Automata


Automata Mission and History


 
Automata, located in Los Angeles, California, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, incubation, and presentation of experimental puppet theater, experimental film, and other contemporary art practices centered on ideas of artifice and performing objects. Founded in 2004 by artists Janie Geiser and Susan Simpson, Automata has been creating and presenting intimate performances of original work, film screenings of contemporary and historical avant-garde film, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions in a variety of spaces in the Los Angeles.  Automata seeks to radically redefine and re-contextualize the notion of puppet theater by taking an art form that is frequently marginalized and locating it at the intersection of contemporary performance, media, visual art, sound art and experimental writing. Automata is dedicated to creating and nurturing new work that is engaged in cutting edge art practices, and in deep conversation with our contemporary culture of simulation and mimicry (digital, robotic and otherwise), while embracing the aura of the handmade and hand-operated.

Automata has a particular interest in intimate viewing situations, similar to those that have been the provenance of traditional puppet theater and early film: living rooms, storefronts, and tiny theaters. We are interested in the intimacy and informality that exists when the artists and audience can actually see each other. Instead of performing to 600 people at once, we prefer to perform a show twenty times to 30 people.  This intimacy allows for interaction and dialogue, and for genuine community to develop.  To encourage dialogue, every event has a post-show social component.  We are deeply interested in the confluence of Automata’s work with the life of the neighborhood and the city, and use storefront exhibits and performances as attractions, as art, as peepshow and workspace, as direct interface with the life of the city.

Automata stands at the fulcrum of objects and performance, artifacts and ephemera, magic and mechanics, artifice and interface.  In looking at the intertwined histories of experimental object performance, miniature theater, and experimental film, we find common ancestry in the early cinema of attractions, the nickelodeon, and the zoetrope; and in the camera obscura, shadow theater, peepshow, magic lantern, and Punch and Judy show.  We are dedicated to experimental work which explores, merges, or subverts these forms in unexpected ways.

Automata is an artist-driven organization. We have, since our first performances in 2004, created a context in which visual art, performance, film/video, interactive technology, and experimental writing intersect with the puppet and its contemporary siblings. We deliberately started Automata without a physical space, with the goal of finding a home as we grew in an organic way. Working in a variety of existing spaces in Los Angeles, we have invited playwrights and composers, designers, visual artists, and new media experimenters to collaborate and create new works using performing objects.

Automata’s goal for 2010 is to create an intimate, flexible physical home that supports myriad manifestations of the performing object and its intersection with film/technology/text/art.  We feel that that the time is right to create our own permanent site, a home in the community, where we can fully support and present this unique work, and create a focal point for experimental puppetry in Los Angeles.