![]() In a cabinet nearby, Nico showed me drawer after drawer of antique bird feathers she uses to restore these kinds of automata. Under a small bell jar was a similar unboxed bird that Nico was repairing. From the top, a little round door flipped open, out of which emerged a tiny bird that began to sing and flap its wings. Nico brought me over to a small workbench where she picked up and wound a small silver box by inserting a key. No matter their size, there is a delicacy and vague melancholia dwelling in these objects as if they know they are incongruous with the world. Here were various benches with hand tools, small drills, bookshelves, and, of course, Nico’s current automata repair jobs. What makes Nico special among people who work with and restore automata is that she can do all the things museums require many individual craftspeople to do. Life seemed possible within them, even though I knew rationally they were just pieces of colored glass. There was also something sad and disquieting about them. After much sorting and searching, we found three sets of eyes that had the personality we were after: not quite lifelike but having the quality of, dare I say it, a soul. On a shelf at the far end of the store, we discovered a box of dozens of eyes in assorted sizes made from a dark, hazy glass. Our last effort found us in Archie McPhee, a Seattle novelty shop that sells a huge assortment of strange and unique objects: rubber chickens, masks, plastic animals, gag gifts. There was something lifelike about all of them, though, and their haunted quality would take hold of me for the time Nico and I were together. Most were either too small or ridiculously large like Japanese anime characters’. Unfortunately, none of the dolls had the eyes we needed. I had come to Seattle in the hopes of learning something about the supernatural roots of artificial life, and in the days spent in Nico’s studio, I hoped that we might make a simple automaton. Nico and I talked about how we were both a little mortified at the thought of having to smash a porcelain head to extract the eyes but were determined to get just the right ones for our deeply sacred task. They were meant to inspire both awe at our technological prowess and fear at the strange magic that many believed made them work. Unlike robots, automata did not have practical use. In gardens and grottoes of the Renaissance, moving statues became toys of the wealthy and would capture the popular imagination but by the 18 th-century were incredibly complex horological wonders. Not merely a watchmaker, Nico specializes in restoring automata-clockwork-powered dolls and figures meant to mimic life. In an enormous Goodwill in Seattle, the horologist (a watchmaker and expert in related devices) Brittany “Nico” Cox and I sorted through a sad and somewhat creepy assortment of discarded and possibly once-loved dolls, hoping to find one with large, realistic glass eyes. This essay is excerpted from Strange Frequencies by Peter Bebergal, published by Penguin/TarcherPerigree. Why Is Life Today So Small?įor Antarctic Researchers, Sexual Harassment Is a “Fact of Life”Ī Supreme Court Case About ISIS and YouTube Could Change the Internet as We Know It Her Story Shows How Everything Could Change.ģ40-Pound Penguins Once Roamed the Earth. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
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