Interview – Maria Gerolemou

Those of you who have seen my talks on the prehistory of robotics will know that I have a fascination with automata in the ancient world. Now I appear to have found a soul mate. Dr. Maria Gerolemou is a Classicist currently based at the University of Exeter who shares my fascination with techne, as the Greeks called it. Recently I got to interview her. A shorter version appeared on my radio show, but this is the full thing.

As you will hear, part of Maria’s work involves theatre. People like Hero of Alexandria were very much involved in theatre during their lifetimes and some of the techniques that the ancient Greeks and Romans developed are still in use today. I think there’s a lot of potential for cooperation between Classicists like Maria and modern science fiction theatre. It should be particularly of interest to puppeteers. Hello Mary Robinette.