Shape Shifters

Cleveland, Ohio: Educational Research Council of Greater Cleveland, 1966. Original prototype of Shape Shifters, an ambitious visual educational toy designed by experimental filmmaker Christopher Speeth (1939-2017) during his brief tenure at the Educational Research Council of Greater Cleveland in 1966. The Educational Research Council (ERC) was founded in 1958 by George Baird, a Cleveland businessman, in response to the successful launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik. Backed by foundations and grants from private industry, the independent Council was dedicated to American educational reform, with a primary focus on strengthening the teaching of math and science. Public and private school systems in the Greater Cleveland area signed up to test the new curriculum materials developed by the Council. “The first of these, a series of books on mathematics, achieved nationwide attention for its innovative approaches and was used in many school systems throughout the country” (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History). In the mid-1960s, the young filmmaker Christopher Speeth was hired to produce a documentary about the Council’s work. The result was unusable for fundraising purposes, but Speeth stayed on as a designer. Former co-worker K.L. Shipley recalls: “He immediately set to work on a new idea, a toy that would instruct through play. . . . Shape Shifters.” With dimensions determined by the Fibonacci sequence, this set of oversized notched cards and discs encourages young children to develop “new habits of vision” by connecting the brightly screenprinted pieces to produce three-dimensional structures, or “space frames.” Most of the cards and discs feature ornamental designs and optical illusions, so that the patterns create new patterns when combined in play. In the mission statement that accompanies the set, Speeth writes: “Shape Shifters define visual exercises as an aid to the development of right judgement with respect to the things we see.” Shipley reports that “the Set was taken to Kindergartens in several of the Participating Schools. The kids loved it. The teachers weren’t sure what to make of it. . . . Christopher Speeth disappeared.” Shipley was tasked with revising Shape Shifters into a more conventional classroom product, titled The Patterns and Colors Set, with an accompanying teacher’s guide. In the end, “no textbook publisher ever bought it. It was too expensive to produce, and it was too weird.” Speeth would go on to direct the acclaimed documentary Eakins (1972) and the cult horror classic Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood (1973), among other films. A fascinating educational experiment, in the original shipping carton addressed by designer Christopher Speeth to editor James Packard in September 1966. A fantastic survival. Eighty-nine color screenprinted cards, measuring 13 x 8 inches, each with eight notches to edges: three preliminary text cards (title card, copyright card, mission statement), sixty color-patterned paper cards, five solid-color plastic cards, twenty-one color-patterned plastic cards. Twenty color screenprinted discs, measuring 8 inches in diameter, each with hole at center: eleven color-patterned paper discs, five solid-color plastic discs, four color-patterned plastic discs. Light wear to cards and discs, short tape repair to verso of mission statement. All materials packed in fragmentary original shipping carton, postmarked September 1966. Housed in an archival box. (Inventory #: 1003908)