Illusions in motion media archaeology of the moving panorama and related spectacles

461 Pages·2013·29.94 MB·English

by  Huhtamo

illusions
in
motion
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Leonardo
Roger F. Malina
Executive Editor
Sean Cubitt
Editor-in-Chief
Women, Art, and Technology, edited by Judy Malloy, 2003
Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization, Alexander R. Galloway, 2004
At a Distance: Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet, edited by Annmarie
Chandler and Norie Neumark, 2005
The Visual Mind II, edited by Michele Emmer, 2005
CODE: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy, edited by Rishab Aiyer
Ghosh, 2005
The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture, Eugene Thacker, 2005
Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture, Matthew Fuller, 2005
New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories, edited by Adalaide Morris
and Thomas Swiss, 2006
Aesthetic Computing, edited by Paul A. Fishwick, 2006
Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and
Installation, Steve Dixon, 2006
MediaArtHistories, edited by Oliver Grau, 2006
From Technological to Virtual Art, Frank Popper, 2007
META/DATA: A Digital Poetics, Mark Amerika, 2007
Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, Eduardo Kac, 2007
The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science, Cretien van Campen, 2007
Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology, Susan Kozel, 2007
Video: The Reflexive Medium, Yvonne Spielmann, 2007
Software Studies: A Lexicon, Matthew Fuller, 2008
Tactical Biopolitics: Theory, Practice, and the Life Sciences, edited by Beatriz da
Costa and Kavita Philip, 2008
White Heat and Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960 – 1980, edited by Paul
Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert, and Catherine Mason, 2008
Curating New Media Art, Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook, 2010
Green Light: Notes Toward an Art of Evolution, George Gessert, 2010
Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art, Laura U. Marks, 2010
Synthetics: Aspects of Art & Technology in Australia, 1956-1975, Stephen Jones, 2011
Hybrid Cultures: Japanese Media Arts in Dialogue with the West, Yvonne Spielmann,
2012
Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers, Karen O’Rourke, 2012
The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art, revised edition,
Linda Dalrymple Henderson, 2012
Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related
Spectacles, Erkki Huhtamo, 2012
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i l lu s i o n s
i n
m o t i o n
Media archaeology of
the Moving PanoraMa and
related SPectacleS
ERKKi HUHTAMO
The MiT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
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iv
© 2013 Massachusetts institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including
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retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

MiT Press books may be purchased at special quantity
discounts for business or sales promotional use. For
information, please email [email protected].
edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MiT Press, 55
Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142.

This book was set in Palatino, Meta Pro, and Ziggurat and
designed by Willem Henri Lucas and Jon Gacnik. Printed and
bound in the United States of America.

Cover illustration: L’Exposition Universelle de Paris 1900
(1900 Paris Universal Exposition), a moving panorama
exhibited by Le Théatre Mécanique Morieux de Paris.
Painted by Léon Van de Voorde, Ghent, Belgium, 1900.
Jean-Paul Favand Collection. Courtesy of Pavillons de Bercy /
Musée des Arts Forains.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Huhtamo, Erkki.
illusions in motion : media archaeology of the moving
panorama and related spectacles / Erkki Huhtamo.
pages cm — (Leonardo book series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBN 978-0-262-01851-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Panoramas. 2. Panoramas—Psychological aspects.
3. Mass media and culture. 4. Popular culture. i. Title.
ND2880.H84 2013
751.7’4-dc23
2012009892

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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THE FORMATiON OF A PANORAMANiAC — v
So now, where everything seen or unseen, was new and
strange, and the imagination was quite free to rove, the charm
was more intense. We stood and gazed upon the moving
panorama like persons in a trance.
—John Munro, A Trip to Venus (1897)
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vi
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THE FORMATiON OF A PANORAMANiAC — vii
contentS
SerieS foreword
xi
acknowledgMentS
xiii
abbreviationS
xvi
Preface: the forMation of a PanoraManiac
xvii
introduction:
1
Moving PanoraMa—a MiSSing MediuM
– The Panorama and Things Panoramic 1
– From a Stationary to a Mobile Medium 6
– From the Shadow of the Mighty Rotunda 10
– The Painted, the Performed, and the Discursive Panorama 13
– Tracing the Topoi: The Media Archaeological Approach 16
– From Oblivion to Resurrection: A Road Map 18
the incubation era:
2

antecedentS and anticiPationS
– Moving Panorama—An Etymological Excavation 29
– Offshoot of the Panorama, or a Form of Visual Storytelling? 32
– Peeping at Picture Rolls 35
– Parklands in Boxes: Carmontelle’s Transparencies 39
– Miniature Panoramas: From Popish Plots to Altona’s Entertainments 46
large aS life, and Moving:
3

the PeriStrePhic PanoraMa
– The Elusive Messrs. Marshall 65
– The Apparatus According to an Eyewitness 69
– Circularity, Stasis, and Motion—The French Connection 72
– Uncle Jack at the Moving Panorama Show 77
– “Perioramas” of the Mind, or the Discursive Dimension 81
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viii
rolling acroSS the Stage:
4

the Moving PanoraMa and the theater
– Spectacle Takes Over: From Servandoni to De Loutherbourg 93
– The Moving Pictures of the Eidophusikon 98
– Eidophusikon, Mechanical Theaters, and the Realm of Spectacles 103
– The Panorama, the Pantomime, and the Art of Heterogeneity 105
– Virtual Voyaging with the Balloon Panorama 112
– The Lure of the Market and Perfection in invisibility 120
tranSforMed by the light:
5

the dioraMa and the “dioraMaS”
– The invention and Dissemination of a New Spectacle 139
– The Diorama as a Vision Machine 144
– “This Wondrous Exhibition,” or the Diorama’s Reception 149
– The Metamorphosis into an itinerant Attraction 154
PanoraMania:
6

the Mid-century Moving PanoraMa craze
– Dry Season on Rainy islands 169
– The Moving Panorama Penetrates American Culture 172
– John Banvard, or the Making of a Myth 176
– Trips to the World and the Heart: Panoramic Genres in America 180
– The American invasion of the British isles 186
– Countering with Quality: British Productions of the Panoramania Era 191
PanoraMania in Practice:
7

albert SMith and hiS Moving PanoraMaS
– The Natural History of a Bohemian 215
– At Home on the Overland Trail 218
– The Anatomy of an Alpine Spectacle 220
– Nougat Glacé de Mont Blanc, or Media Marketing 226
– Barnumized? 229
– A Parade of Epigones, or Anonymous Afterlives 233
an excavation:
8

the Moving PanoraMa PerforMance
– Parodying the Panorama 245
– Constructing Continuity 250
– Discontinuity as Strategy 255
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THE FORMATiON OF A PANORAMANiAC — ix
interMedial tug of war:
9

PanoraMaS and Magic lanternS
– By Any Medium Available: The Civil War and the Panorama Trade 263
– The Challenge and Dissemination of Dissolving Views 267
– Panoramas and the Coming of Photography 273
– A War of Discourses 276
SenSory boMbardMent:
10

a MediuM’S final fanfareS
– The Myriorama as a Roadshow Attraction 287
– The Théatre Morieux Time Capsule 296
– The Past as Future, or the Panorama Revival 302
– Panoramas, Patents, and the Universal Exposition of 1900 306
– “Vehicular Amplification,” or the Quest for immersion 309
iMagination in Motion:
11

the diScurSive PanoraMa
– Toward a Shadow History of the Moving Panorama 331
– The Literary Absorption of the Moving Panorama 332
– Exercises in Perception: From Stationary to Moving Panoramas 337
– The Cranking God: Panoramas and the Religious imagination 342
– Mind, Memory, and Consciousness: Panoramic Parables 348
concluSion:
12

froM PanoraMaS to Media culture
– Figures on the Screens, or Things Left Unsaid 361
– What is Media Culture? 364
– From illusions to interactions 367

aPPendix
A List of Surviving Moving Panoramas 371
(Compiled with Suzanne Wray and Peter Morelli)
bibliograPhy
387
index
425
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