The goblet excavated at the Burnt City site in Iran has 5 images which when looked at consecutively forms an animation.
This animation has been making its rounds.
By placing the images in on a bowl, it could be a form of a zoetrope. However, the images are on the outside of the goblet. That would make it unlike the typical structure of a zoetrope. However, on the inside of the bowl are marking that could be site lines… similar to the notches in a zoetrope. It’s just that is is inside out.
Not sure if those folks so long ago were playing with animation, as in persistence of vision, but it is a nice design idea and certainly something we can explore now.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Robin McGregor // Dec 4, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I would love to see pix of this!
2 John // Dec 4, 2009 at 10:12 pm
It’s still shown at the top of the linked post.
3 Robin // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Silly me!! Thanks John!
4 John // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Not a problem…I know how it is.
I’ve been itching to give a ceramic zoetrope idea a try; especially, where the animation is done in relief, or perhaps fully formed. In my crude experiments, I found that the animation needs to be done with high contrast for the eye to pick up on it. So I don’t think it will work too well in sculptural forms, but I’d love to be proven wrong.
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