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Spatial and Visual Culture

Spatial and Visual Culture

Brief

To write a 500 word essay as if it was an online journal. Study and research an item from the exhibitions in London and add comments, cross reference the item with the film ‘The Magic of Meliés’ if desired.

Essay

The item which caught my attention was at the first Exhibition we went to which was ‘Eyes, Lies and Illusions’. The exhibition seemed to tie in with the film ‘The Magic of Meliés’ very well, with around eighty percent of the items at the exhibition being relative to the film, however, there were also some more modern items for example, the grand finale at the end of the exhibition, a huge laser cast through a dark room with smoke.

It was about half way around the exhibition which the item of my interest appeared, a 3-dimensional room with a distorted perspective. This room at first appeared to look quite ordinary when viewed through the intended spy hole. When entered however, the room had a totally distorted 3-dimensional perspective. When two to three people were walking around in the room, the person looking into the room from outside through the spy hole could now see this fantastic illusion. This illusion was enhanced by the black and white checkerboard floor, which also had a distorted perspective. This is a very clever illusion as the perspectives in the room have to be ‘just right’ for the illusion to work and to display the room as a ‘stage’ to the person looking through the spy hole.

The ‘viewer’ of the illusion saw their friends walking around the room, but not in any ordinary way. The people in the room appear to change size, this being mostly in height. As the two or more people in the room crossed paths, on would ‘shrink’ while the other would appear to rapidly grow.

This ‘false’ room, upon sight, immediately to me seemed like something straight out of Meliés’ magic theatre. Meliés’ was one of magics’ founders and what I like to refer to as a ‘boundary pusher’, constantly innovating and creating. If this was Meliés’ creation, which it wasn’t, he would have probably filmed people in this false room from outside through the spy hole and showed people the footage, as well as actually showing them the illusion for real. This would however of been quite difficult because back in Meliés’ time, electric lighting was not too powerful and thus, not useful for a stage. This is why he used daylight and cleverly created shutters to counter the shadows that daylight brought with it.

This illusion generated quite an interest with lots of other people also, usually holding peoples attention for around ten minutes. I guess these people were also fascinated by this room’s anamorphosis – ‘distorted perspective’. I actually tried to recreate the room in a 2-dimensional drawing but this didn’t portray the room’s true perspective properly. To do this I would have to create a 3-dimensional, navigate-able image.

posted by D3v @ 5:34 AM