Zoetrope: Creating the Illusion of Movement Through Present Times -- The Kinetic Interface

September 26, 2008

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:

Corvette in NYC

Toy Story: The Circular Zoetrope Revisited

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: