Pynchon and Automata

[jbor]

Stuff on Vaucanson, and his duck (which did "excrete", according to the
author), in this interesting article by Silvio A. Bedini entitled 'The Role
of Automata in the History of Technology':

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/b_edini.html

" [...] It is consequently not surprising to discover that the greatest
advances in the development of biological automata, of astronomical clocks,
and of the fine mechanisms were probably simultaneous in point of time and
derivation. The common origin in Greek culture received its major impetus
from the craft of the clockmaker with the development of mechanical
clockwork early in the Renaissance. There appears to be no longer any
question, on the basis of recent research, that the mechanical clock and
fine instrumentation evolved in a direct line without substantial change
from the mechanical water clocks of the Alexandrine civilization,
transmitted through Islam and Byzantium from a tradition that may have
originated in China, that reached Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Other influences intervened to transform these origins into
mechanical clockwork, leading simultaneously to the development of fine
instrumentation in the form of timepieces and scientific instruments on the
one hand, and elaborate automata on the other. One of the factors which
greatly influenced the establishment of the clockmaking tradition was the
organization and increasing power of craft guilds.

[...]

It was a short step to a combination of the pinned cylinder and the
spring-driven clockwork to provide the sound of living things and of musical
instruments in automata. This combination made possible a great variety of
developments in the late seventeenth and during the eighteenth centuries.
The most notable of these were the androids constructed in the
mid-eighteenth century by Jacques Vaucanson (1709-1782), who brought the
production of automata to its highest point of development. Vaucanson is
unquestionably the most import inventor in the history of automata, as well
as one of the most important figures in the history of machine technology.
Although he was responsible for pioneering in the development of machine
tools and later inspired the work of Sir Henry Maudslay and others, it was,
ironically enough, his automata -- which occupied the briefest interlude in
his life -- which brought him permanent fame and fortune. [...] "

(Sorry if it's already been linked.)

best


on 26/2/02 11:57 AM, John Bailey at johnbonbailey at hotmail.com wrote:

> P did his research, so it's no surprise that Vaucanson and his Duck appear
> in M&D, just as the Chess-playing automaton, probably the other automaton of
> the greatest fame, pops up in GR (675). More info on the duck is at
> http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/01/riskinprofile1024.html, a page on
> Jessica Riskin, who has written a book on the topic, The Defecating Duck, as
> well as a forthcoming title which seems especially relevant to M&D, Science
> in the Age of Sensibility (forthcoming 2002), discussing the way
> Enlightenment science was characterised by emotion and sentiment as much as
> rationalism and empiricism, and how the split between empiricism and emotion
> was something that came after...Fits in well with Mason and Dixon's
> heightened sensibility. Riskin has also got an article you can download
> called "Poor Richard's Leyden Jar: Electricity and Economy in Franklinist
> France," at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/riskin.html, along with some
> others.
> 
> The duck is different, though, isn't it (she)? In V. the progress towards
> the inanimate is kind of scary; in M&D, the inanimate is progressing towards
> life. Now we're looking at artificial life, artificial intelligence, the
> desires of an automaton, the loneliness of the same...why did the duck come
> to America? Wasn't it inevitable? Of course, it never really did, unlike the
> Chess-player, but then again the duck never really defecated either.
> Vaucanson couldn't get that bit right, so he fudged a little.
> 
> More to come.
>