Dissolving Views of the Great Exhibition of 1851

This spread shows the dissolving views for “Jewellery” and “The Majolica Fountain” before pulling the tab, two of the eight displays from the Great Exhibition of 1851 represented in this novelty book. On the left, beautiful jeweled ornaments float on a curtained stage. After pulling the tab, these pieces will be replaced by a jewelry workshop. The right shows “The Majolica Fountain,” a large ornamental fountain spraying water, which the pull tab replaces with the waterworks. In the dialogue underneath the images, a parent viewing these displays from the audience explains both the finished products of industry and the workshops where they were created to Clara and Charles. For all eight displays in this book, the frame around the moveable image remains identical, showing the backs of adults and children who watch the display, which gives the impression that the book's users are among the crowd listening to the informed parent. This moveable book production story captures the desire of Victorian consumers for immediate access to far-flung scenes of global labor and trade. The book’s form provides a tangible proxy for physical presence at far-off locations where goods are manufactured, and for the Crystal Palace where they are displayed—both settings rendered accessible to children by touching and manipulating the book's mechanism. The pull-tab gives the sensation of easy access to a workplace ordinarily hidden from view, as if we are really there in the workshop, even though the actual people manufacturing these luxury items would not be doing so on stage at the exhibition. Thus the exhibition itself functions the same way as this book, offering audiences a sense of immediacy to manufacturing processes by using goods or machines on display as proxies. And now, with this digital representation in Manifold, there are three layers of remediation. This digital representation of this book in Manifold tries to make us feel like we can touch a Victorian moveable book; the book tries to make users feel present at the exhibition; and the exhibition tries to make audiences feel present at the scene of making something!