7/25/2023 0 Comments Automaton book![]() ![]() One of the most delightful and influential works on automata is The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, by Ismail al-Jazari. In medieval Cairo, they were a common feature of palaces-Al-Afdal Shahanshah, a Fatimid vizier, adorned his wine-hall with statues of singing girls, automata carved from camphor and amber that bowed when he entered the room and straightened up again when he took his seat. More often, they were intended to delight and entertain. Although it is just a trick, it still makes you shiver. There is a whiff of the supernatural here: The murdered dead rises to demand vengeance. It was this sight, in part, that spurred the onlookers to a bloody riot. Shakespeare immortalized Antony’s speech with the lines “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” but perhaps more striking than the words was the automata Antony used to illustrate them: A wax Caesar, rising from his deathbed and turning, slowly, to display his twenty-three bleeding wounds to the crowd. Born in Milan, Paolo Ventura currently lives and works in New York.This theme can be seen in one of the most iconic moments of Roman history, Mark Antony’s famous oration to the mob. He is also included in the new publication Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography (Aperture / Library of Congress, 2011). Two monographs of Paolo Ventura's work have been published: War Souvenir (Contrasto, 2006) and Winter Stories (Aperture and Contrasto, 2009). His works have been acquired by prominent public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Maison Europeen de la Photographie, Paris and the Martin Margulies Collection in Miami, Florida. Currently he has three exhibitions of his work on show in the Italian national pavilion at the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale in the exhibition 'Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities' at the Museum of Art and Design, New York and at the Hasted Kraeutler Gallery, New York. Paolo Ventura's work has been exhibited widely throughout Europe and the States. The Automaton is a photographic narrative from beginning to end. These are then photographed and his final artworks are the photographs of these constructed tableaux. Having created the narrative script for the book, he then builds elaborate models and miniature figurines in his studio and incorporates them in what appear as almost film sets. Paolo Ventura is internationally known for the complex creative process he adopts. The old man decides to build an automaton (a robot), to keep him company while he awaits the arrival of the fascist police who will deport the last of the remaining Jews from the ghetto. ![]() The city where the watchmaker has lived his entire life, now desolate and fearful, is the stage on which the story unfolds. It centres on an elderly, Jewish watchmaker living in the Venice ghetto in 1943, one of the darkest periods of the Nazi occupation and the rule of the fascist regime in Italy. The Automaton is based on a story told to Paolo Ventura as a child. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |