The praxinoscope, invented by Frenchman Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1877, is the successor to the zoetrope animation device (see my post about zoetropes).
The main difference is that instead of having viewing slits on the outside of the drum like the zoetrope, the praxinoscope consisted of a series of small mirrors that reflected the sequential images on the lower inside portion of this rotating system. As a result of using mirrors, more light illuminates the images and the animations can be viewed from many different angles. (Also see Jack and Bevery's Praxinoscopes and this brief history of praxinoscopes).
Pictures of Praxinoscopes
The below images show common themes for praxinoscopes including galloping horses, a girl jump roping and circus characters.
The Hola Mola Mola website provides an excellent look at the construction and use of a praxinoscope connected to a projector. These 19th Century projections were known as Théâtre Optique. The first video above of a girl jumping rope is from this project.
The following video walks you through the process of putting the parts together for the praxinoscope unit and projector:
This video shows the resulting projected image:
Artist Heidi Kumao's "Cinema Machines"
Artist Heidi Kumao explored early projection devices such as zoetropes and praxinoscopes in "Cinema Machines" (1991-1999). On the page for Cinema Machines, you can access detailed descriptions, photos and videos of these installations.
When I entered graduate school as a photographer I was already starting to work with sequential imagery. I was driven by a need to animate physical gestures and behaviors as indicators of psychological states. Simultaneously, I was collecting domestic objects and record players and researching pre-cinema devices and the 19th century creation of spectacle, Emile Reynaud's praxinoscope from the 1880's, in particular. My first kinetic works were homemade-looking zoetropes that projected a sequential loop of 12 images: a child being spoon-fed, a woman's legs curtseying, a woman frantically sweeping. Like a memory that can't be repressed, each animated sequence repeated endlessly and mechanically. In this way, each object seemed to be speaking with its images, a visual and mechanical voice replacing text. Much like the girls' legs I made much later, they were an artificial life form, a stand-in for a real person that I could construct and bring life to. These "cinema machines" (as I called them) allowed me to combine all of my interests (photography, performance, sculptural assemblage and the psychology of everyday life), into one art form. I loved working this way and continued to create cinema machines for several years.
I also encourage readers to learn about Kumao's kinetic sculpture. Here's a clip from "Protest" (2005):
Zoetrope: Creating the Illusion of Movement Through Present Times
The origins of the Zoetrope, a pre-cinematic rotating device that created the illusion of movement, can be traced back to Second Century China. British and American patents were granted for this popular animation toy in the 1860s. (For overviews and pictures of the zoetrope, you can visit here, here and here).
A traditional Zoetrope consists of a drum with an open top. Vertical slits run along the circumference of this device. One or more users look through these slits as the drum rotates to view what appears to be smooth motion generated by the static, sequential drawings or images placed on the lower inside portion of the drum.
Here's a picture of a zoetrope from Wikipedia. The animated effect would be of a circus lion jumping on to the back of a horse:
The following short video (no sound) shows a zoetrope spinning on a record player. The camera zooms in to look through the slits and the illusion of a man running can be seen:
Chirstinn Whyte's "Zoetrope" Dance Film
Dancer and choreographer Chirstinn Whyte filmed the dance for camera work "Zoetrope" in 2004 and it premiered at Dance:Film Scotland in 2007. On this film festival website, Whyte's video is described as "...[exploring] pre-cinematic optical forms and their effect on movement patterning."
You can watch four loops from her "Zoetrope" video. I've included the following screen shot from one of these loops. In these sequences, the viewer is seeing multiple sections of movement happening simultaneously and not as a single, unified whole as one would experience when using a traditional cylindrical zoetrope.
Modern Takes: A Linear Zoetrope
In art and commerce, zoetropes continue to evolve to the present day.
In 2001 in Atlanta, SubmediaWorld introduced full-motion subway tunnel ads that are based on a linear zoetrope instead of a circular one as described above. As riders look out the windows of their subway car, they can see commercials that appear to be projected from a single camera source.
Here's a video that shows passengers viewing a Corvette ad in the format of a linear zoetrope:
A popular modern-day variant of the zoetrope is one built in three-dimensions. But instead of using slits or changes in viewing angles to create an animated effect, flickering strobe lights simulate the illusion of motion.
As part of its 20th anniversary celebration in 2006, animation studio Pixar created a 3D zoetrope (7-feet high and with a 12-foot diameter) featuring characters from Toy Story One and Two.
The following video shows the Toy Story zoetrope in action. You won't see the full animated effect until the latter part of the video when the lights are dimmed and the strobe lights are turned on. During the first part of the video, you can see that the adjacent models of a single character represent what would typically be sequential frames of film where the difference in shape and action are very slight:
Thaumatrope, A Spinning Toy from the Victorian Era
A thaumatrope is a Victorian-era toy, the size of a small disk or card, with related pictures on each side. When the disk is spun by strings attached to the sides, the images merge. Common image combinations were a bird and a cage, and a tree and its leaves.
So if you spun the thaumatrope, it would appear that the bird was actually in the cage and that the leaves were on the tree.
London physicist, Dr. John A. Paris, popularized the thaumatrope (which means "turning marvel" or "wonder turner,") in the 1820s.
On the thaumatrope's page for Jack and Beverly's Optical Toys, you can see pictures and animations of spinning thaumatropes. The first example is of the bird and cage:
The second example is of a circus rider on a horse:
Videos of Thaumatropes in Action
In the following video, on one side of a disk a woman is tempted to get every last drop out of her soup bowl and on the other side she makes sure she's successful:
On one side of a thaumatrope is a hat and the other side the head of a man minus the top portion. The spinning creates the animated illusion:
Video Meditations on Thaumatropes
In an animated short, "Thaumatrope, the 2 Sides of Life," by Effie Pappa, the dual sides of this rotating device are used to contrast "two diverse ecological consciences." (Pappa teaches at the Department of Graphic Design, Technological Education Institute of Athens, Greece.):
"Finding Himself In A Thaumatrope"
Jesse LaFlair is a multimedia artist (YouTube profile and MySpace page) who created this "Finding Himself In a Thaumatrope" video. This modern-day take on the two-sided Victorian-era toy interlaces two stop-motion videos of a man who can never quite find his other self:
Phenakistiscope, a Pre-Cinema Device for Dance Animations
Devices for generating dance animations predate the age of cinema. In the 1830s, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau created a contraption called the phenakistiscope.
A typical phenakistiscope is a plate-sized object consisting of two disks. On the outside of one disk (see following images and video) are consecutive frames of animation. On both disks are slits that separate the frames so the viewer can look through the device.
To see the dancers move, you stand in front of a mirror, rotate the disk and look through the slits to watch the reflection of the dancers.
Here are two images from Wikipedia that show you a design of a phenakistiscope and a simulation of one in action.
The Make blog has a post and video on how to make a Phenakistiscope from scratch. The following video is also helpful for visualizing how this early animation device actually worked (the animation that I link to above on Wikipedia is helpful in terms of showing the animation but it is misleading in how one watched the animation):
As you'll see in the Make post, they created an imaginative electric spinning device using a lollipop stick. In the 19th Century, they would have used a simple manual hand-crank or just spun the disks.
Learn more about the phenakistiscope and view pictures here, here and here.
I'm going to take an extended blogging vacation. I might post occasionally but I probably won't be blogging on a regular basis for the next few months.
I have a meeting in Brooklyn later this afternoon near Mark Morris Dance Group. So I'm going to take a ballet class there for the first time. I've been continuing on my non-stop ballet class mission. I figure my technique is never going to improve unless I focus on the basics for the next year or two.
I hope everybody had a good summer and best for the fall.
