Historical Foundations of Visual Technology Workbook
9 Cinema and television
The development of cinema (motion pictures) followed rapidly after the invention of still black
and white photography in 1839. As early as 1860 experimenters had learned that the human eye
can be "fooled" into perceiving smooth motion by the rapid presentation of photographs in which
an object gradually changes position. When a light source such as the newly-invented electric light (1879)
and a lens system was used to project light through an image sequence and focus it on a screen, the
stage was set for the evolution of cinema into a commercial art form. The invention of sound recording
in the 1880's, radio by 1900, the electronic vacuum tube in 1904, cathode ray tubes (CRTs) as scientific
instruments, and the inception of radio broadcasting in 1920 paved the way for inventions making
possible the capture and transmission of images by the 1930's. Here we look at this explosion of technology against the backdrop of momentous world events and monumental changes in the direction of art.
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