Plate Number 248. Sitting down on the ground 1887

Editor: This is "Plate Number 248. Sitting down on the ground," a gelatin silver print by Eadweard Muybridge, created in 1887. I'm really struck by the way it captures movement. It’s like a flipbook spread across a single frame. What’s your take on it? Curator: It’s magical, isn't it? Like a ghost dance performed for the sake of science. For me, this piece isn't just about depicting motion; it’s about dissecting it. Muybridge was obsessed, driven to prove a point about a horse's gait, if you can believe it, and he unwittingly created this groundbreaking…ballet, almost, using the human form. What do you notice about the setting? Editor: It seems so staged, so artificial. The grid behind her makes me think of a scientific experiment rather than an artistic creation. Curator: Exactly! That clinical setting throws the intimacy of the nude figure into sharp relief. The juxtaposition of the scientific and the sensual is really potent. Do you see any suggestion of the 'story' of this moment beyond its analytical study of how movement is being accomplished in the photo series? Editor: Not really a story, no. It feels like just a demonstration of motion more than anything else. Curator: Perhaps, and perhaps in that act it transcends its scientific aim to show, quite wonderfully and openly, all it is to get up, to change, and go forth, as a being with thoughts and intentions! The sequence has an uncontainable elegance. I feel that its starkness enhances, rather than detracts from, that elegance. Editor: That’s a cool way to look at it; I guess I was too focused on the science part. Curator: And that focus is perfectly reasonable! Seeing how those intentions entwine, that's what makes looking at art, looking at anything, so incredibly fun!