OUAN05 - Understanding - Kineograph (1868)

The Kineograph

Kineograph is the word used to describe the device much more widely referred to as a flip book. A flip book is a book containing a series of pages each with a different image that changes gradually from page to page so when the user turns the pages at a relatively quick pace the pictures appear to be animated by simulating motion. Often flip books are illustrated children's books but some are also aimed at adults using illustrations with a more serious tone or photographs.

Flip books are quite a primitive form of animation, like various other early devices such as the thaumatrope they rely on the persistence of vision in order to operate. Also, despite the book form, the user does not read the pages left to right but instead stares at the same spot whilst flipping through the pages, and for the illusion to work adequately the user must flip the pages at a certain speed. The German word for flipbook, 'Daumenkino' reflects the process that's used to operate a flipbook well, translating to 'thumb cinema'. 

The first flipbook was invented in the year 1868 and patented by John Barnes Linnett under the name 'kineograph'. Something I found interesting about the flip book was that it was the first form of early animation or moving image to display the images in a linear fashion as oppose to a circular one like that of the zoetrope for example. In modern times flipbooks are widely considered toys and were once given as prizes in things such as cereal boxes, but they were vital in the development of early cinema and animation as a whole, and were also used as a promotional tool for adult products such as cigarettes. So they haven't always been the novelty we know them as today.