Loop and Life: A False Start into Protocinematic Photographic Representations of Movement

Abstract

Eadweard Muybridge and Ottomar Anschütz are regarded as predecessors of cinema. Both produced series of chronophotographs that would create the impression of a moving image when set in motion. In both cases the series of images were mounted as loops on disks or drums similar to those used for optical toys throughout the nineteenth century. As the loop makes certain formal demands on the images used for it, the photographic series had to meet them. Yet, when the disks or drums with them were spun, the movement created would appear to be repetitive, colliding with notions of temporality and truth attributed to photography. Under these conditions the shift from photographic animation to cinematic film appears to be a break more than a smooth transition.