Cyanoscope — an experiment by Gabriela Iancu.

Exposed Developing Fixed

Cyanoscope

Light in. Motion out.

A little machine for turning sunlight into motion. Print a negative, expose it, photograph what comes back, and watch it move.

Upload a set of stills, in order. This lays them into a grid and inverts them into a negative — print it onto transparency film or acetate, then contact-expose it over UV-sensitized paper.

1 Source

Drop stills here, or click to browse

2 Layout

3 Treatment

Contact Sheet Negative

Photograph or scan your washed, dried cyanotype contact sheet — flat, even light, straight-on. Tell us the grid and trim off any paper margin, and we'll cut it back into frames and stitch them into a loop.

1 Source

Drop a photo here, or click to browse

2 Trim & tone

Contact Sheet Preview

3 Center each frame

Drag a tile to pan, use the slider to zoom. This is where you recenter a subject that landed off-grid in the physical print.

4 Play & export

Motion

Loop Preview — drag across it to scrub by hand

Generated GIF

Specimen Plates

Click a plate to circle it as a select, the way an editor marks a favorite frame on a contact sheet. Each one downloads on its own.

Each frame is its own separate exposure, so small shifts between cells show up as flicker between frames. Some artists lean into that grain rather than smooth it out — it's the medium's own handwriting.

an experiment by Gabriela Iancu.

IWhat it is

Cyanotype is the oldest photographic process still in use: coat paper with iron salts, lay something on top, expose it to UV, wash it. Whatever blocked the light stays white. Everything else turns Prussian blue.

Cyanoscope is the digital half of turning that single-frame process into something that moves.

IIIn the tradition of Anna Atkins

In October 1843, the botanist Anna Atkins bound the first fascicle of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions — seaweed specimens laid directly onto sensitized paper and exposed to the sun, each one hand-captioned in white ink against the blue. No lens needed, just sunlight and patience.

It's usually credited as the first book ever illustrated with photographic images. Every specimen plate that comes out of Cyanoscope stands on that same idea, a hundred and eighty years later.

IIIThe round trip
  • Make a Negative: upload a sequence of stills, in order. It pulls the frames into a grid and inverts the whole thing into a negative — print that onto transparency film or acetate.
  • Reveal the Print: contact-expose that negative over cyanotype-coated paper in the sun, wash and dry it, then photograph or scan the sheet. Feed the photo back in, and it's sliced into frames and stitched into a loop.
IVWhat you'd need, physically
  • Cyanotype chemistry — potassium ferricyanide + ferric ammonium citrate, or a premixed kit (Jacquard, Blick).
  • A UV source — direct sun works in minutes; a UV exposure box gives more repeatable timing.
  • A cold water rinse to develop the blue and clear the unexposed chemistry.
  • Even, flat light to capture the finished print — a flatbed scanner gives the most consistent grid geometry.