So I’ve completed my Sequential Design/Illustration MA. The exhibition, from all the feedback we’ve had, was a great success. It was great to see everyone’s work up on the walls and to feel like we’d worked together to make it happen. And I’m pretty pleased to have achieved a distinction at this level. But more importantly than that, I’ve opened up a research area that I plan on exploring much further. The development of the language of moving images, from looping animations in optical toys, narrated magic lantern shows and experiments with sequential photography; feels like it is worth more investigation.

My project explores the stories of Charles-Emile Reynaud, George Albert Smith and Eadweard Muybridge and looks to express how creation and destruction can go hand in hand.

Below are some images of my space in the exhibition: three phenakistiscope optical toys with looping animations (viewed in mirror through slots of disc when spun) that relate to each of the three graphic biographies on the shelf below them. Also below, the rough digital test versions of the looping animations.

(photography by Joe Lau)