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Vaucanson Flute Player
The Vaucanson Automat Flute Player is an android automaton playing the transverse flute, designed and produced by Jacques de Vaucanson and presented to the public in 1738. It faithfully recreates the playing of a flautist on an instrument identical to those in use at the time.
The idea of an automated flutist came to Vaucanson while he was observing the statue of the Faun playing the flute, also known as the Shepherd Flutist, by Antoine Coysevox in the Tuileries Garden.
Begun in 1735, the automaton was completed in October 1737. After a brief exhibition at the Foire Saint-Germain, it was put on a paid demonstration in January 1738 at the Hôtel de Longueville, where Vaucanson had his workshop. The public is divided between skepticism and admiration, and Voltaire describes the inventor as "rival of Prometheus". At first reluctant, but at the express request of Louis XV transmitted by his prime minister, Cardinal de Fleury, the members of the French Academy of Sciences went to the Hôtel de Longueville to examine the automaton. Vaucanson made a detailed presentation to them in his memoir of April 30, 1738, and the Academy returned a laudatory report signed by the perpetual secretary Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, with approval for printing by Henri Pitot:
The Academy, having heard the reading of a Memoir by Mr. Vaucanson containing the description of a wooden statue, copied from Coysevox's marble faun, playing the transverse flute, upon which it performs twelve different tunes with a precision that has deserved the attention of the public, and of which a large part of the Academy has been witness, judged that this machine was extremely ingenious, that the author must have employed simple and new means, both to give the fingers of this figure the necessary movements and to modify the air entering the flute, by increasing or decreasing the speed according to the different tones, by varying the arrangement of the lips, and by moving a valve that performs the function of the tongue; finally, by imitating through art everything that man is obliged to do, and that furthermore, Mr. Vaucanson's Memoir had all the clarity and precision that this machine is capable of, which proves the intelligence of the author and his great knowledge in the various parts of mechanics.
— Jacques de Vaucanson
To illustrate his article «Android», the Encyclopédie gives an extremely detailed description in 1751, largely taken from the memoir of 1738. The flutist, approximately 1.60 metres (63 in) high, resting on a 1.45 metres (57 in) pedestal hiding the mechanism, was a slightly reduced imitation of the Coysevox faun, dressed in savage clothing.
From 1741, the Fluter was exhibited in several cities in France and in Italy with two other creations by Vaucanson, the Digesting Duck and the Provençal Tambourinaire.
Rented for a year to three Lyon merchants, including a certain Pierre Dumoulin, master glover-perfumer, the automatons were exhibited in London in 1742, then purchased in Vaucanson at the end of the lease. Dumoulin made them travel to the Netherlands, France, notably Strasbourg in 1746, and Germany, where, due to lack of money, their journey was interrupted in 1755 at a pawnbroker in Nuremberg. As a precaution, Dumoulin made the automatons unusable, reversing parts of the Flutor and the Tambourinaire. Having left for Russia, he died there without ever coming to reclaim his property.
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Vaucanson Flute Player AI simulator
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Vaucanson Flute Player
The Vaucanson Automat Flute Player is an android automaton playing the transverse flute, designed and produced by Jacques de Vaucanson and presented to the public in 1738. It faithfully recreates the playing of a flautist on an instrument identical to those in use at the time.
The idea of an automated flutist came to Vaucanson while he was observing the statue of the Faun playing the flute, also known as the Shepherd Flutist, by Antoine Coysevox in the Tuileries Garden.
Begun in 1735, the automaton was completed in October 1737. After a brief exhibition at the Foire Saint-Germain, it was put on a paid demonstration in January 1738 at the Hôtel de Longueville, where Vaucanson had his workshop. The public is divided between skepticism and admiration, and Voltaire describes the inventor as "rival of Prometheus". At first reluctant, but at the express request of Louis XV transmitted by his prime minister, Cardinal de Fleury, the members of the French Academy of Sciences went to the Hôtel de Longueville to examine the automaton. Vaucanson made a detailed presentation to them in his memoir of April 30, 1738, and the Academy returned a laudatory report signed by the perpetual secretary Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, with approval for printing by Henri Pitot:
The Academy, having heard the reading of a Memoir by Mr. Vaucanson containing the description of a wooden statue, copied from Coysevox's marble faun, playing the transverse flute, upon which it performs twelve different tunes with a precision that has deserved the attention of the public, and of which a large part of the Academy has been witness, judged that this machine was extremely ingenious, that the author must have employed simple and new means, both to give the fingers of this figure the necessary movements and to modify the air entering the flute, by increasing or decreasing the speed according to the different tones, by varying the arrangement of the lips, and by moving a valve that performs the function of the tongue; finally, by imitating through art everything that man is obliged to do, and that furthermore, Mr. Vaucanson's Memoir had all the clarity and precision that this machine is capable of, which proves the intelligence of the author and his great knowledge in the various parts of mechanics.
— Jacques de Vaucanson
To illustrate his article «Android», the Encyclopédie gives an extremely detailed description in 1751, largely taken from the memoir of 1738. The flutist, approximately 1.60 metres (63 in) high, resting on a 1.45 metres (57 in) pedestal hiding the mechanism, was a slightly reduced imitation of the Coysevox faun, dressed in savage clothing.
From 1741, the Fluter was exhibited in several cities in France and in Italy with two other creations by Vaucanson, the Digesting Duck and the Provençal Tambourinaire.
Rented for a year to three Lyon merchants, including a certain Pierre Dumoulin, master glover-perfumer, the automatons were exhibited in London in 1742, then purchased in Vaucanson at the end of the lease. Dumoulin made them travel to the Netherlands, France, notably Strasbourg in 1746, and Germany, where, due to lack of money, their journey was interrupted in 1755 at a pawnbroker in Nuremberg. As a precaution, Dumoulin made the automatons unusable, reversing parts of the Flutor and the Tambourinaire. Having left for Russia, he died there without ever coming to reclaim his property.