Many
animators take an interest in early cinema technologies and often experiment
with them. In fact, their first “animations”
are often flip books drawn on the corners of school workbooks. References to early technologies can be found
in many animated films, from Taku
Furukawa and Kōji Yamamura’s experiments with the Phenakistoscope (see: Odorokiban
and Omake)
to Toshio Iwai’s 3D Zoetropes of Toy
Story (made with Gregory
Barsamian, who does a lot of
art inspired by early animation/cinema) and Bouncing Totoro at the
Ghibli Museum Mitaka.
The animator
/ artist Hirotoshi Iwasaki (岩崎宏俊, b. 1981), who just this week
won the Grand
Prix for Non-Narrative Short at HAFF for his latest work Dark Mixer (2014), built a Mutoscope out of iron in
2011. The Mutoscope is an early cinema
device which was patented in 1894 by the American inventor Herman Casler (1867-1939).
Instead of projecting on a screen, the Mutoscope creates the perception
of movement in the same way that a flip book does except, rather than being
bound like a book, the large cards (7 x 4.75cm) are attached to a circular
core. These were coin operated machines
that could be viewed by an individual through a single lens, as the poet Jared Carter describes in his 1993 poem
“Penny Arcade”: “The light goes out, the
ratchet handle stops, / along the tightrope stretched across the falls / the
cards collapse. Another penny crawls / into
the slot. The light blinks on. She hops, / she keeps her balance with a
parasol /and strikes an hourglass pose.” (read the whole poem)
Iwasaki’s
Mutoscope is a pared down version of the original – just the mechanical
structure of the device without it being encased in a coin-operated viewing
device. Instead of the approximately 850
cards used in the original machines, Iwasaki made just 16 images that
repeat. Interestingly, 16 frames per
second is the minimum frame rate needed for the phenomenon of persistence of
vision to work. With projected film,
anything slower would cause a flicker that soul be distracting to the spectator. I don’t know if this is why Iwasaki chose 16
frames, but it seems likely.
According to
his official
website, he made four sets of 16 images for the device: Phantom, Wave, Moon
and Bottom. The Mutoscope was exhibited
as part of his exhibition Invisible Time
at Gallery Terra Tokyo from 6
June – 23 July 2011. The event
description reads:
“Iwasaki constantly tries to turn invisible
existence - time, space and memory - into perceivable objects. He uses moving
images to make palpable what was formerly invisible, transcending language
barriers and producing a poetic atmosphere. This exhibition showcases works
that focus on the theme of “time” - in our memory, in a mirror, at the bottom
of a well.” (Source: TAB) Footage of Phantom and Wave in action can be
seen on Iwasaki’s Vimeo and Youtube channels.
2015 Cathy
Munroe Hotes
