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Welcome to Issue 46 of New Light on Old Media
35,000 Years To Catch a Shadow
The Kent Museum of the Moving Image
“Pagans and Christians, primitives and moderns, scientists and artists, for as long as we have been human, we have been intrigued by the phenomenon of the Shadow.”
The wonderful new Kent Museum of the Moving Image, created by Joss Marsh and David Francis has a special exhibition which should be of interest to anyone fascinated by the earliest optical effects. You can access their excellent website and get more details here.
"The Shadow is near the root of all mythology, folktales and religious belief. "
In this issue of New Light on Old Media all things may not be as they seem!
George Auckland : Acting Editor
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Robert Poulter’s Model Theatre
Also showing at Kent MOMI is
Blackey'd Susan.
Robert Poulter’s version of the play uses Deal settings and music from Jonathan Blewitt’s 1829 score. Robert’s New Model Theatre extends the medium of the Toy Theatre by creating shows with movement, lighting effects and changes of scenery. He is a regular performer in USA, Germany and France. Robert will perform the show twice on Tuesday, July 3, 2018.
You can book tickets for the Blackey'd Susan Show here.
On a Magic Lantern Society visit to Kent MOMI some of our members had a chance to talk to Robert about his theatre.
Here is Robert's website.
Television from 1800
The Chinese illumination cabinet.
A restored Dutch Peepshow of Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam.
The exterior of the cabinet reveals nothing of its magical interior. The cabinet looks like an ordinary antique secretaire, with a writing flap on top, below it a drawer and two doors. It is actually a theatre for showing prints which are on perforated panels. What makes the object cinematic is the addition of light and movement. The website is in Dutch but works well through a translator such as Chrome Browser or Bing. An excellent video demonstration of the cabinet, can be seen here.
Just some chalk and a pavement
Julian Beever is a British artist who began pavement art as a busker, drawing in different countries including the USA, Australia and Europe to fund his travels.
He began drawing anamorphic pavement illusions in early 90’s. Anamorphic illusions are drawn in a special distortion in order to create an impression of 3 dimensions when seen from one particular viewpoint.
You can see more of his work here, or even in the streets.
Just some makeup and a body
Beyond face painting there are makeup artists who create illusions, blurring the line between what is real and what is fake. Serbian artist Mirjana Milosevic calls herself a "skin illusionist,"
See her work and you'll understand why.
The process takes her many hours, she says the hardest part is training her mind to paint the opposite way since she's looking in a mirror while she applies the makeup.
Here is a video of how she does it.....not for the squeamish!
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Professor Huhtamo's Cabinet of Media Archaeology
This is a series of videos about little known but influential media machines. It is meant for media education at any level and for anyone interested in media archaeology and the early history of the moving image. Observing visual imagery as if through a keyhole is a centuries old practice within media culture. The new episode discusses "peep media". You can see it here.
Erkki Huhtamo is a Professor at the departments of Design | Media Arts, and Film, Television, and Digital Media at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
An episode featuring the Magic Lantern can be seen here.
A static painting that can move of its own accord
When the principles of perspective are reversed and solidified into sculpted paintings something extraordinary happens; the mind is deceived into believing the impossible, that a static painting can move of its own accord. This is the work of Patrick Hughes. He is concerned with optical and visual illusions, the science of perception and the nature of artistic representation. Patrick has written and collated three books on the visual and verbal rhetoric of the paradox and oxymoron. Visit his website here to see some eye popping illusions.
Plato's Shadows
Plato's Allegory of the Cave
Plato had Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality.
The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was.The School of Life have produced a video to help you get your head round all this.
A Magic Shadow-show
"For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go."
Verse 46 of Edward FitzGerald’s version or translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
You can see a video of a complete reading here. Enjoy.
More About the
Magic Lantern Society
If you have an interest in research, collecting or performance involving the magic lantern or other forms of vintage visual media you might want to consider joining The Magic Lantern Society. We publish a regular quarterly printed journal, an Online Sales and Wants newsletter and meet on a regular basis in the UK and other parts of Europe.
For further information and back issues of this e-letter go to www.magiclantern.org.uk
Our sister organisation is The Magic Lantern Society of the US and Canada :
www.magiclanternsociety.org
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