He may be old, but Rufus Butler Seder sure does have some cool moves. I purchased a copy of his first motion-picture book, Gallop, because it’s fantastically fun, of course. But when I met my best girlfriend for lunch and showed her my nifty new book, she was HORRIFIED, and promptly diagnosed me as a mamma-wanna-be: “Your biological clock is ticking. You’ve been shopping in the kids book section….ohmygod…” So, let me be clear: Seder’s moving images are works or art/science that just happen to be in the kiddie section of bookstores, but I assure you that they are fun for all ages…and buying a copy should not be a reflection of the tic toc of the biological clock. Please. Without further ado, here’s a little background on Seder:
It took him a very long time to come up with the technology for Gallop– decades, in fact. Rufus was in to art and magic as a kid, and now that he’s an adult….he’s still into it. About 20 years ago he started experimenting with LIFETILES, which are motion pictures that don’t require electricity or moving parts (A LIFETILE is an optical glass-tiled mural that appears to move as the viewer walks along side of it, so the only thing that has to move is the viewer). You can see LIFETILES at the Miami Zoo and various aquariums around the world, but these installations are way too large and expensive for normal people to put in their houses. Luckily, Rufus figured out how to make images move in a smaller format: books. The technology he uses to make this work is called “scanimation.” Here’s Rufus’ explanation of how it works:
Printed on the page is a series of distorted stripes representing a multiphase sequence of motion that means little to the naked eye. Printed on a clear plastic overlay is a series of black stripes. When the black stripes are moved over the distorted imagery at just the right angle and speed…you have motion. Fluid, sequential, multiphase animated motion. The beauty of this method is in its simplicity” It’s a centuries-old principle reinvented using the exactitude of modern science.
Seder recently came out with another moving image book, Swing. For the record, it’s a fabulous book-- and no baby required.
1 comment:
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