Lightbox

One woman builds the whole technology of cinema by hand, from a clay lamp and a linen sheet to a picture palace showing her own films. Four eras are playable so far. Walk to the clay bank, dig, carry three clay to the potter’s pit, take the lamp bowl, stand at the shadow stage and perform. A show pays wonder and coins. Across the water she cuts puppets, weaves a linen sheet, presses lamp oil and builds a camera obscura hut, whose show opens the gate to the Glassmakers’ Slip. There she makes glass, grinds lenses, paints slides and shows them with a magic lantern, in a tent and then in a phantasmagoria room, whose show opens the gate to Clockwork Lane. There she smiths gears, makes paper, draws twelve frames of a motion in order and prints them into strips for zoetropes, then loops them for the guild in a praxinoscope theatre, whose show opens the gate to Silver Quay. There she makes photographic plates that fog as they age, takes portraits before the sitter fidgets, photographs a galloping horse with twelve cameras and shows it running in a zoopraxiscope gallery, whose show opens the next gate.