Jonathan Shaw’s Triple Jump, Harold Edgerton’s Densmore Shute Bends the Shaft & Portrait of Jonathan Miller

“On the Move: Visualising Action,” at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in north London until April 18, for which Sir Jonathan has assembled a wide range of material examining the perception and depiction of movement.

The show includes not only Muybridge’s fragile lantern slides, but the devices which first reproduced visual movement in the 19th century, such as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope and praxinoscope. But it also extends to animated studies of highly technical research into how we perceive movement, Futurist paintings, modern panoramic digital photography and comic strips.”

Further reviews can be seen at;

On the Move is an engaging, thought provoking show… – Evening Standard

…an enthralling show… - The Guardian/Observer

SMIRNOFF Hot Pick! – Time Out London

(the show) raises all kinds of questions, not only about how we perceive movement in still images, but also what art is – The Independent

On the Move: Visualising Action at the Estorick Collection, London. 13th January – 18th April 2010.

17th January, The Sunday Independent, The Critics, Visual Art/Film by Charles Darwent.

“And other rooms bring Miller’s story up to date by focussing on the modern interest in depicting motion motionlessly, from Jonathan Shaw’s shot of a triple-jumper mid-jump to the sequentially flailing fists of Billy Whizz.

This is fascinating stuff, although more needs to be made of its central cognitive drama. As Miller points out, the perception psychologist, Sigmund Exner, found that the eye actually registers the gaps between frames in the apparently seamless story of, say, Steamboat Willie. It is the brain that fills in the narrative, preferring its stories complete. This knowledge raises all kinds of questions about how and what we see, but also about what art is and what it is for.”

Click here to read the full story on the Independent’s website.