Automata: from Magic to Science and Back Again

DOI

10.2991/icassee-18.2018.5How to use a DOI?

Keywords

automata; Frankenstein; monsters; “magic lantern”; phantasmagoria; galvanism; moving anatomy; automaton; android

Abstract

The article considers a broad range of eighteenth-century art and culture phenomena that were responsible for the birth of Frankenstein, the great romantic monster. These include popular optical effects, such as the “magic lantern” and phantasmagoria, that filled the enlightened public with awe by the visual demonstration of spirits and the “resurrection of the dead”; galvanism and anatomical experiments in bringing the dead back to life with the help of electricity; enthusiastic invention of moving automatons that imitated the behavior and skills of living creatures and, last but not least, androids as the direct prototypes of the future monster. Shifting gradually from the outposts of scientific experiment to the sphere of entertainment culture, all these phenomena happened to be immediately related to the mythology of creating the ideal human being that, at the will of its creator – the scholarly magus – turned out to be the first monster in culture history.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Nikolai Molok
PY  - 2018/12
DA  - 2018/12
TI  - Automata: from Magic to Science and Back Again
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 26
EP  - 34
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icassee-18.2018.5
DO  - 10.2991/icassee-18.2018.5
ID  - Molok2018/12
ER  -