Da Vinci Automata

For people who are interested in the pre-history of automata here is a link to a fascinating article by Elly Truitt whose dissertation I have previously mentioned on this blog. Given below is an excerpt from the article.

What is more remarkable than the presence of these metal people in this romance is the fact that automata in human form were found frequently in the pages of twelfth-century French romances—copper knights and damsels, golden archers, children, and guardians of tombs. The early twelfth-century chanson de geste Le voyage de Charlemagne contains a description of the emperor of Constantinople’s palace, upon which two golden children blow ivory horns and laugh in a lifelike manner when the wind blows. In Le roman d’Eneas, written around 1160, a metal archer ensures that the sanctity of Camille’s mausoleum remains inviolate. Another midtwelfth-century romance, Le conte de Floire et Blancheflor, mentions the speaking, moving statues of the eponymous lovers erected on Blancheflor’s mock tomb. The Roman d’Alexandre, completed around 1180, features two golden youths, made by augury (par augure) and enchantment (enchantement), armed with maces, guarding a drawbridge. In addition, two copper boys, armed with shields and pikes and made by enchantment (enchant) guard the tomb of the emir of Babylon. The First Continuation of Chrétien’s Perceval, completed in the first decade of the thirteenth century, has two figures guarding the tent of Alardin, an “Eastern” potentate, who can discern knight from churl and maiden from nonvirgin, and then bar the entrances of the latter to the tent.

Here is a Clockpunk novel, Alchemy of Stone, that I came to know of recently. The novelist, Ekaterina Sedia is a US novelist of Russian origin. I loved the tagline “A novel of automated anarchy and clockwork lust.” Clockwork lust? Where was I when they invented that? Here is the product description from Amazon.

Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets - secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. However, this doesn’t sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart - literally!

Killbox has a Flickr Set on Clockpunk related images. Aesthetically pleasing and would definitely put a smile on any Clockpunker’s face.

The New York Times has a nice article about mechanics in the pre-renaissance era and how the ancients thought about Mechanics. Its worth a read. It is definitely relevant to anyone interested in writing Clockpunk. Its a window for us into the minds of the ancient equivalent of mechanical engineers i.e., people like Archimedes. Thanks to Meika for pointing this out. Here is an excerpt.

Dr. Schiefsky teaches Greek and Latin as his day job and reads Thucydides and Sophocles in ancient Greek for fun. He also majored in astronomy as an undergraduate, and about nine years ago, feeling science-deprived, he joined a multinational research endeavor called the Archimedes Project, based at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

The Archimedes team studies the history of mechanics, how people thought about simple machines like the lever, the wheel and axle, the balance, the pulley, the wedge and the screw and how they turned their thoughts into theories and principles.

The textual record begins with “Mechanical Problems,” moves to Rome and then through the medieval Islamic world to the Renaissance. It ends, finally, with Newton, who described many of the basic laws of mechanics in the 18th century.

There are a surprising number of old, and extremely old, scientific texts that have survived the ravages of time in one form or another. The Archimedes Web site lists far more than 100, including Euclid’s geometry, Hero of Alexandria’s Roman-era technical manual on crossbows and catapults, medieval treatises on algebra and mechanics by Jordanus de Nemore and Galileo’s 17th-century defense of a heliocentric solar system.

The nice thing for Dr. Schiefsky is that hardly anyone reads the stuff. Scientists generally are not into ancient Greek or Latin, let alone Arabic, and most of Dr. Schiefsky’s colleagues work on literature, philosophy, philology or archaeology. In fact, Dr. Schiefsky suggests “about 100 people” worldwide work on both science and the classics.

By following the historical record, the Archimedes researchers have discovered that the evolution of physics — or, at least, mechanics — is based on an interplay between practice and theory. The practical use comes first, theory second. Artisans build machines and use them but do not think about why they work. Theorists explain the machines and then derive principles that can be used to construct more complex machines.

The Archimedes researchers say that by studying this dialectic they can better understand what people knew about the natural world at a given time and how that knowledge may have affected their lives.

“What do you do when you want to weigh a 100-pound piece of meat and you don’t have a 100-pound counterweight?” Dr. Schiefsky asked. “You use an unequal-armed balance, with a small weight on the long arm and the meat on the short arm.”

The uneven balance, known as a steelyard, is a kind of lever, and Dr. Schiefsky notes that it has a cameo in Aristophanes’ “Peace,” a comic fantasy about ending the Peloponnesian War. When a furious arms dealer cannot figure out what to do with a surplus war trumpet, Trygaeus, the central character, suggests pouring lead in the bell to make a steelyard.

Link via BoingBoing, Worth1000 is having a phtoshopping context for Clockwork Art. The basic idea is to infuse Clockwork in everyday and non so every day situations. Here is the link.

I spotted this on BoingBoing some time ago but did not get a chance to post it until now. This is a motorcycle sculpture made from watces made by the Brazilian artist Jose Geraldo Pfau Kings. Here is a whole selection of his works at this site. Speaking of Clockpunk Motorcycles, bicycles were within the realm of possibility many hundreds of years before they were invented in the real world. I wonder what can one say about the motorcycle?

[Image: Steampunk Deathstar]

I mentioned the Jacobean Space program some time back. Jake Lake also pointed out that he has a short story on an early 19th century story about the space program evolving out of steam powered technology. I was recently revisiting the story which got me thinking that indeed what would a space program look like if steam powered technology as well as steel and related alloys were missing. Would even be possible to talk about such a thing? Gun powdered had been around for a long time. Thus the question is, how far could such a project have gone if technology had advanced but without advancing into the Steampunk era?

Stephenson’s Rocket by Jay Lake

I have finally given into the temptation, Da Vinci Automata is now on the Facebook under the current alias (what else Da Vinci Automata). I have also created a Clock group on the Facebook. Here’s the link to the profile and a link to the group. Add me if you get a chance. It can be a good place to get all the Clockpunkers together. Keep clocking!

• Facebook Da Vinci Automata Profile Link
• Facebook Clockpunk Group

Robot Carnival is a Japanese Anime anthology with many elements of Clockpunk. Especially the following short (excerpted from Wikipedia is of much relevance to Clockpunk.

Presence: Directed by Yasuomi Umetsu. This segment (featuring dialogue) tells the story of a man who has an obsession with a robot girl he has been secretly constructing in an attempt to compensate for the lack of any close relationship with his wife and family. The setting seems to be British and of the early twentieth century, but also suggests another planet or a future which has attempted to re-establish a former social structure. When the robot takes on a personality of her own, far beyond what the man had programmed, he smashes her in a fit of panic, and leaves his secret laboratory for what he believes is the last time. Twenty years later, the man has a vision of his robot appearing before him, but then blowing up before he can take her hand. He returns to his shed to find the robot still sitting smashed in a corner, just as she had been left years earlier. Another twenty years elapse, and the robot appears again before the man. This time, he takes her hand and walks into the distance with her, before vanishing in front of his shocked wife.

The folks over at Cabinet of Wonders did a post on David C. Roy’s Kinetic Sculptures some time ago. It has been in my drafts list for quite some time now. Here is the description of David Roy’s work from the Cabinet of wonders:

Mr. Roy, who has a degree in physics and engineering, says that the artistic influence of his wife, and later, an interest in optical patterns, led him to the designs he produces today. The names of his sculptures, words such as Radiance, Illusion, Spectrum, and Harmony seem to imply a dual interest in physics and metaphysics, or at least meditation, on Mr. Roy’s part.

Interestingly, I thought these objects were small, either hand-held or head-sized; but if you look at Mr. Roy’s About the Artist page, you will see that they are actually quite large, some of them about the size of large wagon wheels.

It’s nice to see an elegant combination of craftsmanship and mechanical works; and combined, they produce a contemplative and, in some cases, satisfyingly clockpunk result.

Clockpunk indeed! Interestingly the sculptures are designed in Adobe Illustrator. A great combination of the new and the old. The moving parts create quite an interesting effect, the price tag is kind of hefty but one can easily see why. If there will be a clockpunk based mystery novella or a tv series, I am sure we will see something similar to David Roy’s sculptures.