At Exeter Phoenix the current exhibition is ‘Mind over Matter’, a series of kinetic work. Machines that move in mysterious ways.
This work by Tim Lewis is much liked by many of the visitors, we had school groups in this morning and afternoon and I overheard many enthusiastic comments.
The ‘moving’ men spin round and are flashed at by tiny strobes which together trick the eye into believing in these walking men. They walk, quite fast, behind each other in a circle, disciplined like soldiers (but never moving on).
People love to wait for it to stop (to stay out of the way of the movement sensor that makes it spin) to stare at the men all in their slightly different positions.
This, I learnt today, is ‘persistence of vision’ – the delayed reception of information by your brain which means it then blurs together the images and so makes it look like the men are moving.
This is what makes animation, animation.
