PHENAKISTISCOPE: HISTORY, CHARACTERISTICS, OPERATION - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The phenakistiscope was the first animation mechanism that generated an optical illusion that recreated a fluid movement of images. This invention was considered the first device for the entertainment of the moving media, being the first step for the development of the cinematographic industry worldwide.

The phenakistiscope was in its day something similar to today's GIF animation. The main similarity is that both can only render short animations, in continuous and repetitive cycles.

Source: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.

When the invention appeared in the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1833, the origin of its name was explained. Phenakistiscope was born from the Greek and comes from the hybridization of the words 'deception' and 'eye'.

The first reference to the use of the term phenakistiscope occurred in May 1833, when the French company Alphonse Giroux et Compagnie wanted to import the object. The order arrived transported in boxes with the name of phenakistiscope.

History

Two people were developing a similar object almost simultaneously in late 1832. This was the case of the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and the Austrian professor Simon Stampfer.

Plateau began his experiments when he was just a student in college. He explained that he perceived an optical illusion to exist by looking at two cogwheels that were spinning fast but in opposite directions.

He was influenced by Peter Mark Roger, who in 1824 published an article dealing with optical deception. So Plateau devoted himself to delving deeper into the phenomenon and published his first findings in 1828.

Already in 1829, in a letter to a scientific journal, he presented his invention (although he had not given it a name). It was a disk that converted an anamorphic image (distorted image, only possible to recognize from a specific angle) into a normal image when it was moving quickly.

Faraday's influence

The renowned physicist Michael Faraday also wrote about optical illusions in 1830. But he recognized the similarity of his work to that of Plateau, having also studied Roget's publications. In the end, Faraday's article served as inspiration for Plateau, who continued to experiment with the object.

In 1832, Plateau designed a working model for the phenakistiscope that he showed the world months later, in 1833. He championed the idea that optical illusions could have more uses.

The Stampfer Strobe

Simon von Stampfer was a mathematician who also had access to Faraday's ideas, being the source of inspiration to invent what he called strobe discs or optical magic discs.

His idea was to put a series of images online on a disk or cylinder. To use a greater number of images, he proposed using a long strip of paper that was wound on two parallel rollers (similar to how film rolls worked).

By February 1833 he had already created six different discs, printed on both sides. He obtained the patent for his invention in Austria, together with Matthias Trentsensky.

Plateau always recognized that it was difficult for him to pinpoint when the idea for the apparatus occurred to him. He said he was confident that he and Stampfer came up with the invention at the same time.

Later, in 1834, Roget also claimed to have created several phenakistiscopes, claiming that his findings occurred in 1831, but their different occupations prevented him from publishing any writing about their advances.

Biography of Joseph Plateau

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (1801-1883) was a physicist of Belgian origin. He stood out for being one of the first people to demonstrate and deal with the illusions caused by moving images. He never patented his invention, but went on to create a group of six discs for the Ackermann & Co company in London.

Six discs designed by Plateau were released in July 1833. Later the company also published designs by Thomas Talbot Bury and Thomas Mann Baynes.

Joseph Plateau did not name his invention when he published his articles for the first time in 1833. Later he was commissioned to use the term phenakistiscope in another writing, which was aimed at talking about similar devices that began to come to light and on which he had not worked.

He used two terms for his invention, first phantomscope (apparently the name he liked the most) and then the definitive phenakistiscope (whose name was the most popular).

characteristics

The phenakistiscope could only be used by one person at a time. The image it displayed was distorted when that person turned the device with a speed fast enough to give the illusion of movement.

Those in charge of creating the drawings sometimes made them in with an opposite distortion, since the illusion that it generated made some images curl or look thinner.

Most of the drawings were not intended to give a sense of reality. When it came to cartoons the distortion that occurred was not so obvious. Although its creation was due to scientific research, the phenakistiscope was marketed as a device that served more as a toy.

It was very successful in the beginning, but the popularity of the device diminished with the passage of time and it came to be considered as a very basic object for children. However, some scientists continued to regard the device as a very useful tool.

Functioning

The phenakistiscope generally consisted of a disk, usually made of cardboard, that could rotate and was attached vertically to a handle. Radially, according to the center of the disk, the images that generated the composition of animated sequences were placed.

It featured small, rectangular-shaped openings that were evenly spaced along the entire edge of the disk.

The user was in charge of spinning the disk. He had to look through the moving slits at the images that were reflected in the mirror. The user was then able to view a single image that simulated movement.

When the quantity of the images was equal to the slots, the animation occurred in a fixed position. Fewer illustrations caused images to drift in the opposite direction to the way the disc was spinning. The opposite happened when there were more images than holes.

References

1. Buerger, J. (1989). French daguerreotypes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2. Laybourne, K. (1999). The animation book. New York: Random House International.
3. Rossell, D. (1999). Living pictures. Boulder, Colo.: NetLibrary, Inc.
4. Vecchione, G. Goodwill's 100 amazing make-it-yourself science fair projects. New Delhi: Goodwill Pub. House.
5. Zone, R. (2014). Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.