Libros

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, huge circular panoramas presented their audiences with resplendent representations that ranged from historic battles to exotic locations. Such panoramas were immersive but static. There were other panoramas that moved—hundreds, and probably thousands of them. Their history has been largely forgotten. In Illusions in Motion, Erkki Huhtamo excavates this neglected early manifestation of media culture in the making. The moving panorama was a long painting that unscrolled behind a “window” by means of a mechanical cranking system, accompanied by a lecture, music, and sometimes sound and light effects. Showmen exhibited such panoramas in venues that ranged from opera houses to church halls, creating a market for mediated realities in both city and country.

In the first history of this phenomenon, Huhtamo analyzes the moving panorama in all its complexity, investigating its relationship to other media and its role in the culture of its time. In his telling, the panorama becomes a window for observing media in operation. Huhtamo explores such topics as cultural forms that anticipated the moving panorama; theatrical panoramas; the diorama; the "panoramania" of the 1851s and the career of Albert Smith, the most successful showman of that era; competition with magic lantern shows; the final flowering of the panorama in the late nineteenth century; and the panorama's afterlife as a topos, traced through its evocation in literature, journalism, science, philosophy, and propaganda.

Un homenaje a las fotografías más hermosas, significativas e inspiradoras que ha dado este medio moderno (cuyo nombre, que significa literalmente «escribir con luz», sugiere su potencial para captar los momentos destacados de nuestras vidas). El libro comienza con una visión general de la fotografía, situándola en el contexto de los avances sociales y culturales que han tenido lugar en todo el mundo desde su aparición.

A continuación, se traza la rápida evolución del estilo fotográfico, época a época y movimiento a movimiento. Los diferentes apartados, con sus correspondientes fotografías, abarcan todos los géneros, desde los primeros retratos y escenas hasta los montajes manipulados por medios digitales, las imágenes deportivas tomadas en décimas de segundo y las fotografías conceptuales más actuales. Asimismo, se analizan las ideas y los trabajos de fotógrafos destacados para revelar sus motivaciones, sus influencias y sus objetivos.