The Instant of the Shutter Shuts: The New Life of Eadweard Muybridge’s Tricks
Abstract
The aim of this article is to show the role that Eadweard Muybridge’s work and wide-angle snapshot photography, perfected at the end of the 19th century by the Lumiere brothers, played in the development of the levitation technique. The author emphasizes the visual fascination with spectacular images of a body suspended in the air, which can take various forms: from the stop motion effect, bringing to mind the notion of a frozen time, by suggesting the suspension of the law of gravity, to the visualization of the various time dimensions possible through the film mobilization of the gaze. Taking the affinity between Muybridge’s studies and the bullet time effect as her starting point, the author also looks at the relationships between the various versions of the trick of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the present time. Gruenpeter considers the popularity of this theme in modern audio-visual culture using selected films, and in the context of recreational photography and the art of illusion.
Keywords:
Eadweard Muybridge, Lumière brothers, bullet time, photographyReferences
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Authors
Natalia Gruenpeterkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of Silesia Poland
Absolwentka kulturoznawstwa (specjalność filmoznawcza) w Zakładzie Filmoznawstwa i Wiedzy o Mediach Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Autorka rozprawy doktorskiej Czas, ciało, pamięć. Fotografia w paradygmacie kina, za którą otrzymała główną nagrodę w III edycji Konkursu im. Inki Brodzkiej-Wald (2015). Jej zainteresowania naukowe obejmują związki filmu i fotografii, temporalne i mnemoniczne aspekty kultury wizualnej, a także kino amerykańskie.
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Copyright (c) 2017 Natalia Gruenpeter
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