My talking machine Kempelen 2.0 can be seen at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology as part of the Exhibition “Assembling Bodies” from March 2009 to December 2010.

Opening in March 2009, Assembling Bodies: Art, Science & Imagination aims to challenge pre-conceived notions about the human body. This innovative, multi-disciplinary exhibition examines ways that bodies are constructed, known and transformed in various historical, cross-cultural and disciplinary contexts. It invites visitors to explore various technologies through which different bodies are known and made visible.
Presenting insights from anthropology, archaeology, history, classics, bio-medical research and artistic practice, the exhibition brings together an assembly of bodies from different times and places, highlighting multiple and transitive definitions of the body as well as the political implications of the ways that distinct bodies are created and understood.
The opening of the exhibition in March 2009 marks the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge and the 125th anniversary of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Cambridge has a long and vital history as a site in which beliefs about the human body have been developed and challenged.
Assembling Bodies is a component of a five-year interdisciplinary research project Changing Beliefs of the Human Body funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Additional support has been provided by the Arts Council of England (East), the Wellcome Trust, and the Crowther-Beynon Fund (MAA).
Links:
· Assembling Bodies (Exhibition Archive)
· Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
· Changing Beliefs of the Human Body, Leverhulme Research Programme, Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge), Faculty of Classics (Cambridge) and School of Archaeology and Ancient History (Leicester)
This article was originally posted 2009, March 14

