Turk, G (2015) The Mechanical Turk. Metropole Hotel, Venice, Italy, 1 May - 30 June 2015.
| Item Type: | Exhibition |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Turk, G |
| Abstract: | Gavin Turk’s film The Mechanical Turk (2006), presented by the Gervasuti Foundation in collaboration with the Hotel Metropole is a site specific installation within the context of the hotel’s Byzantine, historical and cultural references. The film shows the artist impersonating Wolfgang von Kempelen’s famous automaton ‘The Turk’ (1769) which was capable of playing a game of chess against a human opponent. This ingeniously constructed mechanism was exhibited by its various owners and captivated audiences across Europe and America, until Edgar Allen Poe exposed it in the early 1820s as a hoax. The cabinet beneath the automaton was an elaborate hiding place for a dwarf chess master to secretly play the game. The influential cultural theorist Walter Benjamin compared the Mechanical Turk to a particular view of history, which doesn’t see through the illusions that conceal the true mechanisms of power and he related the automaton to Karl Marx’s concept of historical materialism. |
| Official URL: | http://gavinturk.com/exhibitions/show/10518/ |
| Date: | May 2015 |
| Event Location: | Metropole Hotel, Venice, Italy |
| Number of Pieces: | 1 |
| Medium: | Film projection |
| Measurements/Duration: | 14 min |
| Divisions: | Bath School of Art, Film and Media |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Nov 2016 17:36 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Aug 2021 09:44 |
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