Jeremy Bentham Auto-icon

Dublin Core

Title

Description

The auto-icon is constitute of Jeremy Bentham's skeleton dressed in his usual clothes, with the wax face modelled by Jaques Talrich. The head is preserved in the Institute of Archaeology. Alongside the auto-icon are Jeremy Bentham's ring, glasses, and other belongings. The ring consists Bentham's hair inside.

The final picture showing an camera on top of the cabinet and the audio record are both ways which people communicate with the auto-icon. The camera not only act as security function, but also as how the auto-icon "sees" the viewers. The audio was a student project, the recorder was put inside the case, and recorded sounds of people coming to see the auto-icon.

The videos clips are the interview with Nick Booth, curator for the Jeremy Bentham auto-icon. In the videos, he talked about why and how the auto-icon was collected and exhibited in UCL; whether he consider the auto-icon as an "object"; and also about the mysterious head and the fascinating myths.