Lineage · Componium Studio

Lineage

The machines came first.

At the Wei court, in Alexandria and in Paris, people built stages that played on their own. We come from that line.

I · 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.

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II · 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.

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III · Paris · February 2, 1824

The Componium, an organ that improvised.

It 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.

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Contact

Tell us your story.

Tell us what you want told: the topic, who it is for, the languages you need and when you need it. We will make every version, for every screen.

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