The Persistence of Vision: Walk among the tumbled stones

Mat Collishaw, The Garden of Unearthly Delights

So why return to the intellectual battlefield of a decade ago and walk among the tumbled stones? Because the relationship between film and viewer is important. Not only must the mechanism of persistence of vision that purported to explain the illusion of motion be replaced by an accurate description of the illusion, but the concept of a passive viewer implied by the myth must be replaced by the viewer implied by an enlightened understanding of the illusion: a meaning-seeking creature who engages the film as actively as he engages the real world about him. To reject the mechanism of persistence of vision is to reject the myth of persistence of vision and the passivity of the viewer it implies.

- "The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited," Journal of Film and Video, 

Vol. 45, No. 1 (Spring 1993): 3-12. By Joseph and Barbara Anderson.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1490-1510.