| Title: | Early visual media : a history of visual media |
|---|---|
| Description: | Early visual media: a history of visual media is an unconventional website dealing with early visual media and pre-cinema, from the perspective of its Belgian creator, Thomas Weynants. Much of the site is concerned with the history of optical illusion and special effects prior to the twentieth century, but does also include the history of television. The site's author describes it as a contemporary raree-show. It consists of various galleries of weird and wonderful inventions and images, mostly from Western Europe. The seven main sections, all of which are well illustrated, cover photography, pre-cinema, early film, television, fairground art, conjuring arts and the death dance. The photography section looks at stereoscopic images, diableries, ghost images, stereoviewers, and fairground and vaudeville entertainments. The pre-cinema section looks at many of the technologies used to create optical illusions before the advent of modern film. These include various phantasmagoria devices, optical toys, the Phenakistiscope, the Choreutoscope, and anamorphoses techniques. There is a tendency throughout the displays to emphasise the weird, the erotic, and the macabre. The website also features a links section, and pages alerting users to forthcoming publications, lectures and gallery exhibitions. The site is both fascinating and a little disorientating (which is presumably intended). It should prove of interest both to the general public and to students approaching the lesser-known facets of European visual culture and technology. |
| Keywords - controlled: | photography; film (performing arts); magic lanterns; peepshows; history (discipline) ;stereoscopic photographs; stereoscopes; studio portraits; spirit photographs ; |
| Keywords - uncontrolled: | early cinema |
| Type: | Images; Papers/reports/articles/texts; Secondary source |
| URL: | http://www.visual-media.be/ |
| Classification: |
Humanities > History > Media studies Creative and performing arts > Visual arts > Photography > Photography history Communication and media studies > Film studies > Film history > Early and silent film |
| Resource creator: | Weynants, Thomas (Author) |
| Country of origin: | Belgium |
| Period: | 17th Century; 18th Century; 19th Century; 20th Century (1900 - 1945) |
| User rating |
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