Laboratoire Marey, Mouvement de l’air rencontrant un corps ovale, Épreuve moderne, 1901, Collège de France. Archives, fonds Marey.
Laboratoire Marey, Rousselet – marche. Deux chronophotographies sur bandes mobiles : aristotypes à partir de négatifs sur film celluloïd. Autour de 1892. BU STAPS.
12 rue de l’École de Médecine 75006
01 76 53 16 93 u‑paris.fr
DATES
from 6th November 2025
to 18th February 2026
monday–saturday 2pm-5:30pm
Etienne-Jules Marey : chronophotographie, sciences et arts
Trained as a physician, Étienne‑Jules Marey (1830–1904) devoted his career to physiology, tirelessly studying the properties and functions of living organisms. His research led him into a remarkably diverse range of experimental explorations, all driven by a single goal: to understand movement, something imperceptible to our senses, to analyse it, translate it, and record it in order to preserve its trace.
From 1882 onwards, chronophotography became an essential working tool for him. He continually invented or improved cameras, technical devices, and visualisation methods. Though firmly rooted in fundamental research and laboratory work, Marey’s discoveries also had significant implications for applied sciences.
New technologies such as aviation and cinema drew directly from his innovations. The study of movement was applied to industrial productivity, military training, and physical education. His influence also extended to anthropology, the archaeology of dance, phonetics, and psychology.
Instruments, chronophotographs, and publications together offer a multifaceted view of Marey’s work situated at the crossroads of science and the arts.
Exhibition organised by Université Paris Cité with the exceptional collaboration of the Collège de France.
On this occasion, the book Étienne-Jules Marey: Chronophotography, Science and the Arts, edited by Agathe Sanjuan, is published by Université Paris Cité Éditions in the "Longue vue" collection.
TORNADO - Jackie Furtado and Jennifer Haare
In-situ Installation
Curator: Valérie Fougeirol
The invention of moving images is rooted in Étienne-Jules Marey’s observation that, at full gallop, all four of a horse’s hooves leave the ground. Chronophotography has been developed from Marey’s hypothesis and was further explored by Eadweard Muybridge in his studies of the horse in motion. The airborne phase —now called suspension— is revisited in Jackie Furtado and Jennifer Haare’s installation, featuring selections from their photography book TORNADO, published by Luhz Press.
This installation at the School of Medicine presents a sequence of images captured by a GoPro attached to the belly of a horse named Tornado. Through carefully timed frames, TORNADO traces the mustang’s journey across the Sonoran Desert, exploring time, movement, and trance through accessible technology.
The work evokes motion through fragments of time and image that record an impossibility. Tornado’s freedom emerges as the horse’s hooves and legs stretch into abstract forms, its belly transforming into a dark landscape, with sand, gravel, and water blurring each frame, giving the pixels a painterly quality. Through formal experimentation, TORNADO engages with the technical history of photography while questioning the medium’s endless desire to see, capture, and control.
Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine
Housed in the former Faculty of Medicine in Paris, the Museum of the History of Medicine holds one of the oldest collections of its kind in Europe.
Originally assembled in the 18th century by Dean Lafaye, the collection was later enriched by a significant number of objects covering various branches of surgical practice up to the late 19th century.
The Museum of the History of Medicine has secured its place among the many museums of Paris and also enjoys an international reputation.