January 1833 - Joseph Plateau - Phantasmascope - Un petit danseur faisant une pirouette

This is the oldest known animation based on the stroboscopic principle that decades later would also allow the creation of cinematographic movies. The design of a little dancer performing a pirouette was published in January 1833 as a black and white illustration in the Belgian small press scientific journal ’’Correspondance Mathématique et Physique’’, to announce the new type of optical illusions that Plateau had invented. In July 1833 it was published commercially by Ackermann & Co. in London as one of six hand-coloured lithographed discs in a set titled ’’Phantasmascope’’ (later reissued as ’’Fantascope’’). This first animation depicts a rather stiff motion. If it weren’t for the shadow on the ground this could as well be a 360° spatial registration of a still 3D object. Later animations by Plateau were much livelier and explored other possibilities of the medium, including the illusion of zombie heads spiraling towards the viewer from a vortex, snakes crawling over the edge of the disc and a young woman morphing into a witch and then into a demon. See the Magical Motion Museum channel for more examples (some coming soon).