This is a small and very recent collection that includes historical pictures and optical instruments that have been at the origin of cinema and that represent perception phenomena that are central to modern times. The collection includes historical optical instruments such as a hand-cranked phenakistiscope, a polyorama panoptique, a Rowsell stereo graphoscope, a professional magic lantern, zoetropes, mirrored cylinders for anamorphosis, and stereoscopes. The collection is also expanding to several different printed and hand-painted images for these devices: from 19th-century stereoscopic views (albumen prints on card mounts, glass plates and daguerreotypes) to cartes de visite, ‘épreuves à mouvement’, phenakistiscope discs and magic lantern animated slides.
While the collection aims to boost and support CICANT’s research dedicated to new mediation forms of cultural heritage, it can be seen and used by students interested in historical media and artistic research.
The collection is currently being catalogued and photographed, and will soon be presented in more detail.
