KEMPELEN: Wolfgang von Kempe­len - Media Art and History Exhibition

KEMPELEN: Wolfgang von Kempe­len - Media Art and History Exhibition. "...The history of the chess-player automaton of Wolfgang von Kempe­len (1734 – 1804) and its legend have engaged artists, scientists and laymen for centuries. Now, more than two hundred years after von Kempelen ’s death, the joint exhibition of C3 Foun­dation and the ZKM in Karlsruhe, setting the two outstanding mecha­nical inventions of the polyhistor – the chess-player automaton and the speaking machine – at the centre, attempts to focus not only on the most en­during memories of his almost unfathomably far-reaching career. Alongside the portrayal of von Kempelen as scientist, engi­neer, artist, showman, civil servant and private individual, the exhibi­tion broadens the picture onto the Court of Maria Theresa and Jo­seph II, the mechanical inventions of the epoch, the invention of the era of invention, the Freemasonry movement, and the Turk- and puppet-mania of the century."