Victorian Machines - Week 1

During our very first lecture, we have looked at the history of invention, specifically throughout the Victorian era. However, before we began our lecture we were asked to think about a piece of technology that we could not live without.

We came to the conclusion that we could not live without appliances such as fridges, microwaves, kettles, etc. These appliances make our life much more easier and its just as easy to forget how much we rely on them. On the other hand, I believe I could actually not live without my headphones. The convenience of being able to listen to loud music at 3am without starting a war with my neighbours puts my life at ease. Additionally, noise cancellation comes in handy in Cambridge's very busy public transport.

After we began talking about Victorian times I realised that there was much more to it than I knew. The Victorian era was characterised by great economic growth, technological discovery, and industrialization. In this lecture we primarily focused on the inventions, many of which featured 'questionable' designs and a fascinating outdated vision of the future. We continued the lecture looking at some of the old machinery and guessing their purpose.

One of the Victorian machine that especially caught my attention was the The Euphonia, a Victorian Talking Machine.

Before the modern era of digital speech synthesis, engineers experimented with mechanical means of recreating the sound of the human voice. Interestingly, the machine was made to closely resembled a human face, with its realistic mask and a use of a Victorian black wig. I find this fact intriguing as the modern "talking machines" often lack any human resemblance, often featuring a minimalistic design, with a display or alternatively simple LEDs. This unique choice made the machine appear quite scary. The use of a humanoid face makes the machine appear like a scene straight out of a horror movie with weird talking guillotines. Overall, it is hard to believe anyone thought this was a good idea at the time. Perhaps if the machine actually featured a body it would help with its charisma.

The modern "talking machines" have a completely minimalistic design with zero human resemblance. The closest thing that could make them humanoid is the use of AI but even that is hardly considered human, at least in 2023. Its compact minimalistic design is chosen for the convenience sake as it is small enough to fit pretty much anywhere. However, I like to imagine that they are specifically designed this way to maintain a friendly 'undercover' appearance and minimise the overhanging fear of scary sci-fi robots taking over humanity. Afterall you cant really expect a speaker to end everything you love. But realistically they are meant to be simple, straight forward and user friendly.