Thomas Wilfred
1889 – 1968

A key figure in establishing a history of handmade machines devised to make moving images is Danish-born inventor and singer Thomas Wilfred. Wilfred believed that he had created “the eighth art,” which he dubbed “lumia,” or compositions of light in time. “The artist’s sole medium of expression is light,” he wrote in 1947. A piecemeal transcendentalist, Wilfred sought to represent “the universal rhythmic flow” in his art and produced roughly forty works before his death in 1968. At present, only …

Featured Media