The PHENAKISTISCOPE

It was an early animation device made by Joseph Plateau , it was inspired by Faraday's wheel Joseph Plateau in Brussels and Simon von Stampfer in Vienna invented the Phenakistiscope independently of one another in 1832. Stampfer called it the stroboscope in England it was known as the Fanta Scope. The phenakistiscope utilizes the persistence of motion principle to create an illusion of motion. Although this principle had been recognised by the Greek mathematician Euclid and later in experiments by Newton, it was not until 1829 that this principle became firmly established by Joseph Plateau.

The phenakistoscope consisted of two discs mounted on the same axis.  The first disc had slots around the edge, and the second contained drawings of successive action, drawn around the disc in concentric circles.  Unlike Faraday's Wheel, whose pair of discs spun in opposite directions, a phenakistoscope's discs spin together in the same direction.  When viewed in a mirror through the first disc's slots, the pictures on the second disc will appear to move.  

The device was created just after the Zoetrope and its reception was much better received. This device like majority of the stop motion animation utilizes the theory of persistence of vision for it to function. Persistence of vision was a theory of the optics and how eyes view images.

It sound very similar to the Zoetrope using a circular disk attached to a mount which permitted it to rotate 360 degrees. Phenakistiscope was a device taken in much better than the others that were around at that time. This was due to the fact that it was more condensed in size and it is very easy to change disks. In addition, it was the first portable animation device, meaning that they were very much desirable than other early animation devices and came in trend under the name of toys.
The Phenakistiscope is quite unique when compared to other animation devices, though they use the same technique to animate, such as a rotating drum, and 'windows', they are actually rather different from an engineering standpoint. The Zoetrope is a upright device which the drum rotates along the horizontal axis. Meaning that it can be set on a surface and looked straight through. Where as the Phenakistiscope is meant to be portable and as such rotate along the vertical axis. So it was very popular and is very good for animation on the go, but it typically was of much lower quality in terms of materials and durability, which resulted in a fragile device. Another major distinctive element with these two animation devices often seen as being the same (but one a portable version) is the Phenakistiscope did not have a light source attached, thus natural light was necessary to utilize it or a well lit room, however the Zoetrope (not all models) didn't need as much light due to the fact that it wasn't portable. You are able to use it in the dark, this was later picked up on and the Zoetrope was expanded to be one of the first 'night lights' used as a children 'bedtime' lamp. This was accomplished by having the still images cut out and held in place rather than being stuck to the inside of the drum, when the low key light hit them a shadow would be projected on the ceiling, further improvement on positioning of these also lead to the projection being animated. This could have perhaps been some of the earliest forms of projectors.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Courses.ncssm.edu. (n.d.). Phenakistiscope. [online] Available at: http://courses.ncssm.edu/gallery/collections/toys/html/exhibit07.htm [Accessed 23 May 2017].