http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/32/327.html
http://www.stanford.edu/group/shl/Eyes/machines/
...Which is a rather nice essay on Kirchner and his contraptions.
Robert Darnton noted the predilection for persecuting cats in 'The Great Cat Massacre' - cats had a bad press in early modern Europe.
Now, a shiny new pound for the lucky person who can find an illustration.
Two shiny new pounds for the lucky person who can find Kirchner's plans.
A civil indictment for the lucky person who tries to make one.
"In keeping with Darnton's methodology and subject matter we might want to look at the cat piano. Athanasius Kircher first wrote about it in his great *Musurgia universalis* of 1650, and it has reappeared occasionally since. In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat's tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy [1].
"The cat piano confirms Darnton's discovery that most early modern Europeans found the torture of cats funny. It also illustrates Kircher's fascination with the relationship between the art of music and the natural production of animal sounds. But for us it is an instrument that has mercifully been forgotten."
http://www.stanford.edu/group/shl/Eyes/machines/
...Which is a rather nice essay on Kirchner and his contraptions.
Robert Darnton noted the predilection for persecuting cats in 'The Great Cat Massacre' - cats had a bad press in early modern Europe.
Now, a shiny new pound for the lucky person who can find an illustration.
Two shiny new pounds for the lucky person who can find Kirchner's plans.
A civil indictment for the lucky person who tries to make one.