Stories, but streamlined.

I · Alexandria · first century

A theater that ran itself.

Hero of Alexandria described a small theater on wheels. It rolled forward on its own and stopped. A fire lit on the altar. Wine poured from the god's cup. Drums and cymbals sounded while dancers circled the temple. Then the god turned, and the theater rolled back to where it had started.

A lead weight drove the whole performance. It sat on a column of millet, and as the grain ran out through a hole at the bottom, the weight sank and pulled the cords that turned the wheels.

Nobody pushed it.

II · The Wei court · third century

A hundred entertainments, driven by water.

Someone gave the emperor a set of carved performers that could be set out but could not move. He asked the engineer Ma Jun whether they could be made to move. “They can,” Ma Jun said.

He carved a great wheel, laid it flat on the ground and drove it from below with water. Wooden musicians beat drums and played flutes. Figures juggled balls, threw swords, climbed ropes and stood on their heads, while others pounded grain and set cocks fighting.

III · The Sui court · seventh century

Seventy-two scenes on a winding stream.

Nearly four centuries later, the court gathered beside a winding stream and watched seventy-two carved scenes float past, every figure “moving as if alive.” Small boats carried musicians, and cups of wine drifted to each guest.

Our Chinese name, 曲水, means that winding stream.

IV · Paris · February 2, 1824

No one was inside.

An organ called the Componium played variations no one in the room had heard before. Members of the French Academy were called in to check whether someone was hiding inside, working the levers.

A person had written every bar on its barrels. The machine decided what came next. We took its name.