Gunalan Nadarajan

Éva Kozma, Gábor Tálosi

EVENT

presentation

cybernetics / east / west / history of technology / knowledge / machine / middle ages

2007-03-25

English

The Kitab fi ma rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya (The Book of Ingenious Mechanical Devices) by Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari, completed between 1202 - 04 and published in 1206, was arguably the most comprehensive and methodical compilation of the most current knowledge about automated devices and mechanics of its time. The work systematically charted out the technological development of a variety of devices and mechanisms that both exemplified and extended the then existing knowledge on automata and automation. This lecture presents al-Jazari’s work as a significant contribution to the history of robotics and automation insofar as it as enables a critical re-evaluation of conventional histories and notions of automation and robotics that have emphasized ‘control’; the notion of control itself drawn primarily on industrialization and cybernetics as immediate and substantive precedents of automation. (...) (G.N.)

Kempelen - Man in the Machine Symposium