WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (B. 1955)

"A phenakistoscope was an early pre-cinematic optical device, exploiting the natural phenomenon of persistence of vision to transform static images such that they appear to be one image in movement. To test the principle of the device I cut crude holes into gramophone records, attached a dowel stick and spun them. And when it came to making the final edition, gramophone records still seemed a good scale and material to work with. Of course by now gramophone records are obsolete, prized by collectors of vinyl in the same way as old optical devices are sought by collectors. The maps on the Phenakistoscope come from Bacon's Popular Atlas of the World (1893) and The Oxford Atlas (1951). I wanted the Phenakistoscope to work in reverse. When you turn the handle slowly, the whole procession moves around the spindle. When you look through the gaps in the second (front) record and turn the handle, the figures should appear to stay in place, only passing their burdens from one to another."