Review of Huhtamo, Erkki, 'Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013, ISBN 9 7802 6201 8517, 456 pp., US$45.00. Distributor: Footprint Books

Abstract

On the face of it, 'Illusions in Motion' might seem a niche publication, lavishly illustrated - often from the author's own vast collection of ephemera, commercial apparatuses and toys - and designed to appeal primarily to specialists of an obscure mid-nineteenth-century media technology and entertainment: the moving panorama. It would be a mistake to read the book in this way. As one of the leading proponents of media archaeology, Erkki Huhtamo's achievement is not only to recuperate the forgotten moving panorama to media history, but also to demonstrate how it offers innovative insights into the historical formation of media culture.