The Mechanical Turk

Gavin Turk questions what it means to be an agent of cultural change by recasting himself as a human simulacrum of such diverse figures as Che Guevara, Sid Vicious and Jean-Paul Marat. In the era of Deep Blue, the massive computer designed to play and beat world champion Gary Kasparov, the artist returns us to, coincidentally, his namesake: The Mechanical Turk. This 18th-century automaton was the first (pseudo) machine designed to successfully play chess. Dressing himself in the turban and traditional Turkish garb of the time, the artist impersonates the romantic-era robot and alludes to the fact that there may be a human element in this technological marvel. The film is approximately 14 minutes long and shows the artist executing the Knight’s Tour with one hand in a mechanical fashion. This complex move consists of moving the Knight across the board until it has landed on every square and returned to its starting point.

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