Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of the Moving Image for a fourth time. I was really excited about this trip because I'd never taken a guided tour of the museum before.
My favorite part of the tour was seeing Gregory Barsamian's
Feral Fount. This was my first time seeing this piece. I never knew it existed before this trip. It is hidden away in a small, dark room. Our tour guide led us all back there and explained to us what it is and how it works.
feral fount by gregory barsamian from amanda kirkpatrick on Vimeo.
Feral Fount is a colossal zoetrope: a device that creates the illusion of motion by exhibiting a sequence of images in gradual phases of that motion. This zoetrope is made up of many small sculptures placed at different levels around a cylinder. In this particular case, both rotation and light are crucial to the success of the illusion. A strobe light illuminates the sculptures while they are in rotation. The sculptures are spinning around faster than our eyes can process, giving us the impression they are moving and transforming.
I realized while watching the zoetrope that animation is founded on the same principles as it. Images in films and cartoons seem to be moving because they are appearing too quickly and too rapidly for our eyes to understand, which is essentially what happens when we view a zoetrope.
I learned that in the pre-animation era, zoetropes and other optical toys such as thaumatropes and the flip-book, were a huge source of entertainment. People would sit around and play with these things for hours. I'm grateful I'm not one of these people. As fascinating as zoetropes are, I can't imagine a world without technology.