EP 24: The Maiden Machine, in BRUNELLA ANTOMARINI’S essay, THE MAIDEN MACHINE: PHILOSOPHY IN THE AGE OF THE UNBORN WOMAN, is the protagonist of a story, or a history, not yet documented. The book describes, in detail, the protagonist’s philosophical exploits during her compelling, and perhaps, undocumentable journey. As such, she speaks with the other half of herself, which comprises the reader, or the feminine side of the reader, or her future self. She is ‘unborn’, i.e., trans-anagraphic, which makes her both old and young, or still to be hatched from the machine that breeds her. The Maiden Machine is the feminine equivalent of Duchamp’s bachelor machine. She is a self-made and self-reproducing ‘entity’ that escapes being human as much as she can. This is why she tries to transmit to the readers all her thoughts, observations and meditations from a distant point in time and space, incommensurable with all ideologies. From this position the Maiden Machine reveals herself to be as automatic as a robot, as spiritual as a six-winged angel, as wise as an old woman, as impertinent as a young child. 

BRUNELLA ANTOMARINI is the author of Thinking Through Error (Lexington Books, 2012); La preistoria acustica della poesia(Aragno Editore, Torino, 2012); L’errore del maestro: Una lettura laica dei Vangeli (Derive & Approdi, Rome, 2006); and La percezione della forma: Trascendenza e finitezza in Hans Urs von Balthasar (Aesthetica Edizioni, Palermo, 2004). She is also the author of a children’s book, Denizens of the Forest (Poligrapha Ediciones, Barcelona, 1992). She lives in Rome, where she teaches Contemporary Philosophy and Aesthetics at John Cabot University. 

First edition paperback, January 2013, 80 pp., sewn, bound and printed in Italy, with a two-color cover and a black and white photograph of the artist on the frontispiece.

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