Traveling is good for the soul—but traveling in time? Magical.
Last month we went to Warsaw for the weekend. Around the corner from our hotel was the Fotoplastikon, a small dark room containing a giant machine shaped like a drum. Sit at one of the stools, put your face up to the lenses and peer through to see photos from other lands—islands, maybe, or Australia or Mexico. Places that, in the 1900’s, would have been exotic.
I sit down to see a grainy, sepia image of the Eiffel Tower.
click
shhhhush
And a new frame slides into view. Montmartre.
click
shhhhush
The “show” we attended was, of course, about Paris. Photo after photo of iconic Paris scenes: Notre Dame, the Sacre Coeur, the Luxembourg Gardens, all sliding neatly into place.
The show is over when the slides have made their loop around the drum. There’s no fanfare—everyone just gets up and walks out. Like a movie theater, the darkness makes the Parisian journey somewhat anonymous; pressing your face up to the lenses heightens your vision but obscures your face from others. Sometimes they play music to accompany the theme of the show but ours was silent. The noise from the drum is regular as the slides move into place; it is the perfect disguise for hidden conversation. The Fotoplastikon was, during the Polish Resistance, a place for secret contacts. One can just imagine two strangers seated on stools, a single murmured word stifled by the click shhhhush as the next photo slides into place: A photo of a Polynesian island, perhaps.
Time travel, times two.
Happy Friday! And if you’re ever in the neighborhood with a Fotoplastikon or Kaiser Panorama, I highly recommend the trip.
