"Simulations of Time and Life in Medieval Automata: Islamic Symbolism, Teleological Mechanisms, and Ontological Difference": a talk with Ayhan Aytes November 8, 2007

Ayhan Aytes's research complicates the categorical distinctions between sacred and profane through a series of examples from al-Jaziri's book of mechanical devices. Aytes's study addresses mainly the depiction of the concept of time in some devices as it originates from the symbolic domain but eventually contributes to a mechanical understanding of the universe, while in other automata time reveals a strange synthesis of a religious ritual with an artificial life form. Traditionally these works have been mainly presented as "Islamic automata" by history of science scholars but even this conception is problematic because of the syncretic elements of the symbolic system referred to by these machines. Ayhan Aytes is a graduate researcher in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. This event, part of the University Symposium on Time and the Thursdays at Four series, is sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study and the Center for Medieval Studies.