December 2008
13 posts
5 tags
The Shuftan process →
An early film special effect using a partly-silvered mirror to reflect and superimpose miniatures or other off-camera devices.
Dec 23rd
7 tags
Dec 23rd
7 tags
Cinéorama →
The original IMAX experience, circa 1900.
Dec 23rd
6 tags
Panoramic painting →
Dec 23rd
10 tags
“In 1903, the specialty watch company Helios built a trial run of miniature...”
– Norman M. Klein, in Building the Unexpected. From The Vatican to Vegas, 2004 p179.
Dec 23rd
10 tags
L'Aéronaute, the journal of the Société Française... →
Published from around 1868-1911,  L’Aéronaute was a chronicle of early air flight in France.
Dec 23rd
6 tags
“[…] Gothic revivals polish decay, until it turns into special effects....”
– Norman M. Klein, in Building the Unexpected. From The Vatican to Vegas, 2004 p159-160.
Dec 23rd
5 tags
“Gurney was still haunted by the Baroque search for a perfect vacuum, by the...”
– Norman M. Klein, in Building the Unexpected. From The Vatican to Vegas, 2004 p150
Dec 5th
5 tags
Eidophusikon →
From Wikipedia (link): The Eidophusikon (Greek: Ειδωφυσικον) was a piece of art, no longer extant, created by 18th century English painter Philip James de Loutherbourg. It opened in Leicester Square in February 1781. See also this modern day Eidophusikon project for more history and a replica video.
Dec 5th
1 note
7 tags
“Potemkin villages were a new mode of special effects as power, as the erasure of...”
– Norman M. Klein, in Scripted Spaces and the Illusion of Power, 1550-1780. From The Vatican to Vegas, 2004 p131
Dec 5th
7 tags
“Comenius begins his story with a pilgrim who is given mystic spectacles. But the...”
– Norman M. Klein, in Scripted Spaces and the Illusion of Power, 1550-1780. From The Vatican to Vegas, 2004 p112. Describing a story from Comenius’s The Labyrinth of the World.
Dec 5th
Louis Marin's Utopiques →
A review of the work of the man who described Disneyland as a “degenerate utopia”.
Dec 5th
“The precise architectural tradition of labyrinth is what the Renaissance...”
– Norman M. Klein, in Scripted Spaces and the Illusion of Power, 1550-1780. From The Vatican to Vegas, 2004 p101.
Dec 2nd