Found these, their pretty cool and seem to be part of a series of Victorian toys that were introduced at the suggestion of the Victorians change in attitudes towards seeing children as people with rights and dignity which became the idea of 'childhood innocence'. Before that time, children were mostly seen as an extension of adults, as young people.
Whilst I prefer the older idea that young people should be seen as people with rights no matter their postpartum age (this is how we use a semi colon, not all text should look the same, you are not an automaton ; seeing as for some we need to specify, given they are now running experiments on living and dead human beings again, which as a religious agnostic leaning person, the fuck), the role of Victorians ideas of innocence did eventually lead to social democratisation of public access and human rights. For the person who put my work without permission through plagscan or whatever the hell, that is where a lot of those modern day rights for you to do that come from. Also, hi.
But yeah these are Phenakistiscope (Fantascope/Stroboscopische Scheiben/stroboscopic discs/Phantasmascopes,). These are some of the earliest forms of moving media entertainment, they are repeating Spindletop games which are held in front of a mirror and which show a moving animation. Key to being exciting, they were first mass-marketed in 1833. It means 'to decieve the eye of the one who watches' from a corruption of the old Greek.
Phantasmascope (1883, PD) Ackerman and Co, Fiona Wilson
Man throwing ball to frog (1833, PD) McLean’s Optical Illusions
These are modern GIF's which animate them and arent the same, but they are an interesting way to think about how evocative these toys must have been as an experience for especially young people at the time. Some of whom would go on to make the field of Animation. The original idea came to the inventor from watching cogs spin, and seeing the illusion of a morphed cog-set becoming one. Later reading up on Peter Mark Roget's 1824 article Explanation of an optical deception in the appearance of the spokes of a wheel when seen through vertical apertures the idea of the Anorthoscope came to mind, which changes a warped image into a 'normal' one.
Anorthoscopic woman (1829, PD) Joseph Plateau
In 1832, at the behest of Micheal Faraday (1791-1867) who was also studying optical illusions at the time (see
On a peculiar Class of Optical Deceptions February 1831). They both wrote on their ideas of 'Anamorphoses' which would be used in Phantasmagoria (childrens horror shows). In 1833, these were what became the Phantasmascope publically traded by Ackerman and Co in 1833 in London.
The next development was the Fantascope projector. A kitsch novelty given the popularity of puppet shows, Phantasmagora, thaumatrope and other paper-peepshow toys popular at the time. The first known plan for a phénakisticope projector with a transparent disc was made by Englishman T.W. Naylor in 1843 (Mechanical's Magazine – Volume 38). Later, these would become Thomas Ross's small transparent phénakisticope system, called 'Wheel of life' slide, which used the more prominent magic lantern of the time. This is an animated magic lantern slide of a bird flying in the air by 1860.
https://archive.org/details/thomas-ross-mica-wheel-of-life-1890-mica-brass-center-c-tangible-media-collection-animation
With this series exploring Animation and Cinematography, we delve into the world of the motion in image, (hopefully i don't forget to do one punch man) and then next stop, the Magic Lantern.
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