The aim of this workshop is to help children study the connection between their vision and Camera Οbscura, i.e. the first camera, understand how it works and the features in common of the camera and the projector. They will become familiar with the refraction phenomenon and then they will build a projector.

1. Camera means “room” in Latin; obscura means
“dark”.

2. • It is a light-proof box or room with a
small hole on one side of which the light
passes through and reproduces external
objects.
• It was used in painting, drawing and
surveying and was one of the
inventions that led to the advent of
photography and the camera.

3. A 19th century artist uses a “dark room” to
draw the outline of his subject.
A 19th century painter uses a “dark room” to
draw his painting.

4.  To date, artists such
as ABELARDO
MORELL use
Camera Obscura for
their works.
• He travels around the world and converts rooms into camera obscura (dark rooms) carefully
closing all windows. He combines the external environment with the house interior and creates a
new composition on the walls. He then takes a digital photo of his composition.

5.  ABERYSTWYTH RAILWAY
STATION, WALES
It has a 35.56 cm lens and offers a
result of high resolution and accuracy.
 CAMERATRUCK, The largest travelling
camera obscura in the world.
Shaun Irving takes pictures of everyone and
everything using his truck as a camera. Each
photo shoot lasts approximately one hour,
and the dimensions of the final printout are
120x152cm.

6. THE HISTORY
OF THE PROJECTOR

7. • The Magic Lantern appeared in the 17th
century and was mainly used for
recreational purposes. It was built by the
Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens.
• The Magic Lantern was made of mirrors,
prisms, lenses and a source of light. It was
used to project photos, paintings, prints or
even transparent plates.
• From the19th century onwards its use was
mainly established for educational
purposes.

8. • In 1756, the Swiss scientist Leonhard Euler,
presented the epidioscope. It was made of a system of
mirrors, prisms and lenses and the light lit the object
from above.
• It was mainly used by artists who wished to magnify
leaves, mineral specimens, drawings and book pages
for their works.
• It was later used in education for lectures or
presentations to a broader public, as it allowed the
subject of the projection to be magnified.
• In the 20th century it was used in classrooms and as
an affordable toy for children.

9. • The first attempt to project motion was an
invention called the “Chronophotographer”
created by the French physiologist Etienne -
Jules Marey, who experimented with motion
analysis recording and was influenced by the
experiments of Eadweard Muybridge, the
inventor of the “Zoopraxiscope”.
• Zoopraxiscope: motion
analysis of horse galloping.
Muybridge wanted to prove
that all four horse legs are in
the air while galloping!
Chronophotographs, Marey 1882.

10.  Influenced by these inventions, Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Dickson invented the
“Kinetoscope”.
• It was designed to be used
by one person at a time and
is the first motion picture
exhibition device.
• The viewer could watch
through a peephole. The
illusion of motion was
created through a strip of
film moving at high speed
inside the box.
Disadvantage: It was impossible to be projected to more people at the
same time.

11. The last two decades of the 19th century were a period of prosperity for the USA and Europe.
o Working hours are dropping.
o The working class has more leisure time.
o Mass entertainment of people (fairs, events, balls) develops.
o Public transport systems develop.
o Mass travel starts.
o The phonograph, the telephone and the car are invented.
o The perception of time and distance change
o Scientific developments in the understanding of optics

12. • The first public film screening was held in Paris in 1895 and lasted 15 minutes. The
projection device used was called “Cinematograph” and was built by Louis Lumière. The
Lumière brothers were inspired by the sewing machine to invent a mechanism that could
control the flow speed of the film strip, creating an illusion of movement from still frames.
The Lumière brothers are considered the fathers of both the cinematograph and the
cinema as an idea.

13. • Between 1940 and 1960 different
types of projectors start emerging
alongside the development of
computers. (Slide Projectors &
Overhead Projectors). They
consisted of optical mechanisms
and lamps and projected slides.
• From 1970 onwards the first digital
projectors appeared. They had a
high-resolution camera and could
be connected to a monitor, an
interactive board and a video
projector.

14. • The first Digital Light Processing and
LCD Projectors appeared in the period
1987 - 1990. The disadvantage of the
former was poor video performance
and the drawback of the latter
overheating!
• From 2000 to date, 4K projectors using
Ultra High Definition (UHD)
technology have been stealing the
show, offering cinema-like high-
definition images.
• Laser projectors are the most cutting-
edge technology of our times and their
use is mainly commercial; however
they are also intended for use at home.

15. • The Canadian theatre director Robert
Lepage has creatively integrated
projectors into his work. In 2008, he
set up a huge projection (600x30m)
using various projectors at the Port of
Quebec within 6 months to tell the
city’s history on its 400-year
anniversary.
https://vimeo.com/57492020

16. • Painters like Jacques Bodin used
projectors as an intermediate step in
their work.
• The artist projects photos on a big
white canvas using a projector and
then he paints on it as if he had been
using tracing paper. In this way, his
works become “hyper-realistic” as he
claims, because he may not only
capture a high level of detail but they
may also be projected at a large scale.
* Jacques Bodin at work
* His work, oil on canvas,
110/110 cm

17. However, he is not the first one to do that! We
had seen this technique in the past, when
artists used Camera Obscura for a similar
purposes.
A 19th century painter uses the
projection of Camera Obscura
to draw a landscape.