One would never want to underestimate the power of Walt Disney and the Walt Disney Corporation in the collective history of fictional machines, automatons, etc in the United States--in this link stumbled upon at boingboing.net, a vintage magazine documents the animatronic wonders of "Abraham Lincoln" and other Disney ersatz humans.
comment two below shows this related link!
If I remember correctly, these Disney automatons were the inspiration for the Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton simulacra in Philip K. Dick's WE CAN BUILD YOU.
ReplyDeleteI really wonder why people want to make and watch these automata. Maybe they are trying to immortalize themselves or historical features in living facsimiles. I found the short video about the amzing arrow shooting automaton. This is amazing..
ReplyDeletehttp://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:cRn8_KqQ4fUJ:dugnorth.com/blog/+asimo,automaton&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us
Known as Karakuri, the Japanese have a very long tradition of fine automata making. This is a reproduction of an original from the 1850s. The boy reaches down, selects and arrow, puts the arrow on the string, draws back, and fires at the target. He repeats this action several times.