Medieval Automata and Simulacra: From the Daemonic to the Hydraulic [Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, May 13–16, 2009]
Puppets, marionettes, golems, androids, automata, moving statues, mannequins, shadow figures—sometimes comic, sometimes creepy, these figures of fun and fright engage us with their similarity, albeit grotesque, to ourselves. Recent researches into the field of medieval automata have convincingly established the the power of these living or life-like machines as both performing objects and as metaphor. They have featured as 'actors', or performing objects, in legend, epic, chanson, and wonder tale; they also have served as metaphors for personal freedom or manipulation, for the presence of a human soul or its terrifying absence.