Phenakistoscopes

These devices were the first forms of animation we had as human beings. It’s astounding how humanity came up with a method of animation that early int time. Although the first camera was invented before in 1914 the phenakistoscope came a few decades later and doesn’t utilize the camera. In some ways the average phenakistoscope follows pretty basic animation principles. Not in terms of squash and stretch necessarily but in other interesting ways. Some examples would be solid drawing, arc, timing and staging. Before we even understood this medium at all the fact that that is what we were able to accomplish is extraordinary. This was just meant to be a child’s toy but over the course of two centuries blossomed into an art form and eventually into an actual industry. The stigma of animation being just for children can probably be traced back farther than Disney’s domination of 2d content in the early 40s.