Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |
Subject: Dead Media Working Note 03.9
Dead Medium: Clockwork wall animation -- "living
pictures"
From Austex23_AT_aol.com (Bill Wallace)
Source: >From *Mechanical Toys*, by Athelstan and
Kathleen Spilhaus, Random House, 1989, $7.99
ISBN 0-517-0560-4
"Animated or 'living' pictures made by Schoenhut, a
Philadelphia toy maker, adorned Victorian walls. In one
entitled A Good Joke (ca 1890) two clerics enjoying their
wine move their arms and jaws while rocking with laughter.
Concealed behind the lithograph is an array of clockwork,
string belts, cardboard cams, and wire levers with
counterbalancing weights. The scene is animated by a
belt-driven cam from a slow-moving shaft in the clockwork
while the highest speed axle carries a fast-moving fan
that acts as a governor.
"Other patterns for living pictures were provided on
flat, lithographed printed sheets to be cut out and
animated according to the pleasure of the assemblor."
Also intriguing, but brief, is the description of the
serinette, a miniature hand-operated barrel organ "used by
18th century ladies to teach canaries to sing." The
illusionist Houdin allegedly built an automaton of a young
lady winding a serinette, followed by her mechnical bird
singing. Dead media within dead media.
Bill
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |