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A house of visual art of yore and its devices
Dubai - Exhibiting peep boxes, magic lanterns and megalethoscope, Dubai Moving Image Museum at Tecom is a must-see for children and adults
In the days of power cuts and entertainment by candlelight, parents would expose their children to simple shadow gimmicks - the art of hooking thumbs and flapping fingers to make the image on the wall look like an eagle in flight.
Two hundred years before YouTube and Walt Disney animations, the world had a different notion of visual entertainment. Shadow games were the earliest of these, dating back to cavemen when shadow games were performed around a wood fire. Gradually, things advanced and there emerged flip books and pinhole cameras. The earliest most rudimentary devices involving mirrors and image-depth manipulation were created and evolved to what today we know as 3D. This was life before cinema. Now it's all games on iPads and Farmville and Candy Crush. But there is a museum in town to send you reeling back to days of your childhood when there was no such thing as a touchscreen.
London, New York and now Dubai - there are only three museums worldwide built on the theme of moving images. While the Dubai museum has been unofficially open for the latter part of 2013, the formal inauguration by Shaikh Majid bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), only took place last Tuesday. A Lebanese gentleman who has been in advertising for the last 30 years and lives in Bahrain, Akram Miknas is the chairman of the Middle East Communications Network (MCN) - the building that houses this museum. Miknas is an antique collector and the brain behind this delightful space.
Roaming around in this unusual environment is a treat for your senses. Cement with layers and layers of laquer give the floor a shiny, squeaky finish. Museum manager Mandy Aridi says, “Some people think the floor is wet.”
Opening hours
The Dubai Moving Image Museum at Tecom is open from 11am to 7pm, other than on Wednesdays when it shuts at 9pm and Saturdays when it opens at 12pm
Closed on Fridays
Museum visits are available at other time by appointment
Admission
Fees: Adults (18 years+): Dh50; Children (18 years and under): Dh25. (free for children under 3); Students with valid identity cards: Dh25. Group and school rates available
Guided tours: Additional Dh10 per person (Must be booked in advance)
Hiring: The museum is available for hire for meetings and conferences, networking events, private parties, exhibitions, and other special events. The museum also hosts children's birthday parties
Spend some time here and you'll get to see, among other quirky contraptions, folding peep boxes that were made in Holland in circa 1750. From that time, peepshow men used to travel around Europe carrying their peep box on their back. They would stop in towns and villages and for a fee, they would show the public sights of cities they had never before seen, images of places they had never travelled to. Remember this was the time before Google Images and mouse clicks.
The magic lanterns are another marvelous exhibit. These are cameras with oil lamps and even little chimneys placed on top of the viewfinder for smoke to pass through – and – totally at odds with cameras as we know them today. These magic lanterns were first used by magicians and conjurists. This was the origin of special effects.
Your general knowledge of camera terminology and trivia is bound to increase. For example, the writing on the wall - the literal wall text - at the museum says the word “camera” is derived from what Ibn Al- Haytham Alhazen referred to in Arabic as Al Qumra.
Visitors to the museum get to learn what a stereoscope or megalethoscope is. Kids especially will love the warped images caused by the anarmorphic rod. It's the land of the funny mirrors and thaumatropes -- the space is a moving glossary of rarely heard terms - of images and insights into a time long past. The underlying theme is how people entertained themselves back in the day.
Schools especially must take note that there is an interactive space available for class trips, importantly a non-boring space that offers some invaluable vignettes from a time before black and white photographs, from a time before when even their parents were toddlers.
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com
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