O’ Sentimental Machine is a five channel film and sculptural installation, originally commissioned for the 14th Istanbul Biennial, SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, where it was installed in one ofIstanbul’s oldest hotels, the Hotel Splendid Palas. In a critique of Russian revolutionary LeonTrotsky’s notion that people are ‘sentimental but programmable machines’, subtitled videos of speeches by Trotsky and also his time in exile in Istanbul are projected on to glass doors on either side of the installation, offering the viewer the opportunity to observe what is going on behind theclosed doors. The piece also mirrors the working relationship between Leon Trotsky and his secretary Evgenia Shelepina.

“The installation copies the foyer as a proscenium-arch stage that is supposed to be entered so asto transform the audience into participants in a revival of the exhibition of 2015. Kentridge himself slips in to the role of Trotsky and interprets a propagandistic lecture that the latter recorded on film during his exile.”

- Handbook to O’ Sentimental Machine, Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung 2018