18th Century Artifacts

Part of this project includes creating physical elements, some of which are interacted with(the lantern) and some which contain the content. In order to make more informed design decisions, I wanted to look at the objects from a historical point of view, 
specifically the 18th century.

Lantern:
Lanterns are portable or fixed devices that provide light, while keeping the light source protected wind or rain. Lanterns have not only been used as a light source but as a signal, decoration, celebration or in religious ceremony. The first mention of a lantern was in Greece.

Candles:
These lanterns would have been primitive, using a candle as a light source. The candle was place in a box. Make of tin, brass, wood or glass. an opening is often found at the top in order to let oxygen get to the flame.

   

Oil Lantern:
Oil lanterns replaced traditional candle lanterns. These used whale oil and other such oils as a fuel. The wick is soaked in the fuel and lit for the light source.  These were then replaced by gas lanterns
















Gas Lantern:
Unlike flame lanterns (candles, oil lanterns) the gas lantern relies on heated mantles that emit light and is far more effective. The first commercial use of gas lighting was in 1792 by William Murdoch. Gas lanterns were developed during the 19th century. This was down to Carl Auer von Welsbach's invention of the modern thorium mantel. Portable lanterns used kerosene as a fuel. This led to the modern style of lanterns we know today. These lanterns included a control knob used to adjust the brightness and turn off the lantern. Gas lanterns were eventually replaced by electric lanterns.










http://www.historyoflamps.com/lantern-history/history-of-lanterns/
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Gas-Lantern.html

Nano Nagles's lantern may have used candles as a source of light. However for the purpose of this project, we want the interaction between the visitor and the object(lantern) to be as intuitive and easy as possible. To ensure this is so, a simple test was carried out. Images of Lanterns will be shown to a number of people and questions asked. The questions being:
What features make that a recognisable lantern?
How would you light this lantern? (going through each lantern)
Which one of these lantern design do you find most appealing?
The aim of this test is to determine which lantern would be most appropriate to use in this project.

Side Note:
An interesting side note is the popularity of magic lanterns during the same period of time as Nano Nagel. Magic Lanterns are "forerunners of the modern slide projector". It is a optical projector much like the camera obscura, shadow shows and magic mirrors. It was invented in 1658 however the first know magic lantern show was in 1665 by Thomas Walgensten. It was the ate 18th century when magic lanterns were brought to the public. They later became a staple of Victorian life. The period of the magic lantern spanned from the mid-17th century to the late 19th.

http://universe.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news.aspx?s=73348
http://www.magiclantern.org.uk/index.php
http://makezine.com/2010/03/09/lost-knowledge-magic-lanterns/

Two other objects being used in this project are a map and a display of the penal laws.

Maps:
During the 18th century maps evolved to be more scientific. Decorations were replaced by factual information. This was due to better surveying and instruments (telescopes etc). After looking at maps from the 18th century around the world an interesting trend I saw was the use of circles used to divide the globe in 2. 

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/363506/map/51772/18th-century-to-the-present
http://ancientworldmaps.blogspot.ie/search/label/18th%20century

Penal Laws:
For this project we are looking at displaying the penal laws. So far we are looking at using text to do this. I wanted to look at how text would have looked like at this time. The most popular type during the 18th century was Caslon, created by William Caslon in 1725. It was the dominant type face for printing in England and America during this time.

http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/type_basics/type_families.htm
http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/williamscaslontext/

I also wanted to know how the public would have consumed the penal laws. I failed to find any information online and perhaps consulting with a historian might fill in this gap. I did however find that Town Criers were common place in Europe during this time. Because of a lack of broadcasting means, Town Criers were employed by officials to voice a message. They often used bells to gain the the publics attention. This was important as a large percent of the public was illiterate. This could be an interesting aspect to incorporate into our project as Nano Nagle wanted to educate the poor. 
http://www.thetowncrier.ca/History.htm