The origins of the selfie go back a long way. From Arab scientist Ibn Al Haytham’s camera obscura in the 11th century AD, the fascinating story of the moving image can be seen at a unique museum in the Middle East, here in Dubai.
When photographic portraits became popular in the middle of the 19th century, the subjects had one thing in common – they never smiled.
Serious, almost grim, their poses were stiff and statue-like. Yet despite the solemn expressions, these personal photos were cherished, kept inside fancy velvet cases of brass, silver or gold. It was a time when a single photograph could be taken in someone’s lifetime, something that might seem incomprehensible today in an age when people take hundreds of selfies almost daily.
"The slightest of movement would make an image blurry, so the photographer would tell the subject not to smile, the opposite of today where he or she says, 'Smile to the camera'," says Alizee Sarazin, manager of the Dubai Moving Image Museum (DMIM).
“There was usually a clamp-like object set at the neck so that one didn’t move during a photo shoot, as it would take a few minutes before the click and the photo was snapped by the photographer,” she says.
Those boxy early cameras were a combination of the pinhole camera, which only shows an inverted picture, and the properties of silver nitrate that together created the first photographs.
While philosophers like Aristotle in Athens and Mozi in China were familiar with a form of camera obscura, it was the Arab scientist Ibn Al Haytham (965-1040), known in west as Alhazen, father of optics, who properly understood it. Alhazen is credited with its final form between 1015 to 1021.
But it was not until another 800 years that the world’s first photograph, or rather, the earliest known surviving photograph taken by a camera was unveiled. Taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 or 1827, the image depicts the view from an upstairs window at Niepce’s estate, Le Gras, in the Burgundy region of France.
The type of camera he and other early photographers used can be viewed at the DMIM, which houses more than 300 unique objects dating back from the 1720s to the 20th century. Featuring several interactive instalments to truly experience the world of images, the museum in Tecom area is Akram Miknas’s private collection, accumulated over 35 years.
The rarest of cameras, images of all sizes and types, and the most elaborate and creative inventions through the ages that entertained, shocked and impressed the masses, are laid out at the museum, capturing in detail the pre-cinema history.
One of only a handful of museums in the world focusing on the history of the moving image, it is the first and still the only one of its kind in the Middle East since its opening in January, 2014.
This month, it has been nominated in the Best Emerging Culture Destination Middle East category, in the Leading Culture Destinations Awards, dubbed the Oscars for museums.
The awards honour the world’s most visionary art institutions and emerging cultural hotspots, at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower, London, on Friday.
In the same category as the DMIM is another contestant from Dubai, the Salsali Private Museum, dedicated to contemporary Middle Eastern and international art. It was founded in November 2011 by Ramin Salsali, who was born in Tehran, and is in the industrial area of Al Quoz, in Alserkal Avenue. Their rivals for the prize include Qatar's Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Oman's National Museum and Israel's Design Museum Holon.
“We are extremely proud that the museum’s uniqueness and contemporary approach has been recognised by such a prestigious award ceremony,” says Mr Miknas, who was born in Lebanon but holds Bahraini nationality and is chairman of the Middle East Communications Network (MCN).
“The Dubai Moving Image Museum has had a very positive impact not only in the region but worldwide, offering a unique educational, historical and creative potential,” he says.
The evidence of prehistoric cave drawings based on light and shadow shows that man has always been fascinated with the concept of capturing movement. As you enter the Dubai museum, there is a wall dedicated to using mere hands to create moving shadow creatures, like the camel, bird and elephant.
Intricate and beautifully crafted, the section dedicated to the use of shadows in storytelling illustrates how much effort was put in to create a simple puppet-like show. First developed in ancient China during the Han dynasty, it gained huge popularity throughout Asian culture before spreading across the Ottoman Empire and reaching Europe in the mid-18th century.
“You can see the figurines represented all slices of social life, from the farmer to the prince, and even mystical creatures like this cat in boots,” says Ms Sarazin, pointing to shadow theatre sets from 19th-century Germany and France.
Several different techniques were created at the same time.
The shadow theatre section is next to one dedicated to camera obscura. Close by, visitors can appreciate the art of mystery and creativity in what is known as anamorphosis, where distorted images using mathematical grids could be viewed only by using very specific-sized and shaped mirrors, like a cylindrical one. The Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci was known to experiment with them.
“Secret messages used to be delivered in this manner, where only the person with the right mirror could understand what the image was,” says Ms Sarazin. “Optical illusions tests that are so popular today, some of them go back to the 1800s.”
The oldest device at the museum is a Dutch peep show viewer from 1750. It is a large expandable box with image slides inside that are viewed through a magnifying glass. The images have holes cut out at specific spots and would be lit with a candle or an oil lamp from behind, so depending on the changing light, you get a day and a night view.
Peep show viewers, or peep boxes, can be traced back to 15th century Europe and are known in various cultures.
Showmen carried their peep boxes across Europe, setting up at fairs and markets to display images of battles, faraway lands and historical events.
“General Napoleon Bonaparte used the peep boxes to promote his national interests and the French army, by showcasing drawn images and brave figures on battlefields,” she said.
As guests peep and play with the various inventions, it also becomes clear that even what we might think of as the latest technologies are tried and tested. Those three-dimensional films we see in the cinema today go back almost 200 years.
“Invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838, stereoscopy enhanced the illusion of depth by turning 2D images into 3D experiences, by using a pair of two-dimensional images and a special viewer,” says Ms Sarazin.
In the centre of the museum space is the impressive Kaiserpanorama, a life-size replica of the early form of stereoscopic entertainment invented by the German physicist August Fuhrmann in 1880.
As many as 12 people can sit and enjoy it at the same time. Looking through the two lenses, the two offset images are displayed separately to the left and right eye of the viewer, who sits around the large circular structure and stares into the machine.
The images are combined in the brain to give the perception of 3D depth. Magnificent images rotate – mainly from Germany and Austria – of people climbing mountains and landscapes, plus the detailed interior of a house with a colourful tablecloth that you feel you can almost touch.
Such 3D photographs from the Middle East capture a lost way of life, including old Palestinian villages. A beautiful colourful diorama – a theatre with 3D figurines – dating back to 1854 and capturing Europe’s love for the mysterious orient, shows a “Caravan to Mecca”. It comes with a book, as camels and Bedouins dressed in flamboyant traditional clothes move on the cardboard theatre.
“The Magic Lantern section is filled with examples of personalised projectors that people cherished and kept at home to entertain guests,” says Ms Sarazin.
Invented in the late 17th century, the first lanterns were mostly used by magicians and conjurors. The 18th century then had the development of the Phantasmagoria, invented by the Belgian illusionist, Etienne-Gaspard ‘Robertson’ Robert. The projections of ghosts, skeletons and devils, and other frightening figures, fascinated people at that time and continue to do so today.
“We then had many toys and instruments that created moving animated images and were the seeds for moving pictures and the cinema,” says Ms Sarazin.
One was the Thaumatrope. This 19th century popular toy has a disc with a picture on each side attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers, the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the persistence of vision. The bird in this particular toy ends up in a cage, and then out again.
From France comes the Kinora, an invention of the Lumiere brothers (Auguste and Louis), based on an idea by the American, H Casler. Reels of “flipbook” type photographic leaves could be viewed through the lens of the Kinora and numerous reels could be bought or rented out.
Turning the handle on one of those flicker machines, like the Mutoscope, the actor Charlie Chaplin, sometime in 1910, is preparing a drink in his usual over-expressive way.
“Our museum stops here,” says Sarazin, pointing to a poster with announcements of the first “successful commercial screening” of a movie in a cinema on December 28, 1895, at the Grand Cafe in Paris.
There was an older short silent film, but it was not a commercial success: the 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene was directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince. It ran for just 2.11 seconds.
The world’s first movie was 46 seconds long, and quite simple – it showed workers leaving the Lumiere Factory in Lyon – but it was the start of a multimillion dollar industry that keeps viewers coming back for more.
• For more information, see www.dubaimovingimagemuseum.com. The museum is open every day except Friday, from 11am to 6pm. Entry: 50dh for adults, 25dh for under-18s.
• The Salsali Private Museum is open weekdays from 11am to 6pm, and 1pm to 5pm Saturdays. It is closed Fridays.Tel: 04 380 9600.
rghazal@thenational.ae