Title: "Teaching with Optical Toys: Now and Then"

Abstract:
“Optical toys” is the name that we give to a class of visual devices and playthings including stereoscopes, zoetropes, and camera obscuras. At one time, these devices were routinely used in education. Such practice has fallen away. This talk explores the ongoing pedagogic potential of these devices, using as case study an exhibit of optical toys at retroTECH that was curated by the speaker, and a related assignment in which students produced their own, updated optical toys. 

Speaker Bio:
Patrick Ellis received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 2017. His book project, Aeroscopics: Media Archaeology of the Bird’s-Eye View, provides a history of aerial vision in the era prior to commonplace flight. His interests beyond the history of film include the histories of cartography, medicine, science and technology. He has work published or forthcoming in The British Journal for the History of Science, Cinema Journal, Early Popular Visual Culture and Imago Mundi. He has also written essays and reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, N+1 and Millennium Film Journal, among others. Ellis has curated silent film programs for the Pacific Film Archive, the Wolfsonian Museum, and Cambridge University.