If you have already finished your automaton you may send the documentation (see below) before January 22nd, 2011!
I will integrate your material in the website but not yet publish it. Read instructions below and contact me if you are ready for the data transfer.
During the week (Monday to Friday) I only can read e-mails and answer you between 20:00 and 24:00 (Swiss time). At the weekend extended times are valid.
Here some weekday times for potential participants all over the world:

• London 19:00 - 23:00 (- 1 hour)
• Istanbul 22:00 - 01:00 (+ 1 hour)
• Los Angeles 12:00 - 15:00 (-9 hours)
• Dallas 15:00 - 18:00 (- 6 hours)
• Sidney 05:00 - 09:00 (+ 9 hours)
• Buenos Aires 17:00 - 20:00 (- 4 hours)

Please read the following instructions for the contest:

• Take from one up to maximum five pictures of your automaton.
  It is up to you to decide with how many and which pictures your piece is most adequately represented. 
• Don't care for the resolution of the pictures. If they are too big for the internet I will reduce the resolution.
• Give self-speaking names to your picture files, i.e. pinese01, pinese02, ... (I used my family name in this example). It allows me to more easily identify which files belong to whom. The numbering of the digital cameras are not self-speaking.
• Don't send the files via e-mail! There are problems to send files with a certain size via e-mail and my mailbox would overflow.
  See the 'File storage/Upload' chapter below for instructions. 

• Take a movie of your automaton. Most of the digital cameras of todays allow to take movies. The format of the resulting file normally is .mpg.
• Your movie shouldn't be longer than 1:30 minutes. I checked other automata movies in the internet and only a small quantity of them are longer.
• Take care that the movie is perfect as it is: no necessity to turn the head 90 degrees or watching the movie upside down. I will not make any additional processing to improve quality or eliminate deficiences.
• Give also a self-speaking name to the movie as for the pictures.
• Don't send the file via e-mail! There are problems to send files with a certain size via e-mail and my mailbox would overflow.
  See the 'File storage/Upload' chapter below for instructions. 

These are the points I would like to know from you in a written form (the best would be plain text via e-mail):

• Who are you (at least an artist's name if you don't want to reveal your official name)?
• Where are you from (at least the country)? Again, reveal as much details as you are comfortable with.
• Optional: What is your relation to automata?
• Your comments to the piece you made. Please don't write a romance of several pages, just explain the things you think they are worth to know. 

This is the most complex chapter and also most complex to handle for the contest, therefore read carefully:

• If you have a default and favourite storage for your pictures and movies you are allowed to use it IF THE SPECIFIC CONTEST FILES ARE VISIBLE FOR EVERYONE.
  This means: you might use
  youtube to store your movie,
  flickr to store your pictures or
  facebook to store movie and pictures
  BUT the settings must allow that everyone sees the files relevant for the contest.
  If you even have an own website you might place the contest specific files on a separate page.
  In this case I need the links to the files and no sending of files is necessary.
• For sending files please contact me directly via e-mail: I will coordinate with you a channel (incl. username / password) to send me the files.