to develop it. He showed me all the paintings and drawings he had about; including some pen-and-ink sketches that would, I verily believe, have got him kicked out of the club if many of the members had seen them. Before long I was pretty nearly a devotee, and would listen for hours like a schoolboy to art theories and philosophic speculations wild enough to qualify him for the Danvers asylum. My hero-worship, coupled with the fact that people generally were commencing to have less and less to do with him, made him get very confidential with me; and one evening he hinted that if I were fairly close-mouthed and none too squeamish, he might show me something rather unusual- something a bit stronger than anything he had in the house.

Share This