Phantasmagorical Writing Inventions: The Inspiratron & Others
JA
April 12
Over at A Journey Round My Skull, Gilbert Alter-Gilbert (a pseudonym I’m sure) has done an incredibly comprehensive post on writers and their many bizarre accessories – James Joyce and his black Abbott eye patch, for instance, or Henry James and his fondness for exploding cigars. The entire essay is a worth a read, but I was particularly drawn to the final section on mechanical writing ‘aides’, built during the Industrial era. Some of these seem to have been drawn right out of the pages a steampunk novel – either beautifully intricate or downright Frankensteinian in their horrible confines. Here’s a likely preview.
Image via A Journey Round My Skull
Patterson-Armitage Dictascrivener, introduced 1898. According to Alter-Gilbert, ‘[t]he gentle voltage passing through the barrel of the Dictascrivener emitted a vibratory stimulus which would allegedly trigger a discharge of dazzling revelations’.
Image via A Journey Round My Skull
Castalia Corporation’s Muse-O-Matic, introduced 1931. Alter-Gilbert describes this invention as ‘[a] nightmare of exposed hinges, argon and neon beam projectors, tubes and resistors’. The hypnotic spiral-patterned disc, when spun, would apparently enthrall the would-be author in ‘mental captivation’ and inspire all kinds of new creative heights.
Image via A Journey Round My Skull
Parnassus Enterprises’ Inspiratron, introduced 1931. The writer/guinea-pig seated therein would grasp onto a pole conducting a ‘mild electric current’, the shock of which was designed again to activate their slumbering inner muse.
Image via A Journey Round My Skull
Finally, the Jones-Underhill Composition Cabinet (date unknown?). This was one of the many ‘writing booths’ invented to engineer creativity through the scientific theory of ‘infrapoesis’. Basically, the writer was made to lie perpendicular in coffin-like confines, equipped with various buzzers, bells and lights to stir the senses. The cage-like Composition Cabinet featured ‘a gleaming chromium sphere orbited by colored glass globes’, as well as several apparatuses to take the ‘climate of the soul’. This information was then fed back to the writer within as a form of artistic encouragement.
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Comments
28 Jan 11 at 15:45
Conflicting feelings to be sure. Immediately I say “Out of their fucking minds” but this is quickly counterbalanced by “Wait, could they have been onto something that was ignored, suppressed, lost?” Like Nicola Tesla, whose theories and experiments even today inspire interest and study.
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