The Intersection of Animation, Video Games, and Music

2 Rusted RedMachinarium as Political Allegory

Tristan Kneschke

DOI: 10.4324/9781032172231-3

In Prague, walk past Petrin Hill Park’s lush gardens, a mirror maze, and an imitation of the Eiffel Tower, and a more somber visage comes into view. A strikingly bleak bronze statuary sits at the park’s east side. Memorial to the Victims of Communism, created by architect Olbram Zoubek and installed in 2002, consists of a series of progressively decaying naked men, emaciated and dehumanized in the face of communism’s devastating effects (see Figure 2.1). The figures are identical, save for the brutalization that increasingly dismantles their bodies, leaving the last figure as little more than a pair of feet. A plaque alongside the memorial lists the ...