[Huhtamo, Erkki. _Illusions in Motion : Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles_. MIT Press, 2023.](https://orbiscascade-washington.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ALLIANCE_UW/db578v/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9780262313094) ## Contents ### Front Matter  ### Series Foreword  ### Abbreviations  ### Preface: The Formation Of A Panoramaniac  ### 1: Introduction: Moving Panorama—A Missing Medium  Earliest identified use: May 1791 "panorama building", constructed by Robert Barker, patent 1787, La Nature a Coup d'Oeil, wraparound "circular" panorama of London from perspective of the roof of the Albion Mills. soon permanent 1793. German parallel johann Breysig. 'Pan' - all, 'horama' - view. Moving Panorama "presentation was accompanied by lecturer music and occasionally sound and light effects"p6 Traveling presentations, theatrical traditions, "performance". p10 circular panorama "fits within this \[art history\] framework between academic painting and architecture, popular visual spectacles, and the emergent mass culture."p10 #### Tracing the Topoi p16 #media_archaeology Definition of Topoi as **"building blocks of cultural traditions; they manifest both continuities andd transformations in the transmissions of ideas."** comparative discussion of media archaeology approaches: Freidrich Kittler - "media studies without people", ""macro-level historical organisms" p16-17 Jonathan Crary - "a perceptual transformation... epitomized by by symptomatic optical instruments" Carolyn Marvin - "Media are not fixed objects: they have no natural edges..." ### 2: The Incubation Era: Antecedents and Anticipations  #Crankies #touching_light **peep show box**: crank operated, a bit like a monocular viewmaster, or the fisher price movie viewer. p37,38 **Carmontelle's transparencies**: 1780s (close to modern crankie) p39 **Myriorama**: panoramic cards that could be reordered to create combinations ### 3: Large As Life, and Moving: The Peristrephic Panorama Cyclorama toy: "triangular view box with a peepholeat the front and a knob-operated picture roll stretched along its concave rear wall."p76 ### 4: Rolling Across the Stage: The Moving Panorama and the Theater  #Affective_Color #puppets #shadow-play Servandoni: Opera set designer, scene painter, etc. trompe l'oeil, lighting effects "practical" lighting, scale and 'forced' perspective (especially 1738-1743, 1754-1758). 1738 sant pierre de rome, no plot, no actors, recreation of [pannini's painting](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437246) curvature of horizon line **de Loutherbourg**: - scenographer, colored lighting effects for mood, time of day. developed Eidophusikon. **Eidophusikon**: "imitations of natural phenomena, represented by moving pictures" p98 ![[Ediophusikon-1.png|300]] ![[Eidophusikon-2.png|300]] "The main attractions were five “imitations”: “Aurora, or the Effects of the Dawn, with a View of London from Greenwich Park,” “Noon, the Port of Tangier in Africa, with the distant View of the Rock Gibraltar and Europa Point,” “Sun set, a View near Naples,” “Moon light, a View in the Mediterranean, the Rising of the Moon contrasted with the Effect of Fire,” and “A Storm and Shipwreck.” While the scene was changed, a transparency was displayed, and Mr. and Mrs. Arne produced music. For the second season (starting in January 1782), four new scenes were introduced, in addition to the Storm and Shipwreck, which remained in the program because of popular demand. The most notable new scene was “Satan arraying his Troops on the Banks of the Fiery Lake, with the Raising of the Palace of Pandemonium, from Milton 14,” featured by Burney in his painting." P.99 "Pyne’s description may have been deliberately simplified, but it is all we have. It emphasizes the perspective illusion: “The space appeared to recede for many miles, and his horizon seemed as palpably distant from the eye, as the extreme termination of the view would appear in nature.” This was probably realized by **combining a translucent background image with irregularly placed cutout wings, “receding in size by the perspective of their distance,”** much like de Loutherbourg had done at Drury Lane. Pyne claims that he used Argand lamps, which is unlikely, because they were introduced in England only in 1784, and first used at Drury Lane in February 1785. **A row of hidden oil lamps above the proscenium, fitted with interchangeable color filter**s, is more likely. The waves were painted and varnished pieces of wood fixed to rods and made to ebb and flow by “a machine of simple construction,” while the clouds had been painted on strips of linen and attached to a frame, “which rose diagonally by a winding machine.” Thanks to this contrivance, the clouds seemed to approach the spectators from the horizon. Both the waves and the clouds were made more dramatic by lighting. Such methods were widely used in baroque scenography. De Loutherbourg also simulated **the rising moon, which was probably realized by placing a lamp inside a tin can with a round hole, and lifting it slowly behind the transparent background view**. Panorama showmen inherited this trick and used it so often that it became a cliché." p100 "Three more features deserve attention. First, the foreground of the opening scene was made of cork and “covered with minute mosses and lichens.” Similar materials were used in panstereoramas, three-dimensional miniature models. Du Bourg’s cork model of Mount Vesuvius caught fire and destroyed the Great Room of the Spring Gardens (Messrs. Marshall’s future venue) in 1785. Second, the miniature elements. Ships were represented with “beautiful models [that] went over the waves with a natural undulation.” Whether these were actual miniatures or flat pasteboard cutouts cannot be determined, but because they were said to be “correctly rigged” the first alternative is possible. **Tiny human figures, possibly mechanical marionettes, appeared in the Pandemonium scene. De Loutherbourg had used marching marionette soldiers already in *The Camp* (1778)**" p100-101 ### 5: Transformed by the Light: The Diorama and the “Dioramas”  ### 6: Panoramania: The Mid-Century Moving Panorama Craze  ### 7: Panoramania in Practice: Albert Smith and His Moving Panoramas  ### 8: An Excavation: The Moving Panorama Performance  ### 9: Intermedial Tug of War: Panoramas and Magic Lanterns  #touching_light #magic_lantern #kaleidoscope **Dissolving views:** "Dissolving views are thought to have emerged in England in the 1820– 1830s; the legendary lanternist and slide painter Henry Langdon Childe (1781– 1874) and the magician Mr Henry have both been suggested as the inventor. 1 5 They must have been inspired by the Diorama, although dissolving views also followed in the footsteps of phantasmagoria, the magic lantern ghost show, where special effects played a central role. Two naval architects from Bombay, who had been given an opportunity to explore England for two and half years between 1838 and 1841, drew this connection. They had “learned that the mode adopted to produce this imposing spectacle [the Diorama] is a modification of an exhibition called the Phantasmagoria.” 16 The link was obviously the dark auditorium and the use of light effects from behind the canvas; but from monsters the attention had turned to landscapes." p268 "Dissolving views became a viable alternative to panoramas and dioramas by the mid-century. Initially they required a pair of identical magic lanterns with a shutter blade that blocked one of the lenses while the other one was revealed. The most basic “software” was lantern slides of identical scenes, but with minute differences. The day was made to turn into the night, and a calm sea into a stormy one. In principle any scene could be dissolved into the next one, creating a continuous projection. By revealing both lenses at the same time, slides could be superimposed, creating apparitions and dream sequences."p269 **Henry Langdon Childe** (1792– 1874), “Eidouranion,” or mechanical astronomical magic lantern slide, handpainted, 1830– 1850s. The label proudly extolls Childe’s achievements: “Painter on Glass. Professor of Optics. Inventor of the Dissolving Views and the Chromatrope.” **chromatrope**: "was a mechanical rackwork slide that produced a kaleidoscopic effect." **Lorenzo J. Marcy** "Marcy’s design was innovative. The lanterns contained his patented two-wick kerosene burners. They also had internal shutters and adjustable color filters for changing the atmosphere of the slides." ### 11: Imagination in Motion: The Discursive Panorama  ### 12: Conclusion: From Panoramas to Media Culture  ### Appendix: A List of Surviving Moving Panoramas  ### Bibliography  ### Index