Automata

As the encyclopedia was being drafted, as sciences were gaining their authority and the foundations of the industrial revolution were being laid, Pierre Jaquet Droz strove to make his trade a genuine challenge: that of copying life itself. His automata - The Writer, The Musician and The draughtsman, now exhibited at the Neuchâtel Museum of Art and History – were to amaze many royal audiences at the time. Reviving this Art of Astonishement, Jaquet Droz now reveals its newest treasures. In this digital age, craftsmen have created The Time Writing Machine - which writes the precise time on a sheet of paper - as well as The Bird Repeater, a completely
animated timepiece, The Magician and Charlie, humanoids that would not look out of place in a sci-fi movie.