Automata, Robots, and Magical Thinking

4-None

Examines automata as objects of fascination & enchantment by reference to media, analytic writing & literary texts. Automata can be traced as far back as Egyptian/Greek Antiquity, & they developed historically in the West through the mechanics of clocks & watchmaking, achieving their highest point with the exquisite 18th C Jacquet-Droz automata, with their life-like rendering of human activity. The story of human-machine interaction begins in premodern times with automata, & continues into our current society & times dominated by robots & AI-assisted technologies of all kinds. Through literary texts, films, analytical writings &material culture, we explore the intellectual, social, emotional & ethical questions raised by this reality.