5.Lactating Robots

Laura Katrine Skinnebach (CVM) presents her research into the automatons that medieval people both imagined and actually constructed. These included statues of Christ that bled, statues of Mary that expressed holy breast milk, and statues of Óðinn that answered riddles. Visitors to churches across medieval Europe would have frequently been confronted with statues which were something between giant marionettes and massive poseable action figures, and which could bleed, weep, gesticulate, and even speak. Laura introduces us to some of these ingenious contraptions of the Middle Ages. We ask where medieval thinkers drew the line between animate and inanimate – and how far ought we to think of these machines as forerunners of robots?

 

The Chronicles is produced by Kirsi Tilk of Tilk Sonics - kirsitilk.com

Music by Kirsi Tilk

Funded by Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond