Pre-CinemaToys Inspire Multimedia Artist

Toshio Iwai doesn't consider himself an animator. He told me this during our daily walks over the three weeks we worked together selecting competition films for the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. As we walked, we never talked about the films or the screening process. We talked about our own artwork.

Iwai has been called a "cult figure" and a "truly great multimedia artist." He may not consider himself an animator, but at the Hiroshima Festival, animators were talking about his work more than they talked about any of the films in competition.

Iwai is an innovative multimedia artist working with new technologies. The concepts for his installations spring from the archaeological roots of the motion picture. This intersection of pre-cinematic devices and modern technology creates a hybrid that allows viewers to reconsider the media in their modern lives.

Like many children, Iwai doodled in the margins of his school notebooks and made little flipbooks on the pages' corners. He was a science buff. But, unlike many children, these were not casual interests. As a nine year-old, he had created a sketchbook with drawings of inventions, motors, propellers, light bulbs and gears. He even built hand-cranked and mechanical toys. His parents encouraged his interest in science and invention, bought him books on crafts and tools, and even joined him making toys on weekends.

Examples of Toshio Iwai's early Xeroxed Phenakistoscopes (1982).

Antiques and Modernity Collide
In college, Iwai made a scratch film and flipbooks, but then began researching the roots of cinema. He discovered three pre-cinema toys which inspired his installation pieces: the Phenakistoscope, the Zoetrope, and a hand-cranked music box.

The Phenakistoscope was invented in 1832 and is attributed by some historians to Joseph Plateau. This optical toy uses persistence of vision to simulate movement. Evenly spaced slits are cut in the edge of a thin disc about the size of a dinner plate. The device is black on one side, with slightly differing drawings on the other. The viewer spins the disc and looks into a mirror at the drawings through the slits. The slits create a strobe and the illusion of movement.

In college (1982), Iwai did a series of Phenakistoscopes, using a Xerox machine to create the multiple pie-shaped images which were glued onto the black slotted disc. Much of the imagery has a Japanese reference. Strings ooze in and out like soba noodles. We see a running horse, resembling the photo studies of Eadweard Muybridge, but these have been pushed out of a layer of rice, the horse defined by the negative space. An origami-folded paper crane gently lifts wings in flight.

The Zoetrope, or "wheel of life," was another source of inspiration for Iwai. This 1834 device is similar to the Phenakistoscope, but it does not require a mirror. The slits are cut into a cylinder which spins on a turntable, with strips of drawings on the inside base of the drum.

In 1988, Iwai began constructing 3D Zoetropes, inspired by Etienne-Jules Marey's experiments with placing three dimensional models, rather than drawings, into the Zoetrope canister.

One of Iwai's hand-cranked 3D Zoetropes (1988).

An Iwai Experience
After hearing about his work, I was eager to see Toshio's interactive installations at the Festival. I had arrived a day early, and looked for him, ready to offer installation assistance. The signs were not yet up, but music drew me to the space. The room was darkened, but the installations were all up and running. Three Zoetropes marked the entrance, a wall of Phenakistoscopes were spinning near a bank of televisions, and, in the middle of the room, three eerie crystal domes pulsated with moving shapes and light. I felt like I was visiting a cinema museum on a spaceship. Or were these crystal balls offering a vision of the future? Whatever it was, I put down my catalog and decided to explore.