Initially I planned to have my silk veils hanging up by an inch in front of each other on fine clear wire from the wall to another wall.( One being a made wall.) My intention was to let the light through from behind each veil, so that the illustrations would appear though the silk like a fragile soft image. A tutorial with my tutors and other students encouraged me to look at different ways to display my work. One suggestion was to design a box like peep show at a fair attraction. So my research on peepshow begun. Showmen carried boxes to village fairs into which various combinations of scenery panels were inserted to be viewed in perspective through a hole in the front of the box. These miniature peepshows often depicted major events like the Thames Tunnel in 1843 and thee Great Exhibition 1851.
My aim was to take the ideas and produce a box that could be displayed through the wall.
My box was designed on paper first, then within a workshop on chipboard. It was important for me to get the size right, as the illustrations still needed a little freedom to move around in the box. Initially I was going to paint the inside of the box white, to give a better refection on the silk veils and to make them more see though. However, the box demanded a little colour to pull the colour theme onto the entire design, bringing the design together. The silk veils were placed on the left side, using glue as other mediums failed to hold the fabric up.
Below sample of the box with silk illustrations
Below The A4 hole in the wall was another way of combining the box and all the other elements together ensuring they all complimented each other.
Below The overlay on the wall finished the work off by putting the box into a frame, like a picture hanging on a wall
Below samples of peepshows I looked at for research for making my box.
| Fig 1. |
| Fig 2 |
Fig1. Hand-coloured lithographed peepshow in six sections. The cover scene shows the Thames Tunnel staircase with vignettes including the Crystal Palace and Parliament buildings. The influx of visitors to London for the Great Exhibition of 1851 stimulated the production of a vast quantity of souvenirs, including this topical peepshow. The long arcades of the Crystal Palace and of Marc Brunel's Thames Tunnel (opened in 1843) were ideal subjects for the peepshow, a simple optical toy which had first become popular in the eighteenth century.
Image number:
10326481
Credit:
Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
Date taken:
20 October 2003 17:42
Image rights:
Science Museum
Fig 2. ‘Thames Tunnel’ 1851
Other research
Harry N. Abrams, 1998 - Games - 160 pages by Richard Balzar
Look around the room. Now leave the room, close the door, and look through the keyhole. See how dramatically the view of the room changes. This manipulation of space, and the allure of entering a secret world from a single vantage point, explains the long fascination with peepshows. From the 16th century onward, peepshow boxes provided rich and varied entertainment and education for wide and appreciative audiences in city streets and village squares in Europe, the United States, China, and Japan. This is the first survey of this once enormously popular form of entertainment.
Conceived by artists and scientists nearly 500 years ago, peepshows featured scenes of a nation's history, wonders of the ancient world, and panoramas of faraway places that amused and informed. Peepshowmen trundled their boxes far and wide to earn a living, and competed with other itinerant street entertainers for the attention of a crowd, until the peepshow virtually disappeared with the advent of movies at the turn ofthe 20th century.
This history is illustrated with superb photographs of varied peepshow boxes, the pictures that appeared inside them, and a rich collection of antique engravings, drawings, posters, and prints -- many never before reproduced -- that reveal how peepshows were used and the way they appeared in everyday life. Author RICHARD BALZER, a collector of peepshow paraphernalia, provides a lively text.
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