Sublime Dreams of Living Machines Sublime Dreams of Living Machines The Automaton in the European Imagination m i n s o o k a n g harvard un ivers ity press Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 2011 Copyright © 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kang, Minsoo. Sublime dreams of living machines : the automaton in the European imagination / Minsoo Kang. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-04935-2 (alk. paper) 1. Robotics—Popular works. 2. Robotics—Europe—History. 3. Robots in art— History. 4. Popular culture—Europe—History. I. Title. TJ211.15.K36 2011 629.8'92094—dc22 2010019045 To my mother and my father, with gratitude, respect, and love Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction 1 1 The Power of the Automaton 14 2 Between Magic and Mechanics: The Automaton in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 55 3 The Man-machine in the World-machine, 1637–1748 103 4 From the Man-machine to the Automaton-man, 1748–1793 146 5 The Uncanny Automaton, 1789–1833 185 6 The Living Machines of the Industrial Age, 1833–1914 223 7 The Revolt of the Robots, 1914–1935 264 Conclusion 297 Notes 311 Acknowledgments 363 Index 365 Illustrations Hero of Alexandria, design for automaton figures 17 Hero of Alexandria, design for an automaton theater 18 Masahiro Mori, graph of the “uncanny valley” 49 Reactions to photographs morphing from robot to human (male) 50 Reactions to photographs morphing from robot to human (female) 51 Hero of Alexandria, design for an owl and other bird automata 82 Hero of Alexandria, design for an automaton archer that shoots a serpent 99 Jacques de Vaucanson’s three automata 105 Salomon de Caus’s Grotto automata 120 Giovanni Borelli, illustrations from On the Movement of Animals 126 Giovanni Borelli, illustrations from On the Movement of Animals 127 Wolfgang von Kempelen, the Turk chess-player 177 Wolfgang von Kempelen, the Turk chess-player exposed 181 Robert Seymour, The March of Intellect 236