In her essay titled “Grace Taking Form: Marey’s Movement Machines” Erin Manning talks about the experiments performed by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey on motion and the theoretical aspects that accompany the study. Starting in the 1850’s Marey dedicated his professional career to the pursuit of deeper understanding of movement and motion, particularly of the human form and other mammals. In his quest to capture the imperceptible motions that existed but where not readily perceivable by the human senses, Marey created a multitude of machines in order to aid him in this process, including the invention of a chronophotographic gun that was capable to take twelve consecutive shot a second and superimpose the all onto a single frame of photographic film.
Manning talks about the transformation in the method that Marey used to document his findings. Whereas in his earlier experiments he would record motion in a systematic and grid-like fashion, later on he was able to record motion in a more fluid and organic manner, even though the subject matter was the same, the human form. She goes on to say that grace is found in these organic motions because they tend to follow dynamic curving lines versus static jagged ones, and by virtue of being curved ones they have the unique ability to foretell a sense of direction.
The manner in which Erin Manning wrote her essay and the use of the seemingly abstract vocabulary is non-conducive to what she is trying to convey. She introduces and talks a lot about theoretical aspects that I don’t believe existed originally, at least not till after the experiments. I believe Marey had a very health curiosity and was part scientist and part artist. He followed the scientific method when it came to documenting his findings but he also just experimented like a photographer would with a new camera. All in all, Manning’s essay has difficult to read, but I was able to capture the essence of what she was trying to say.
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