Thaumatropes


Since I've been thinking about optical devices this past year, I got some very applicable christmas presents. Gustaf gave me a book called "Vermeer's Camera" which is an investigation into wether Vermeer and other artists during his era used Camera Obscura as compositional devices, which is a pretty interesting read. Cassandra gave me the necklace above for my birthday (early.) It's a thaumatrope, one of those toys that you spin, and due to the persistence of vision, the images on the front and back of the disc blend, often it's a bird on one side, and a cage on the other, and when you spin it, the bird looks like it's in the cage. This one says "I love you" with the letters mixed between the two sides, so you can only read it when it's spinning. They've been pottering around in the back of my mind for a few months, so I thought I'd post it here.


I'm thinking about a wall covered in small circles that have laser engraved and painted imagery on them that you have to spin or blow on in order to make certain parts of the image come into focus.