They are called karakuri puppets and they have been used in Japan as early as the 17th Century. The technique is called Kirigami which differs to origami as the paper is cut rather than just folded.

Perhaps the most interesting part is how much of these technologies borrow from the Japanese art of origami, and the related kirigami. Rather than trying to build three-dimensional structures ...

The Kiri-Spoon, from "kirigami," the Japanese art form of cutting paper, can both grasp like a fork and scoop like a spoon. "Existing systems for robot-assisted feeding use standard forks and ...

Paper is a modest material with rich affordances for craft and design. In this work, we explore shaping carbon-coated paper with manual and digital fabrication processes to create functional and ...

Finding new angles on an old artform, McGill researchers have increased the number of stable shapes that kirigami-based engineered materials can take, opening the way to a range of new applications.