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No True Scotsman
Apr. 28th, 2014 04:45 pmThe vision has never wavered for me, not for an instant; it is as perfect in my mind as it was ten years ago when I first saw those terribly carved wooden blocks dancing for the Queen. How ugly they were, how dull and how crude — but even then, there was an essence underneath that poor display, a vision that spoke to me.
I knew then what could be — what should be — and devoted my life to it. For years I studied, balancing and placating the twin dragons of engineering and art — never, I learned, must one outstrip the other, lest a designer be left with functional parts no person would desire to look at, or present a beautiful form that does nothing but stand mute.
It was the union of those disciplines where I poured my life, seeking to create something no one had before.
In time, I graduated from making small animatronics and those selfsame crude wooden clacking blocks to grander visions. A finch, one that could cock its head and sing; a cocker spaniel, sophisticated enough to roll over on command. It was enough to delight the court and have them grant me the position of an Architect, with the resources I wanted — no, needed — to do what I truly desired. What only I could do.
Oh, if only it were as easy as making small animals that could please the fops at court.
My first attempts at automatons — from the Greek work αὐτόματον — were hardly worth the name — they barely looked human, could do no more than stumble, and I cast them aside almost as quickly as I cast their molds and cut their gears. Each one was as much of a failure as the last.
But it is a truth that the practice of art drives art itself forward, and through time and innumerable prototypes, smashed gears and fits of rage, something began to take shape, and rise from the failures.
The fingers were my first breakthrough — using lenses, I was able to create smaller gears and smaller levers that allowed for finer movements, and created hands that were more akin to our own than the literal blocks the automata previously had for hands. Then the creation of scripts, borrowed from the Swiss work on their charming music boxes, allowed our automata to expand so that they could perform a myriad of tasks, as long as they were fed the correct script.
The achievements came faster and faster — articulating joints and ‘eyes’ that could process, in something of an elementary fashion, the presence of light — and when the Queen called for a show, I thought that perhaps I would finally be able to deliver on the vision that I had seen so long ago.
I answered her call and told her that I had something worth showing, something that would change the world.
And upon the stage that I watched blocks dance and realized what my life’s work would be, I sat as a grown man and I saw the culmination of my work writ large. My models performed well — they were more graceful than anyone expected, executing movements and poses perfectly through the routine, indeed even putting the Royal Corps de Ballet to shame — and as they finished, the applause was thunderous.
But I was not done — after my bow, I pointed back to the stage, and flashed a light at the lead automata, setting a secret script, one I had told no one about, into effect.
And he spoke. Just a few words, a thank you to the Queen, and then a bow, which the others followed. The audience went wild — the papers the day after said that there had never been such an ovation, such a reaction — and I spent hours that night simply trying to get away from all of those who wanted to express their admiration.
And yet, here is the difference between the creator and the audience: all I could think of is of the failure that the automata expressed. When it came time to speak, he might have been a child, slow in the head. His words were not clear, and he was so far away from conversing that it might be years, or decades. The vision that I knew of so many years ago was still as steady as ever, but I was no closer to accomplishing it — and though all the court congratulates me on creating something that can move, that can dance, that can speak, none of them know the true boundaries of what could be.
Of what I could make it.
Perhaps the secret is this: that even with all of our breakthroughs, with all of our borrowing of other technologies, of reaching for the cutting edge of what humanity can do, there still, always, something missing. Perfection feels like it is always just hovering over the horizon, over the next breakthrough, but with each advance, there are other areas to correct, other progress that must be made. Art is never as beautiful in real life as it is in our minds.
But I will never rest until I reach it.
I knew then what could be — what should be — and devoted my life to it. For years I studied, balancing and placating the twin dragons of engineering and art — never, I learned, must one outstrip the other, lest a designer be left with functional parts no person would desire to look at, or present a beautiful form that does nothing but stand mute.
It was the union of those disciplines where I poured my life, seeking to create something no one had before.
In time, I graduated from making small animatronics and those selfsame crude wooden clacking blocks to grander visions. A finch, one that could cock its head and sing; a cocker spaniel, sophisticated enough to roll over on command. It was enough to delight the court and have them grant me the position of an Architect, with the resources I wanted — no, needed — to do what I truly desired. What only I could do.
Oh, if only it were as easy as making small animals that could please the fops at court.
My first attempts at automatons — from the Greek work αὐτόματον — were hardly worth the name — they barely looked human, could do no more than stumble, and I cast them aside almost as quickly as I cast their molds and cut their gears. Each one was as much of a failure as the last.
But it is a truth that the practice of art drives art itself forward, and through time and innumerable prototypes, smashed gears and fits of rage, something began to take shape, and rise from the failures.
The fingers were my first breakthrough — using lenses, I was able to create smaller gears and smaller levers that allowed for finer movements, and created hands that were more akin to our own than the literal blocks the automata previously had for hands. Then the creation of scripts, borrowed from the Swiss work on their charming music boxes, allowed our automata to expand so that they could perform a myriad of tasks, as long as they were fed the correct script.
The achievements came faster and faster — articulating joints and ‘eyes’ that could process, in something of an elementary fashion, the presence of light — and when the Queen called for a show, I thought that perhaps I would finally be able to deliver on the vision that I had seen so long ago.
I answered her call and told her that I had something worth showing, something that would change the world.
And upon the stage that I watched blocks dance and realized what my life’s work would be, I sat as a grown man and I saw the culmination of my work writ large. My models performed well — they were more graceful than anyone expected, executing movements and poses perfectly through the routine, indeed even putting the Royal Corps de Ballet to shame — and as they finished, the applause was thunderous.
But I was not done — after my bow, I pointed back to the stage, and flashed a light at the lead automata, setting a secret script, one I had told no one about, into effect.
And he spoke. Just a few words, a thank you to the Queen, and then a bow, which the others followed. The audience went wild — the papers the day after said that there had never been such an ovation, such a reaction — and I spent hours that night simply trying to get away from all of those who wanted to express their admiration.
And yet, here is the difference between the creator and the audience: all I could think of is of the failure that the automata expressed. When it came time to speak, he might have been a child, slow in the head. His words were not clear, and he was so far away from conversing that it might be years, or decades. The vision that I knew of so many years ago was still as steady as ever, but I was no closer to accomplishing it — and though all the court congratulates me on creating something that can move, that can dance, that can speak, none of them know the true boundaries of what could be.
Of what I could make it.
Perhaps the secret is this: that even with all of our breakthroughs, with all of our borrowing of other technologies, of reaching for the cutting edge of what humanity can do, there still, always, something missing. Perfection feels like it is always just hovering over the horizon, over the next breakthrough, but with each advance, there are other areas to correct, other progress that must be made. Art is never as beautiful in real life as it is in our minds.
But I will never rest until I reach it.
