In my review yesterday of On the Move: Visualising Action, an exhibition about art and science curated by Jonathan Miller, I was rude about the optical toys included in the show. I thought the use of them a bit superficial – but that doesn't mean I don't find such instruments interesting. On the contrary. My cynicism about Miller's selection was partly fuelled by the fact that I've seen more comprehensive and enlightening collections of zoetropes, praxinoscopes and the like elsewhere – such as the excellent Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.
Optical toys are instruments of wonder that take us back to the early days of science. In Joseph Wright of Derby's painting of a demonstration with an Orrery we see 18th-century people gathered in awe around a model of the solar system. Science toys today tend to be plastic instead of hand-crafted metal, but they can be just as magical.
Just recently at the Science Museum, I bought a praxinoscope which is a modern version of the ones in Miller's show. It works with a hand-turned wheel on which you fix a selection of animated sequences – round paper discs with drawings of successive states of a figure in motion. A racehorse, a running man and a rowing team are among the classic examples included with the toy.
The spinning images are reflected in a mirrored central wall; you look through a viewfinder at an illuminated section of the mirror and watch a flickering "film" created by the disc you yourself are spinning round. This is a fascinating visual experiment – you can slow it down and speed it up to break down the process by which we "see", or think we see, a succession of still images turn into a fluid portrayal of realistic movement.
All I need now is the address of a shop which will sell me a brass orrery like the one in Wright's painting. Science and art are so often imagined as two cultures, but they can be reconciled – by toymakers if not curators.
