What is a musical box?A musical box is an automatic musical instrument that produces sound when the pins on a revolving cylinder or disc pluck the teeth of a steel comb.
TimelineThe exact date of when mechanical music first started is unclear. However, it can be ascertain that the concept of pinned cylinders was the beginning of mechanical music. Pinned cylinders are first applied to carillons and the earliest known appearance according to a Rouen manuscript was in around 1321, built in the tower of St. Catherine’s Abby, near Rouen (a city on the River Seine, North of France). The next few centuries was filled with many different inventions that included mechanical musical instruments. Around 1750s, Pierre Jaquet-Droz created the first musical clocks. 1784: The Jaquet-Droz brothers, clockmakers from La Chaux-de-Fonds, created the mechanical singing bird. 1796: Antoine Favre-Salomon, a clock maker from Genève, Switzerland, patented the first cylinder musical box that utilizes a metal comb with tuned teeth to produce the music. 1800: Isaac Daniel Piguet in Geneva produced repeating musical watches with a pinned horizontal disc operating radially arranged tuned steel teeth. 1811: The first musical boxes are produced in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland. 1862: Paillard invented the interchangeable cylinder musical box. 1875: The first production line factory for musical boxes opened in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland. 1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph. 1886: Musical box artisan, Paul Lochmann, of Gohlis (north-west from the city of Leipzig, Germany), patented the cardboard disc, which was soon replaced by a metallic one. 1887 - Emile Berliner invents the disc type gramophone. 1889: Paul Wendland, engineer for Symphonion Musikwerks, patents the star wheel. 1890s: Disc-type musical boxes became popular and came to displace the cylinder musical box market. 1914: Start of World War 1. 1929: Start of the Great Depression. Economic crisis caused by World War 1 and the Great Depression in the early 20th century coupled with the emergence of the gramophone brought about the downfall of the musical box industry. During those times, most of the musical box manufacturers converted to making other products that requires precise mechanical parts while some went back to making time-pieces and some others sold their businesses to larger musical box companies.
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Excellent turn out. Thank you everyone who made it down and who has helped out with the show. GET IN TOUCH IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART IN A ELECTRONIC / ARTS WORKSHOP TOMORROW – more info here - http://leilahoustonart.weebly.com/straightening-out.html or email leilahouston392@gmail.com A special thank you to: David Wilson Clark for working with my idea and electronically add my sound to the box; Andrew Johnston (Johnny C) working with my recorded sounds and creating the ambience for my sound work; Dan Cowlam for curatorial support and being an on-going mentor; Natalie Beech for written support and marketing; Mel Fletcher assistance in coordation and website design; the talented James Chantry for documenting the show; Sean Clark for sorting all the electronics for the workshop and ongoing collaborations; also to artists Anna Lucas & John Newling helping me realise my ideas in the studio and the great mentoring you gave me; the lovely Anna, Zory and Lewis for assisting with the launch and looking after the work during the show. Lastly, a major thank you to Leicester's City Festival & Newarke Houses Museum for including the show in the festival - so nice to be in such a beautiful and historic setting. This week I led a really good workshop/meet the artist with 50 people of all ages looking at my show, starting this Friday. Here are some of the examples of ideas inspired b my work and the Jack in the Box project. Thank you everyone that came and helped out for the day! More info about the show here. For more workshops/ school visits, email: leilahouston392@gmail.com or, visit leilahoustonart.weebly.com/straightening-out.html On the 19th August 2018 I will be delivering a similar workshop/ meet the artist day however, supporting visitors to add sound using Arduino's. These guys were great. We disscused what we are attracted to can be also be what scares us. They creatively thought of making Jack in to a scary forest. We then placed it into the gallery and thought about the shadows and lighting. Really great work by a lovely family.
Leila Houston (London, 1977) is a visual artist whose work investigates the social, political and historical aspects of a place and the impact we have on our environments.
Houston uses site-responsive installations to explore connections between the external atmosphere and the internal sensation within places, providing reflections on the language of architecture and the associations we draw through memory and the senses. Working predominantly with video, sound and structure, much of her artwork cultivates immersive atmospheres for the spectator, often inviting them to take part or contribute to the work. In straightening out the petals, Houston investigates the very human fascination with fear and our desire to feel it. In her continuing experimentation with sound, this work creates atmospheric soundscapes that bring colour to the space, exploring the way in which objects absorb or become a part of their environment. Using the age old Jack in the Box, Houston has reappropriated the toy to explore what we are attracted to and the sinister underbelly of it. Drawing on themes of inequality and poverty that run throughout much of Houston’s work, straightening out the petals invites the audience to revisit traditional motifs and symbols in our society and what they represent. Houston has contrasted recorded sounds with the rhyme ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’, which dates back to the 1700s and originates in cockney rhyming slang (weasel and stoat for ‘coat’) for the poor at the time pawning their coat for money in hard times. Swans, a symbol of elegance and an animal owned and protected by the Crown, wind themselves around the reappropriated box. A bird bath is recreated, inspired by Houston seeing and recording her niece and nephew developing their own in the garden, drawing back to innocence and affinity with the natural world. Raging seascapes are captured in Houston’s photography and video work, depicting the conflicting excitement and dread that water can evoke. How does nature nurture us? How has the material world moved towards or away from this? Straightening out the petals, an ongoing development, a work-in-progress that will evolve, culminating in a final exhibition later this year. for the jack in the box project being exhibted Leicester Festivals & Events at Newark Museum Leicester
Saturday 18 August - Monday 27 August 2018 Opening times: 11am - 3pm Preview event: Friday 17 August 2018, 5 - 7.30pm workshops: Saturday 9th August 2018 – Creating jack in the boxes with sound Saturday 26th August 2018 – Darren O Brian's Audio Adventure around castle gardens and riverbank thankyou David Wilson Clarke for helping divice together ! well happy see video here ..... on the event page Developments for solo show - Straightening out the petals exhibition at City Festival, Leicester, UK. Saturday 18 August - Monday 27 August 2018 Preview event: Friday 17 August 2018, 5 - 7.30pm Workshops Saturday 9th August 2018 – Creating jack in the boxes with sound Saturday 26th August 2018 – Darren O Brian's Audio Adventure around castle gardens and riverbank Location/s – Newarke Houses Gallery, Leicester, LE1 5XZ Using interactive sound, installation, photography and clay....... Looking, collecting, thinking, researching, playing with, taking part in..... The Ornament, plants, animals, child's play, clay, home, house, sound recordings, interested in jack in the box as a toy and re-creating with written sounds, Gaudi, trees and bones, swans, history of "pop goes the weasel", water, waves, ripples, mold-making, sculpting, Darren O'Brien's Audio Adventure, mindful listening, isolating and also laying sound, the sea, earth, materials from the land, matter. A collection from Sutton on Sea... later to be used for areas of the boxes - spent recording sounds, photographing. Anna Carlsso assisting in the studio (accidentally made a portrait on the table with the clay). I'm using a Octohorn for some of the recordings for inside the boxes - it an amazing design and really enchanted me at the R10 Electronic event last friday. As i'm working with these ornaments i'm thinking about what they hear and the sound inside the box playing out. Designed and made by the talented Jim Frize. Mould for a jack in the box - possible music box. Bones, water and trees. Straightening out the petals exhibition
Saturday 18 August - Monday 27 August 2018 Opening times: 11am - 3pm Preview event: Friday 17 August 2018, 5 - 7.30pm Workshops- Saturday 9th - Creating jack in the boxes with sound Saturday 26th Darren O Brian's Audio Adventure around castle gardens and river bank Location/s Newarke Houses Gallery, Leicester, LE1 5XZ Leicester Festivals & Events Newarke Houses Museum Leicester Arts & Museums Service supported by Arts Council England TO OBSERVE:TO LISTEN:TO LEARN:TO TAKE PART (please note: so that I can post regular updates, my blog is unedited, independent from dyslexic support). I am really pleased and excited to say Arts Council England have given me some funding to support this work. Science museum, London. Research of a ripple machine using sound. V & A, London. Researching figures in porcelain Currently I’m working on 4 areas relating to a project currently named ‘In search of Genuine.’ A development of this work will be shown in August at City Festival (Leicester) with a workshop attached and in late November. Alongside the project, there is consultation with experts in digital tech, physics, environmental sciences, biology, mental health, audio, critiques, museum and gallery visits. Through the journey I am really excited to be receiving artist mentoring from John Newling. John taught me, 1999- 2003, on my degree at Nottingham Trent in Contemporary Art. The Contemporary Art degree was a course that was dripping in intensive learning, reading, making, discussion and regular exhibition. There were 4 areas of dance, performance, sound and visual arts. We had brilliant, serious tutors in their field who were highly acclaimed writers, thinkers, performers and makers, who we could all book in and see. I specialised in sound and visual art and John was extremely inspiring and supportive throughout my studies. John is an international artist whose work interests me – as there are social political elements I can relate to in some way. It's going to be interesting talking again. I am also receiving regular artist support to help with my ‘too many ideas’ and will be helping me with the curation of the work from Two queens member/ studio holder Daniel Cowlam. -------- There will be another update soon regarding the actual work I'm making and developing. Three is a lengthy thought process. The list however is:
TO OBSERVE:TO LISTEN: TO LEARN:TO TAKE PART Unfinished studio portrait |
Leila Houston
Leila Houston (London, 1977) is a visual artist whose work investigates the social, political and historical aspects of a place. Categories |