The Ethnically Ambiguous Automaton or "Booth of Misfortune" is a sideshow prop originally made for exhibition at the Art Car Boot Fair in Brick Lane. The piece is part puppet, part machine and based on one of histories most successful frauds, Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen's "Mechanical Turk". Kempelen's celebrated automaton could play chess, bewildering and beating many notable opponents including Napolean Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. It wasn't until 1821 some fifty years after it unveiling that it was finally revealed as a hoax. A human player was concealed within the machine..... <NEXT>