Entry 2 | Research | Zoetrope

The zoetrope, also known as wheel of life, was a popular optical toy in 19th-century homes. It created the illusion of movement from a series of still drawings or paintings in a band lining a rotating drum. The way the brain processes motion is actually a little weird. You don't actually see a fluid scene in front of you with people and objects moving seamlessly through your field of vision.What you see is a series of still images that your brain processes and creates the perception of viewing motion.The first known device that would be considered a zoetrope was actually created over 2000 years ago in China.   

This zoetrope was designed to hang over a lamp where the convection current created by the heat from the lamp flowed over vanes at the top of the device and caused it to spin. This in turn spun a series of translucent paper panels that gave the appearance of motion when moving at the right speed.  When a zoetrope is stopped, the individual frames of its animation appear to fall out of a coloured blur, immediately static against the walls of the now motionless cylinder. The story has been un-ravelled, disintegrated into a neat set of individual parts, ready to reassemble whenever the viewer desires.