SPLICE - onTrac@PeterMac
'Little Abracadabras' - The History of the Moving Image - onTrac@PeterMac 2012
The 'Moving Image' SPLICE project provided a learning environment for young people who were experiencing barriers to education due to their battle with cancer. Through holistic creative engagement, the participants could continue at their own pace to maintain and develop critical learning skills without the stress of dead lines and assessments associated with standard educational models.
The 2012 project 'Little Abracadabras' was dedicated to learning about the history of the moving image. The participants learned about, and created, projects based on devices and techniques from centuries ago to the introduction of film in 1895. For further reading please scroll to the bottom of this page.
The SPLICE project was awarded 3rd place in the Victorian Government's Learn Local Awards 2012.
ABOVE: Exhibition flyer highlighting moving image artworks created by the participants including a praxinascope, coptograph, thaumatope, phenakistiscope, rotorelief and flip book.
BELOW: Shadow-box animation created by Aaron Osborn.
The 'Moving Image' SPLICE project provided a learning environment for young people who were experiencing barriers to education due to their battle with cancer. Through holistic creative engagement, the participants could continue at their own pace to maintain and develop critical learning skills without the stress of dead lines and assessments associated with standard educational models.
The 2012 project 'Little Abracadabras' was dedicated to learning about the history of the moving image. The participants learned about, and created, projects based on devices and techniques from centuries ago to the introduction of film in 1895. For further reading please scroll to the bottom of this page.
The SPLICE project was awarded 3rd place in the Victorian Government's Learn Local Awards 2012.
ABOVE: Exhibition flyer highlighting moving image artworks created by the participants including a praxinascope, coptograph, thaumatope, phenakistiscope, rotorelief and flip book.
BELOW: Shadow-box animation created by Aaron Osborn.
Shadow Play
Shadow Play is the art of creating shadows of moving characters. They are made
from paper-cuts and then projected onto a screen using a single light source from behind.
Shadow Play was very popular throughout Asia from 121 B.C. onwards.
Little Abracadabras
The fascination with creating and being entertained by the moving image finds
its beginnings in ancient cave drawings where multiple heads would be drawn
displaying a head down and head up stance that moved with the flicker
of the flame lit cave.
Plato, in his book The Republic, used shadows moving on a cave wall being
viewed by cave dwellers, as an allegory about learning and experience.
The allegory is famously known as Plato’s Cave.
Shadow artistry or Shadow Play became very popular throughout Asia around
121 B.C. onwards. Shadows of characters, made from paper cut-outs or skins,
were projected on a screen using a single light source from behind.
Visual trickery using lenses, shadows and reflections were explored during
the dark ages and conducted in the name of science and religion. In the mid
1600s, Jesuit Athanasis Kircher, experimented with creating trick images
of devils and souls burning in purgatory to prove that optical illusions were
not of the devil or supernatural but rather ‘wonderful delusions through
tricks of perception’. It was not uncommon for visual trickery enthusiasts to be
arrested for sorcery.
The 1800s saw a vast range of exciting moving image contraptions being made available to the public. Such devices included the praxinascope, coptographs, thaumatopes, phenakistiscopes, rotorelief and flick books that were all on display at the Little Abracadabras exhibitions.
In 1826 the French inventor Jospeh-Nicéphore Niepce produced the first
preservation of a moment on film. It wasn’t until 1895 however that the
Lumiere Brothers displayed the first projected moving film that was 17 meters
in length and lasted only 50 seconds.
Shadow Play is the art of creating shadows of moving characters. They are made
from paper-cuts and then projected onto a screen using a single light source from behind.
Shadow Play was very popular throughout Asia from 121 B.C. onwards.
Little Abracadabras
The fascination with creating and being entertained by the moving image finds
its beginnings in ancient cave drawings where multiple heads would be drawn
displaying a head down and head up stance that moved with the flicker
of the flame lit cave.
Plato, in his book The Republic, used shadows moving on a cave wall being
viewed by cave dwellers, as an allegory about learning and experience.
The allegory is famously known as Plato’s Cave.
Shadow artistry or Shadow Play became very popular throughout Asia around
121 B.C. onwards. Shadows of characters, made from paper cut-outs or skins,
were projected on a screen using a single light source from behind.
Visual trickery using lenses, shadows and reflections were explored during
the dark ages and conducted in the name of science and religion. In the mid
1600s, Jesuit Athanasis Kircher, experimented with creating trick images
of devils and souls burning in purgatory to prove that optical illusions were
not of the devil or supernatural but rather ‘wonderful delusions through
tricks of perception’. It was not uncommon for visual trickery enthusiasts to be
arrested for sorcery.
The 1800s saw a vast range of exciting moving image contraptions being made available to the public. Such devices included the praxinascope, coptographs, thaumatopes, phenakistiscopes, rotorelief and flick books that were all on display at the Little Abracadabras exhibitions.
In 1826 the French inventor Jospeh-Nicéphore Niepce produced the first
preservation of a moment on film. It wasn’t until 1895 however that the
Lumiere Brothers displayed the first projected moving film that was 17 meters
in length and lasted only 50 seconds.