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This trans-historical collection explores analogue performance technologies from Ancient Greece to pre-Second World War. From ancient mechanical elephants to early modern automata, Enlightenment electrical experiments to Victorian spectral illusions, this volume offers an original examination of the precursors of contemporary digital performance.

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List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors INTRODUCTION; Kara Reilly PART I: INTERROGATING HISTORIOGRAPHY 1. Heron of Alexandria´s ´Toy Theatre´ Automaton : Reality and Illusion; Richard Beacham 2. Manufacturing Elephants: the Mythic, the Mechanical and the Credible in Theatre History; Odai Johnson 3. Performing Technology, Performing Reality: Steele MacKaye´s Actors and Machines; Victor Holtcamp 4. Forgotten Wizard: The Scenographic Innovations of Mariano Fortuny; Brandin Barón-Nusbaum PART II: INDUSTRIAL BODIES AND DANCE 5. Pantomime and Modernity: The Fairy and The Navvy; Kate Newey 6. The Tiller Girls: Mass Ornament and Modern Girl; Kara Reilly 7. Retro-Engineering; Jo hannes Birringer PART III: PERFORMING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 8. Shocks and Sparks: Participatory Electrical Performances in the Enlightenment Period´; Ciara Murphy 9. Modern Nation and Rural Idyll: Reconciling Progress and Purity through Performance ; Naomi J. Stub bs 10. Spectres and Spectators: The Poly-Technologies of the Pepper´s Ghost Illusion; Beth Kattelman 11. Recalling the Theatre Phone; Adrian Curtin 12. ´Like Unto A Lively Thing´: Early Modern Performance of Artificial Intelligence; Michael Chemers

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"Kara Reilly´s edited collection on theatre and analogue technology is timely. ... Reilly´s collection claims to be, and is, the first study that historicizes ´discourses of digital performance´. ... This book will be of interest to all theatre and performance students and scholars, as well as science and cultural historians and all those interested in examining how theatre, performance, and technology have come together not only in current practice but also in a diverse range of historical contexts." (Maria Chatzichristodoulou, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 31 (3), August, 2015)

´These explorations of intriguing oddities of performance history, interspersed by 46 illustrations, covers projects ranging from Richard Beacham´s minutely re-created Roman-era toy theatre with mechanized movable parts to Michael Chemers´s ongoing work with robots whose artificial intelligences lack (to date) what is understood as empathy Recommended [for] graduate students, researchers, faculty, technical students, professionals, general readers.´ CHOICE

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