Thursday, September 10, 2009

Katzenklavier

"The Cat Piano" - directed by Eddie White and Ari Gibson, narrated by Nick Cave. The whole mysterious kingdom of anthropomorphic cats thing kind of reminds me of Hiroyuki Morita's "The Cat Returns," but with a more sinister and noirish touch. It's obviously best appreciated in full-screen mode and not in the wee little embedded viewer.

But wait! Did you know that the concept of the katzenklavier is not entirely fictional? It was devised, but never brought into practice, by Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar, in 1650. It was also described by Johann Christian Reil, an 18th century physician (also German) who first coined the term "psychiatrist,"as a possible treatment for attention disorders. (See articles: here and here) Good job, early science!