Wynants - 2019 - Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance Dee

MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY
AND INTERMEDIAL
PERFORMANCE
DEEP TIME OF THE THEATRE
EDITED BY NELE WYNANTS

Avant-Gardes in Performance
Series Editor
Sarah Bay-Cheng
Bowdoin College
Portland, ME, USA
Despite the many acts of denial and resistance embodied in the phrase
“death of the avant-garde,” interest in experimental, innovative, and polit-
ically radical performance continues to animate theatre and performance
studies. For all their attacks upon tradition and critical institutions, the
historical and subsequent avant-gardes remain critical touchstones for
continued research in the disciplines of theatre, performance studies, film
and cinema studies, media study, art history, visual studies, dance, music,
and nearly every area of the performing arts. “Avant-Gardes in
Performance” features exciting new scholarship on radical and avant-garde
performance. By engaging with the charged term “avant-garde,” we con-
sider performance practices and events that are formally avant-garde, as
defined by experimentation and breaks with traditional structures, prac-
tices, and content; historically avant-garde, defined within the global aes-
thetic movements of the early twentieth century, including modernism
and its many global aftermaths; and politically radical, defined by identifi-
cation with extreme political movements on the right and left alike. The
series brings together close attention to a wide range of innovative perfor-
mances with critical analyses that challenge conventional academic
practices.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14783
Nele Wynants
Editor
Media Archaeology
and Intermedial
Performance
Deep Time of the Theatre
Editor
Nele Wynants
Free University of Brussels (ULB)
Brussels, Belgium
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium
Avant-Gardes in Performance
ISBN 978-3-319-99575-5 ISBN 978-3-319-99576-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964006
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Installation view, Nausea, a poetic-scientific performance by Teatro

Dondolo/Oona Libens in Cinema Nova Brussels, 2016. (Photo: Annelien Vermeir) As a
shadow-player Libens integrates a variety of media archaeological techniques to stimulate
all senses.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Kurt, my loving spouse and compagnon de route
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The editor wishes to thank the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS

Brussels for granting her the postdoctoral fellowship that sparked this
book. The project was born in the shared context of the research centres
THEA and CiASp (Université libre de Bruxelles) and Visual Poetics
(University of Antwerp): I owe my gratitude to my generous colleagues
and to my friends.
Many thanks to the contributors to this volume for the inspiring
exchanges and their patience. Special thanks to Sarah Bay-Cheng, series
editor of Avant-Gardes in Performance, for her encouraging support and
help. Warm thanks are also due to the artists, photographers, and organi-
zations who gave their permission to reprint pictures of events and pro-
ductions. Thanks also to Tom René and Vicky Bates at Palgrave.
vii
CONTENTS
1 Media-Archaeological Approaches to Theatre and

Performance: An Introduction 1
Nele Wynants
Part I Stage Scenery and Technology 21
2 Mechanisms in the Mist: A Media Archaeological

Excavation of the Mechanical Theater 23
Erkki Huhtamo
3 “Rendre réel aux yeux du public”: Stage Craft, Film Tricks,

and the Féerie 83
Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk
4 Vanishing Technology: Transparency of Media in Stage

Magic 99
Katharina Rein
ix
x CONTENTS
5 Deep Space or the Re-invention of Scenography: Jozef

Wouters on Infini 1-15 115
Karel Vanhaesebrouck and Jozef Wouters
Part II Embodied Technics 127
6 Perfumed Performances: The Reception of Olfactory

Theatrical Devices from the Fin-de-siècle to the Present
Day 129
Érika Wicky
7 Performing Astronomy: The Orrery as Model, Theatre,

and Experience 145
Kurt Vanhoutte
8 Capturing Bodies as Objects: Stereography and the

Diorama at Work in Kris Verdonck’s ISOS 173
Kristof van Baarle
9 Robots and Anthropomorphism in Science-Fiction

Theatre: From Rebellion to Domesticity and Back Again 193
Kara Reilly
Part III Expanded Theatre 211
10 Cinema’s Savoyards: Performativity and the Legacy of the

Magic Lantern 213
Edwin Carels
11 The Art of Anamorphosis: Subverting Representational

Conventions and Challenging the Observer 233
Rudi Knoops
CONTENTS xi
12 Mediated Visions of Life: An Archaeology of Microscopic

Theatre 253
Nele Wynants
13 The (Not So) Deep Time of Social Media Theater: An

Afterword 273
Sarah Bay-Cheng
Index 285
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Sarah Bay-Cheng is Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at

Bowdoin College, teaching experimental theatre and researching the
intersections of media technologies and performance, both historically
and in contemporary culture.
Edwin Carels is a teacher, researcher, and head of the department of
Visual Arts at KASK School of Arts Ghent. He is senior programmer for
the Rotterdam Film Festival and also works as a freelance film programmer
and curator, with a special interest in the relationship between the visual
arts and film, video, and photography. He has published essays on media
archaeology, visual arts, film, and animation.
Erkki Huhtamo is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles
(UCLA), Departments of Design Media Arts, and Film, Television, and
Digital Media. He is an internationally renowned media historian and
theorist, and a specialist in the history and aesthetics of media arts. He is
one of the founders of media archaeology.
Frank Kessler is Professor of Film and Television History at Utrecht
University, director of the Research Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON)
at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and leader of the magic lantern-
related projects A Million Pictures (2015–2018) and Projecting Knowledge
(2018–2023), and also the Dutch partner in B-magic. He is a co-founder
and co-editor of KINtop. Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films as well
as the book series KINtop Schriften and KINtop—Studies in Early Cinema.
xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
He has published widely on the emergence of cinema as a new medium

around 1900, as well as on the history of film theory.
Rudi Knoops is a media artist and scholar at LUCA School of Arts.
Central to his practice-based PhD is the appropriation of cylindrical ana-
morphosis. Using a media archaeology-inspired methodology of short-
circuiting past and present, he gauges the affordances of this
seventeenth-century media technology and its significance for how we
engage with the techno-aesthetics of contemporary society.
Sabine Lenk is a film and media scholar affiliated with the University of
Antwerp and the Free University of Brussels (ULB). She worked for film
archives in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, UK, and the
Netherlands. As one of the co-authors of B-magic, a large-scale research
project on the magic lantern in Belgium (www.B-magic.eu), she conducts
research on the educative role of the lantern in religious communities and
masonic circles. Together with Frank Kessler and Martin Loiperdinger she
is a co-founder and co-editor of KINtop Schriften and KINtop—Studies in
Early Cinema.
Kara Reilly is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter and
a dramaturg. She specialises in intersections between the history of theatre
and the history of science and technology. Her books include Automata
and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History (2011) and the edited collec-
tions Theatre, Performance and Analogue Technologies: Interfaces and
Intermedialities (2013) and Contemporary Approaches to Adaptation
(2017).
Katharina Rein holds an MA in Cultural History and Theory, Philosophy,
and Ancient History from the Humboldt-University Berlin and is prepar-
ing a doctoral dissertation on stage conjuring in the late nineteenth cen-
tury at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. She works as a researcher and
lecturer at the International Research Institute for Cultural Techniques
and Media Philosophy (IKKM). Her academic work has appeared in four
languages.
Kristof van Baarle is a scholar and a dramaturg. His research focuses on
posthumanism in the contemporary performing arts and the conflation of
dystopia and utopia in dramaturgies of the end and of the future. He
teaches at the Ghent University and works as a doctor-assistant at the
University of Antwerp. He is the resident dramaturg for Kris Verdonck-A
Two Dogs Company and other artists such as Michiel Vandevelde.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv
Karel Vanhaesebrouck is Chair of Theatre Studies at the Free University

of Brussels (ULB). He teaches in the MA programme “Arts du spectacle
vivant” and is director of the research centre CiASp | Centre de recherche
en Cinéma et Arts du Spectacle. He also teaches at the theatre schools
RITCS (Brussels) and ESACT (Liège). His research interests are situated at
the intersection of cultural history and performance studies, ranging from
the on-stage representation of violence to the analysis of rehearsal processes
of present-day artists. Vanhaesebrouck occasionally works as an author and
a dramaturg, mostly but not exclusively in documentary theatre.
Kurt Vanhoutte is Professor of Theatre Studies and spokesperson of the
Research Centre for Visual Poetics (www.visualpoetics.be) at the University
of Antwerp. During a fellowship at the Centre Alexandre Koyré (EHESS—
CNRS) in Paris, he initiated an interdisciplinary research group with his-
torians of science, planetarium professionals, and artists to investigate
popular astronomical spectacles (www.parsnetwork.org). Vanhoutte is
spokesperson-coordinator of B-magic, a large-scale research project on
the magic lantern that started in March 2018 (www.B-magic.eu).
Érika Wicky is an art historian focusing on nineteenth-century visual
culture and sensory studies at the Collegium de Lyon—Institute for
Advanced Study. She has published Les paradoxes du détail: voir, savoir,
représenter à l’ère de la photographie (Presses universitaires de Rennes,
2015) and guest-edited several special issues including Projeter/Projecting
(Intermédialités, 2016) and Sociabilités du parfum (Littérature, 2017).
Jozef Wouters is a Brussels-based scenographer and visual artist. Always
starting from a specific context, his constructions and scenographies
attempt to focus the gaze of an audience. Strategic spaces thereby enter
into dialogues with social processes and the power of the imagination,
sometimes functional, sometimes committed or absurd, but always with a
focus on the things that preoccupy him as a person. He initiates projects,
using his Decoratelier in Brussels as a base.
Nele Wynants is a postdoctoral researcher in the fields of art and theatre at
the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and the University of Antwerp. Her
work on the interplay of performance, media history, and science has appeared
in many journals and books. As a member of the B-magic Project Management
Board, a large-scale research project on the magic lantern in Belgium
(www.B-magic.eu), she currently conducts research on the role of the lantern
in cultural exchanges between European cities and fairgrounds. She is the
editor-in-chief of FORUM+ for Research and Arts (www.forum-online.be).
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 2.1 Notice on the origins of Théatre Morieux. A flyer distributed

for the audience in the early twentieth century. It promotes
the idea that the theater was founded by P. Morieux in Paris in
1809. The owner Léon Van de Voorde has added “Morieux”
to his name to make the point more compelling. (Author’s
collection) 26
Fig. 2.2 Page from the program leaflet for the Hamburg Christmas fair
1867, showing an advertisement of Théatre Morieux,
featuring “bombardment of the town of Valparaiso,” an
otherwise unknown program item. G. A. Fischtl, Weihnacht
1867. Geschäfts- und Vergnügungs-Führer für Domwanderer,
Hamburg: Carl Fischer’s Buch- und Steindrückerei, 1867.
(Author’s collection) 30
Fig. 2.3 Programme du Théatre des Variétés Mécanique, Pittoresque et
Maritime Morieux de Paris et son Impériator Bio
Cinématographe Géant. The cover of a typical program leaflet
produced by Léon Van de Voorde (Gand: F & R. Buyck
Frères, c. 1907–1908). (Author’s collection) 37
Fig. 2.4 Explanation of Jacob Lovelace’s Exeter Clock (1739).
Lithograph by Hackett (Exeter 1833). (Author’s collection) 42
Fig. 2.5 The Mechanical Theater of Hellbrunn, Salzburg, Austria. An
unidentified stipple engraving, c. 1850. (Author’s collection) 44
Fig. 2.6 A detail of the Mechanical Theater at Hellbrunn. (Photo:
Machiko Kusahara 2014) 45
Fig. 2.7 A broadside advertising the Theatrum mundi oder:
Geographische Bühne (“Theater of the world or the geographic
stage) of Mechanicus Mayrhofer from Vienna, printed to
xvii
xviii LIST OF FIGURES
announce the last performance on December 10, 1826. The

showplace was “Redouten Saale,” which probably points to
famous ballroom in the Hofburg in Vienna but other towns
like Linz, Erlangen, and Ofen Pest (Budapest) also had
ballrooms so named. As usual, the presentation ended with a
Storm at Sea. (Author’s collection) 55
Fig. 2.8 Invitation card to attend the Spectacle Pittoresque et Mécanique
de Pierre, 1816. The card states that the theater was then
operated by Pierre’s pupils. It has been issued to M.
“Villenave,” which may be a misspelling for “Villallave.” José
Villallave became a well-known mechanical theater operator
and may be visiting Paris. (Author’s collection) 59
Fig. 3.1 Frame enlargement from Voyage autour d’une étoile (Pathé
frères, 1906). (Authors’ own collection) 85
Fig. 3.2 The performance dispositive by Frank Kessler 89
Fig. 5.1 Photo of one of the scenes of Infini 1-15, a performance by
Decoratelier and Jozef Wouters, KunstenfestivaldesArts
Brussels, 2016. (© Phile Deprez) 117
Fig. 5.2 Photo of infini by Rimah Jabr, Infini 1-15, a performance by
Fig. 5.3 Photo of infini by Wim Cuyvers, Infini 1-15, a performance by
Fig. 5.4 Photo of infini by Anna Rispoli, Infini 1-15, a performance by
Fig. 6.1 Alphons Mucha, Incantation ou Salammbô, lithograph, 1897.
(© Alamy Images) 131
Fig. 6.2 Julie C. Fortier, La Chasse, 2014, Centre d’art Micro-Onde.
(© Aurélien Mole) 139
Fig. 6.3 Julie C. Fortier, La Chasse, 2014, Centre d’art Micro-Onde.
(© Julie C. Fortier) 140
Fig. 7.1 William Jones’s portable orrery. Image from The Description
and Use of a New Portable Orrery. London: John Jones and
Sons, 1784. (Author’s collection) 149
Fig. 7.2 Proscenium of the English Opera House, London, 1817, with
Walker’s exhibition of the Eidouranion. (© Alamy Images) 157
Fig. 7.3 Topographic map of the installation Saturn I, by Karl Van
Welden, on the island Terschelling, with the black dot indicating
the central observation post, 2011. (Courtesy of the artist) 168
Fig. 8.1 Installation view of ISOS, a 3D video installation by A Two
Dogs Company/Kris Verdonck, Rotterdam 2016. (© A Two
Dogs Company, photo: Anna Scholiers) 177
LIST OF FIGURES xix
Fig. 8.2 Film still from the ‘Two Tawnies’-box in ISOS, a 3D video
installation by A Two Dogs Company/Kris Verdonck, 2016.
(© A Two Dogs Company) 184
Fig. 9.1 Automaton cobbler in the rain from Timpson’s Store in
Sidwell Street, Exeter. (Author’s collection) 207
Fig. 10.1 Bruce McClure ‘threatening’ the machinery. (Photo: Robin
Martin) 215
Fig. 10.2 Peter Kubelka presenting a selection of objects from his
museum, open for tactile investigation Performance in the
framework of the Nuts & Bolts exhibition at the IFFR 2017.
(Photo: Edwin Carels) 222
Fig. 10.3 Ken Jacobs operating his ‘nervous’ projecting device. (Photo:
Nisi Jacobs) 226
Fig. 11.1 Jean-François Niceron, Thaumaturgis Opticus (1653
[1646]) Frontispiece. KU Leuven, Maurits Sabbe Library,
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. (Photo: Rudi
Knoops) 239
Fig. 11.2 Rudi Knoops, Mirror Mirror (2014), mixed media installation.
Interaction demonstration. (Photo: Rudi Knoops) 243
Fig. 12.1 A demonstrator is operating a magic lantern. The illustration
shows a magnified image of an old woman painted on a glass
slide and a flea. At the top, a diagram shows how the light is
projected by means of a mirror and lenses onto the wall.
Image from Jean Antoine Nollet. 1764. Leçons de Physique
expérimentale, vol. 5. (Author’s collection) 258
Fig. 12.2 “Microcosm, A Grand Display of the Wonders of Nature”
London, England, 1827. Lithographic print by G Scharf
advertising the 14 microscopes produced by Philip Carpenter,
optician. In the centre is a description of his premises and
microscopes, on the outside are scale images of the natural
world including flies, fleas, mites, beetles and iron ore.
(© Getty images) 261
Fig. 12.3 “Monster Soup commonly called Thames Water, being a
correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to
us!!!”, 1828. Satirical etching by William Heath, commenting
on the consequences for London’s water supply resulting from
the pollution of the Thames River. Inspired by Carpenter’s
exhibition “Great Microcosm”. (© Alamy images) 262
Fig. 12.4 Installation view Schijnvis/Showfish/Poisson Brillant by Sarah
Vanagt Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, 2016.
(© M HKA, photo Clinckx) 267
CHAPTER 1
Media-Archaeological Approaches to Theatre

and Performance: An Introduction
Nele Wynants
As an age-old art form, theatre has always embraced “new” media. Literally
“a place to observe”, the theatron has often been a favoured platform for
trying new technologies and scientific objects, including mirrors, electric
light, the magic lantern, the théâtrophone, and, more recently, cameras,
digital projection devices, and mobile media. To create theatrical effects
and optical illusions, theatre makers have always been ready to adopt state-
of-the-art techniques and technologies, and in doing so they have playfully
explored and propagated a knowledge of mechanics, optics, and sound to
live audiences. Similarly today, in this digital era, performance and media
artists are showing a renewed interest in both old and new media and
technologies—by experimenting with these media, they explore the
potential and limits of scientific and technological developments. In this
way, their performances continue the scientific tradition of experimental
inquiry, which has traditionally tended to exploit the potential for specta-
cle of its experiments. Theatre history thus reflects the history of science,
technology, and media.
N. Wynants ( )
Free University of Brussels (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
e-mail: nele.wynants@ulb.ac.be
© The Author(s) 2019 1

N. Wynants (ed.), Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance,
Avant-Gardes in Performance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_1
2 N. WYNANTS
This volume proposes media-archaeological approaches to contempo-

rary theatre and intermediality. The aim is to trace and revive the histories
of intermedial theatre, examine its historical roots in terms of both scien-
tific novelty and spectacle, and, in doing so, historicize prevailing notions
of performance and intermediality. Recent studies of intermedial theatre
have discussed the ways in which digital technologies refocus, enhance,
and/or disrupt established theatrical practice by involving the spectator
and playing with narrative and representational conventions (Giannachi
2004; Kattenbelt and Chapple 2006; Bay-Cheng et al. 2010). These
authors focus mainly on the integration of analogue and digital technolo-
gies into the live context of the theatre and discuss the consequences of this
hybridization for the ontology, aesthetic categories, and reception of digi-
tal performance (Auslander 1999; Dixon 2007). The growing need for a
thorough historicization of contemporary accounts of digital performance
and intermediality has only recently been acknowledged (Reilly 2013;
Vanhoutte and Bigg 2014; Wynants 2017). This volume proposes media
archaeology as a promising but as yet undeveloped approach to intermedial
theatre and performance. By examining the interplay between present per-
formances and their archaeological traces, the authors intend to revisit old,
and often forgotten, media approaches and technologies in theatre. This
archaeological work will be understood not so much as the discovery of the
past but more as the establishment of an active relationship between past
and present. Rather than treating archaeological remains as representative
tokens of a fragmented past that need to be preserved, we aim to stress the
return of the past in the present, but in a different, performative guise.
DEEP TIME?
The title of this volume is borrowed from Siegfried Zielinski’s seminal
Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by
Technical Means. In this book, Zielinski introduced a particular approach
to media studies, an approach that came to be known as his “anarchic”
form of media archaeology. Characteristic of this approach is Zielinski’s
adoption of a geological perspective. The idea of “deep time” is in particu-
lar inspired by James Hutton, a Scottish physician, often considered as the
“Father of Modern Geology”. Deep time is the concept of geologic time
and its measurement by analysing the strata of different rock formations.
These strata do not form perfect horizontal layers, as we can see in some
of the beautiful illustrations made by Hutton on the basis of his geological
fieldwork. Below the horizontal line depicting the Earth’s surface, slate
MEDIA-ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THEATRE… 3
formations plunge into the depths, which refer to much older times. Based
on his observations, the Scotsman did not describe the Earth’s evolution
as a linear and irreversible process. Instead, in his Theory of the Earth of
1778, its evolution is described as a dynamic cycle of erosion, deposition,
consolidation, and uplifting before erosion starts the cycle anew (Zielinski
2006, 4–5).
Zielinski thus draws an analogy between the idea of geological deep
time and the evolution of technical media. Both share irregularities, rup-
tures, and endless variations in their development. The history of media is
indeed not the product of a predictable and necessary advance from primi-
tive to complex apparatus, nor does the current state of the art necessarily
represent its best possible state. Cinema and television, for instance—the
predominant industries of the audio-visual media in the twentieth cen-
tury—are considered as entr’actes, rather than finished stages, in a longer
period of mediated ways of looking. What Zielinki and his fellow media
archaeologists attempt is to uncover vibrant moments in the history of
media, and in doing so, media archaeology aims to reveal a greater diver-
sity of media forms, which either have been lost because of the genealogi-
cal way of looking at things or have been ignored by this view. Zielinski’s
ultimate goal is to collect a large body of lost, forgotten, or hitherto invis-
ible media and events, which would constitute a “variantology” of media
(2006, 7) that escapes the “monopolization by the predominant media
discourse” (1999, 9).
The “deep time” analogy is a good fit for the theatre as well. After all,
the history of the theatre is also full of ruptures, irregularities, and dead
ends, as well as full of recurrent patterns and mechanisms. Moreover, the
histories of theatre and media are closely intertwined, which is why this
volume aims to translate these media-archaeological analogies to theatre
historiography, theatre practice, and theatre studies. The adoption of tech-
nological media is after all not restricted to contemporary performance.
Even in early modernity, state-of-the-art developments in science and tech-
nology were eagerly integrated into spectacular live shows. Some authors
have convincingly argued that the history of media in the theatre can be
traced back to Antiquity, where it offered “a try-out space for new experi-
ences, emotions, attitudes, and reflexions” (De Kerckhove 1982, 149).
Moreover, the theatre has been an enabling environment at every critical
juncture in the history of media and technology (ibid.). This holds true for
the introduction of the phonetic alphabet, the invention of perspective and
the printing press, but also for the more recent mediatization and digitiza-
tion of Western culture (Boenisch 2006). Given the close relationship
4 N. WYNANTS
between theatre history and media history, a rereading of contemporary

intermedial theatre from a media-archaeological point of view can give
rise to illuminating alternative histories. Here then we have the reason why
we should historicize the current trends in our contemporary arts and
media landscape: not only to find forgotten or dead-end paths in the his-
tory of theatre but also, and especially, to gain an improved understanding
of our contemporary mediatized culture, where the communication media
are omnipresent. Our objective is to look beyond the “new” of new media,
because, as Lisa Gitelman has rightly pointed out, all media or methods of
mass communication are “always already new” in their original historic
moment (2008).
MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY
The domain of media archaeology is extremely heterogeneous and schol-
ars within this relatively young field use multiple sources and various
methods. However, authors such as Erkki Huhtamo, Jussi Parikka,
Thomas Elsaesser, and Wolfgang Ernst share Zielinski’s view that the cen-
tral premise of media archaeology is to posit alternative genealogies for the
development of technology over time. They share a suspicion of the domi-
nant teleological narratives of media and technology histories and propose
an alternative approach, namely by emphasizing the heuristic capabilities
of forgotten or extinct media devices and practices, they can highlight
alternative possibilities in contemporary media development. Here we
may refer to the media-archaeological dictum, “history is not only the
study of the past, but also of the (potential) present and the possible
futures” (Strauven 2013, 68).
Notwithstanding the growing number of key media-archaeological pub-
lications and several edited collections, the field has not become more
defined. On the contrary, as Michael Goddard has rightly pointed out,
“each addition to this archive in many ways only increases its complexity”
(2014, 1762).1 Media archaeology does not offer a clear-cut methodology,
but is necessarily a “travelling discipline” to use Mieke Bal’s phrase, cited in
the introduction to Huhtamo and Parikka’s Media Archaeology. Approaches,
Applications, and Implications (2011). Remarkably, the different practitio-
ners of the discipline provide different definitions. Media archaeology is
therefore more a range of approaches than a single well-defined method.
As pointed out above, Zielinski’s media anarchaeology or variantology
seeks the new in the old to expose what has been neglected or hidden in
the dominant media history narratives and in doing so safeguard the “het-
erogeneity of the arts of image and sound” (2006, 8). Erkki Huhtamo,
another key author in the field, who published at length about a number
of recurrent practices in media culture, likewise looks back at the past from
the perspective of the present, but with a somewhat different take. He
focuses on recurring cyclical phenomena that “(re)appear and disappear
and reappear over and over again and somehow transcend specific histori-
cal contexts” (1996, 300). Huhtamo calls this the recurring topoi/topics
of media culture. For Huhtamo, the task is “identifying topoi, analysing
their trajectories and transformations, and explaining the cultural ‘logics’
that condition their ‘wanderings’ across time and space” (2011, 28). The
emphasis on their constructed and ideologically determined nature gives
Huhtamo’s approach a culture-critical character. By demonstrating how
the past(s) of various media live(s) on in the present, the topos approach
helps to detect novelties, innovations, and media-cultural ruptures as
well.2
Other authors in the field have developed their own definitions and
methods, mainly from the angle of film and media history, and often
focusing on early visual media devices foreshadowing the invention of
film. Thomas Elsaesser, for example, focuses largely on the past and future
of cinema, which he considers to be “firmly embedded in other media
practices, other technologies, other social uses” (2016, 25). Jussi Parikka’s
emphasis is on techno-hardware. He considers media archaeology as a
particular theoretical opening for thinking about material media cultures
in a historical perspective, similar to Wolfgang Ernst’s “media material-
ism”, both associated with the work of German media theorist Friedrich
Kittler. Ernst polemically argues that media archaeology should be less
about writing a narrative human history of media than about excavating
the material modes of inscription inherent in technical media such as pho-
nographs (in Huhtamo and Parikka 2011). Nonetheless, the live theatrical
context and the performative features of early media shows are often
ignored3; a media-archaeological study of intermedial theatre has yet to be
published.
ARCHAEOLOGY OF INTERMEDIAL THEATRE

Considered to be more of an approach than a method, the roots of media
archaeology can in fact be traced back to authors outside the academic
field of media research. Philosophical thinkers such as Walter Benjamin
6 N. WYNANTS
and Michel Foucault, and art historians Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky,
and Ernst Curtius are recurring references in the development of this
domain. Furthermore, the more prominent voices in media studies, such
as Marshall McLuhan, are a major influence. McLuhan’s seminal analyses
of both the “Gutenberg Galaxy” and electronic media clearly have media-
archaeological resonances. All these approaches share a critical decon-
struction of historical narratives that represent history as a teleological
process. Conversely, these authors propose a contrasting approach, an
examination of the past as if in a rear-view mirror and emphasizing the
heuristic capabilities of forgotten or extinct media devices and practices for
the understanding of today’s media society.
Working within this broad framework, Deep Time of the Theatre brings
together essays that approach the object of intermedial performance from
a media-archaeological point of view. The aim is not to “apply”—if such
might be possible—methods from media archaeology to intermedial
theatre and performance practice, but rather to seek an encounter between
the fields, to investigate what a cross-fertilization might yield. To say that
both fields overlap is hardly necessary—the interaction may thus be fruit-
ful in both directions. What can media archaeology offer theatre studies
and vice-versa what methods and perspectives in performance studies
might be valuable to media archaeology? To what extent does the archae-
ological model of historiography provide new, different, or unknown
visions of contemporary intermedial theatre and its history? What would
the benefits of such an encounter be?
From the multitude of approaches and methods, I foreground only a
few important features that may be relevant and fruitful to the field of
theatre and performance studies, and pinpoint where overlaps may occur.
Initially I examine the central role played by the archive and the crucial
relationship between history and theory. The second overlap is a particular
concern with the past and the discourse of presence. Finally, I look more
closely at the vital connection between research and the arts, and between
researchers and artists.
ARCHIVE, THEORY, AND MATERIALITY

Theatre, as a live art form, has a somewhat ambivalent relation with the
past. A transitory artistic practice, an event that takes place in the here and
now, involves the presence of living bodies. This ontology of the theatre
seems to be at odds with the material boundaries of the archive as conven-
tionally conceived of, as the eyewitness account is often considered to be

in the most privileged position to do justice to the ephemeral nature of
theatrical performance. To reconstruct past performances, theatre histori-
ans not only study written sources such as available eyewitness accounts of
past performances, reviews, and promotional materials but also pictorial
evidence of past theatrical events and ideas such as pictures, drawings, and
photographs (Balme 1997). However, historical media and technologies
have only rarely been considered as a source for the history of intermedial
theatre. A media-archaeological approach can therefore open new direc-
tions for theatre historiography, particularly when it starts with material
traces and records.
Archaeology is not new to the field of theatre and performance studies.
Recent considerations of an archaeological nature have already proven
influential within the theory and practice of site-specific theatre (Pearson
and Shanks 2001) and interdisciplinary studies of presence (Shanks et al.
2012). Borrowing from Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks’s seminal work
on what is perceived as an “archaeological turn toward performance”,
archaeology is understood as a “contemporary material practice”, a “rela-
tionship we maintain with the past” which works on and with the traces of
the past and in which the archaeologist is implicated (1–11). Rather than
treating archaeological remains as representative tokens of a now frag-
mented past to be conserved or preserved according to their calculated
value to the present, the authors stress the role of archaeologists as media-
tors for “making a past work a present presence” (ibid.). As a cultural
project, it aims at producing an understanding of the material traces and
cultures, the creative event that is the construction of archaeological
knowledge, and the historical context of such an archaeological project
(Pearson and Shanks 2001).
Foucault’s project of The Archaeology of Knowledge (1989) is often the
key inspiration for using this term in relation to media and theatre, and
provides something approaching a method for media-archaeological
research—or at least a number of significant principles for a non-linear
account of historiography. What is most useful in Foucault’s project is
what Elsaesser calls an “archaeological agenda” (2016, 26). This involves
an abandoning of the search for “the origin”. Instead, Foucault’s under-
standing of archaeology as discourse analysis and the tracing of lineages
(ruptures and/or continuities) focuses on the role of discourses as the loci
where knowledge is tied to cultural and social power. According to
Foucault, material bodies, events, and institutions are all conditioned by
8 N. WYNANTS
discursive formations. The main goal of Foucauldian archaeology is thus

performative, as it aims for historical change.
Despite Foucault’s influence on archaeological thinking, some media
archaeologists insist on the need for the term to be extended beyond the
written archive, which forms the basis of Foucault’s studies of disciplinary
societies.4 Media archaeologists also explicitly include material artefacts,
and technological media themselves as their objects of study. This insis-
tence on the materiality and the material ecologies of media objects, sys-
tems and processes, is in fact one of the key values of the domain (Goddard,
2014, 1762). The material aspects of an archaeological approach should
be understood very literally as a concrete activity and a material engage-
ment with devices and sources. But whereas this material approach to
media research deals, particularly in the German tradition (Ernst, Kittler
and more recently Parikka), with matter, machines, physical infrastructure
and operating systems (the hardware) that subtend digital networks (soft-
ware), this volume is more aligned with the Anglo-American authors who
assume that technology acquires its meanings from the pre-existing dis-
cursive contexts into which it is inserted (Huhtamo and Parrika 2011, 8).5
What we retain for a media archaeology of theatre and performance is
the idea of the archive as a primary source, but in its broadest sense, more
particularly with a double focus on both the discursive aspects and the
material manifestations of media culture. This volume thus aims to develop
an archaeological excavation and reading of textual, visual, and technical
sources as well as a study of older technologies and collections of artefacts,
both as material source and as dispositif. The latter term is understood,
following film scholar Frank Kessler, as a triadic relationship between (1)
a material technology producing conditions that help to shape (2) a cer-
tain viewing position that is based upon unconscious desires to which cor-
responds (3) an institutionalized form implying a form of address trying
to guarantee that this viewing position (often characterized as “voyeuris-
tic”) functions in an optimal way (Kessler 2006, see also Kessler and
Lenk’s chapter elsewhere in this volume).
Building on recent thinking within dance and performance studies, we
also consider the body as “an essentially archiving entity” (De Laet 2013,
148) that makes it possible to store and transmit forms of embodied
knowledge and thus as a source for historiographical knowledge transmis-
sion. As dance scholar Timmy De Laet has pointed out, archival theory
and performance studies can thus mutually enrich one another in order to
reconsider archival functions. The growing literature on re-enactment tes-
tifies to this increasing acceptance of the body “as an endlessly creative,

transformational archive” (Lepecki 2010, 46) or by pointing to “the flesh
memory” in the embodied repertoires of live art practices (Schneider
2001, 105).
PRESENCE OF THE PAST IN THE HERE AND NOW

This archival approach touches on another shared concern of theatre, per-
formance, and media historians: the conditions under which the absent
past can be said to have “presence” in the present. Media theorist Vivian
Sobchack rightly pointed out that what is central to media archaeology is
the discourse of presence and its particular concern with the past and the
conditions under which it can be re-presenced (2011). Following Hayden
White, Sobchack claims that the media-archaeological project should be
seen as a metahistory in a decidedly romantic mode, because of its almost
fetishistic interest in the “presence” of otherwise neglected objects,
machines, and technological processes (2011, 328). Presence in this con-
text may be understood as
the literal transhistorical (yet not ahistorical) transference or relay of met-

onymic and material fragments or traces of the past through time to the
‘here and now’ – where and when these can be activated and thus realized
once again in our practical, operative, and sensual engagement with them.
(Sobchak 2011, 324)
Indeed, many media archaeologists are concerned not only with the recov-
ery and description of previously neglected or marginalized media-
historical artefacts but also with the “techno-historical event” (ibid., my
italics).
This “presence of the past in the here and now” has, in another con-
text, been described by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht as “the presentification of
the past”. According to Gumbrecht, this has “little, if anything, to do with
the traditional project of history as an academic discipline with the project
of interpreting (that is, reconceptualising) our knowledge about the past”
(2004, 121). Instead, what Gumbrecht terms “the presentification of past
worlds” is about “experiencing the past” by “techniques that produce the
impression (or rather the illusion) that the worlds of the past can become
tangible again” (94).
10 N. WYNANTS
In performance theory and practice, presence is both fundamental and

highly contested. The discourses on presence have frequently hinged on
the relationship between the live and mediated, on notions and effects of
immediacy, authenticity and originality (Phelan 1993; Auslander 1999).
Today, all types of performance events can simply be broadcast and made
accessible to millions of people through their mediatization—be it theatre
and performance art, rock concerts, or political performances. Peggy
Phelan’s assertion that “performance’s only life is in the present” (1993)
is famous, as is the decades-long rebuttal it prompted in the field. Rebecca
Schneider in her signal essay “Performance Remains” of 2001 challenges
and qualifies Phelan’s influential claims over the ontology of performance
by positioning performance in archival culture. Too often, says Schneider,
the equating of performance with disappearance reiterates performance as
self-annihilating. Instead, Schneider emphasizes the processual nature of
disappearance, and considers performance “as both the act of remaining
and a means of appearance”:
When we approach performance not as that which disappears (as the archive
expects), but as both the act of remaining and a means of reappearance
(though not a metaphysics of presence) we almost immediately are forced to
admit that remains do not have to be isolated to the document, to the
object, to bone versus flesh. Here the body (…) becomes a kind of archive
and host to a collective memory (…). (2001, 103)
Schneider thus emphasizes the relationship between the “absence” of the

live performance and the valorization in contemporary “archive culture”
of the “presence” of the document. Here Schneider observes the remains
in which the performance is constituted, persists, and may be performed
again as a form of “living history” (2001, 103), a “kind of living archaeol-
ogy, or archaeology of the live” (2014, 60). Challenging the binary
between absence and presence, Schneider considers the archive as the
locus of the presence of performance’s remainder, which enables reading,
then, the document as a performative act, and site of performance.
IMAGINARY MEDIA
Media archaeology is considered as an approach both in academic research
and in artistic practice. This is particularly interesting with regard to the-
atre—both theatre and media are the result of human imagination, they
are projections of dreams, wishes, and desires. Past media that were never
realized or in the meantime have died and been forgotten are nevertheless
part of our cultural imagination. In the words of Oliver Grau:
Media archaeology has excavated a wealth of experiments and designs,

which failed to become established but nevertheless left their mark on the
development of art media. That which was realized, or has survived, repre-
sents but a tiny fraction of the imaginings that all tell us something, often
something unsettling, about the utopian dreams of their epoch. (Grau
2003, 351)
These dead or forgotten media can be studied as “imaginary media”, a

concept that became deeply embedded in the relatively short history of
media archaeology. Imaginary media, as proposed by Erik Kluitenberg
(2011), is an attempt to shift attention from the history of the apparatus
to a focus on the imaginary aspects of technological media, both realized
and unrealized. It is no coincidence that Kluitenberg included numerous
contemporary media artists in both his festival and mini-conference in
Amsterdam in 2004 and the ensuing Book of Imaginary Media. Excavating
the Dream of the Ultimate Communication Medium (2006) published
subsequently.
Other authors such as Erkki Huhtamo, especially in his earlier work,
Siegfried Zielinski, and Edwin Carels also aligned themselves with archae-
ological tendencies in contemporary media art, citing the work of artists
Paul DeMarinis, Zoe Beloff, and Julien Maire among others. These artists
produce work that incorporates explicit references to historical media and
machines from earlier phases in the development of technoculture.
According to Huhtamo, these artists are not just performing a “luddite
technonostalgia for earlier epochs” but are themselves acting as media
archaeologists, viewing forms of technology less in terms of “concrete
artefacts” than “discursive formations enveloping them” (1996, 239, the
italics are Huhtamo’s). They often display anxiety about and suspicion of
the ubiquity of media, which pushes them to investigate and question the
role that technology actually plays in contemporary society. A media-
archaeological dialogue between historical and contemporary theatre and
media practices can thus fashion new and imaginary media forms that at
the same time may provide insights and critical perspectives on how we
engage with media, and how media define us as human beings.
12 N. WYNANTS
By examining the interplay between present performances and their

archaeological traces, this volume revisits old and often forgotten media
approaches and technologies in the theatre. To make this relationship
between past and present explicit, most chapters take a specific contempo-
rary practice as their starting point. The discussed artists all engage, in one
way or another, with the technological past. This can range from explicit
remakes of old apparatus to more subtle (historical) re-enactments or
hybrid assemblages of past and present. Some authors depart from forgot-
ten, dead, or hitherto invisible theatrical media and their contemporary
echoes, such as the infini or painted scenographical backcloth
(Vanhaesebrouck and Wouters), the magic lantern (Carels), diorama (van
Baarle), or the cylindrical anamorphosis (Knoops). Others focus on the
performativity of technology and discuss the way in which contemporary
artists explore the histories of mechanical theatres (Huhtamo), robots
(Reilly), and astronomical orreries (Vanhoutte). A recurring theme is the
striving by all these media for transparency, immediacy, and proximity,
especially in the technological effects of féerie (Kessler and Lenk) and stage
illusions (Rein), olfactory art, and theatre (Wicky) and the spectacular use
of microscopes (Wynants). These authors emphasize the survival, the
resistance but also the magic of technology.
Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance: Deep Time of the
Theatre contains 13 chapters and is organized into 3 parts: (1) Stage
Scenery and Technology, (2) Embodied Technics, and (3) Expanded
Theatre.
Part I “Stage Scenery and Technology” explores and contextualizes old
stage technologies and their contemporary influences and investigates
how technology itself performs in mechanical theatres, féeries, stage illu-
sions, and scenic design. Each chapter in this part interrogates existing
narratives of theatre history by re-examining the historical record from the
point of view of technology.
Erkki Huhtamo offers a detailed examination of Mechanical Theatres
and argues that theatrical spectacles of the eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries played an important role as models in the formation of media
culture. They provided scenographic inspiration for popular touring spec-
tacles like peepshows, puppet shows, and ombres chinoises. A particularly
interesting case was a spectacle known by many names, such as theatrum
mundi, Mechanisches Theater, or Theatre of the Arts. This chapter dis-
cusses the mechanical theatre as a cultural form, probing its relationship
to legitimate theatre and to rival optical spectacles, such as dioramas and
magic lantern shows, from which it appropriated features. Huhtamo thus

situates mechanical theatre not only as a form of folk art or fairground
attraction but also within a larger genealogy of media culture.
Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk examine the intermedial dimension of
theatrical tricks and spectacular effects in féerie, a nineteenth-century spec-
tacular stage genre that is particularly known today thanks to its cinemato-
graphic adaptation by early filmmakers (such as Georges Méliès, Gaston
Velle, or Segundo de Chomón). Féerie tricks were meant to make fantastic
events “appear real to the eyes of the audience”, as Arthur Pougin put it
in 1885. The trick, indeed, is both hidden and exposed in the spectacular
economy of the féerie. The genre’s “trickality” is flaunted, while the means
it employs must not be visible. Hence, the permanent search for novelty
by producers and their interest in the latest technical developments. This
chapter analyses the complex nature of such a magical act in the diegesis (a
fantastic universe), relying on advanced technologies that conceal their
technicality and artificiality in order to create precisely the authenticity of
events on stage that the audience expects.
In the same vein, Katharina Rein discusses the “The Vanishing Lady” of
1886, one of the most iconic stage illusions to this day. By historicizing
the cultural tradition of stage illusionism, which is still popular today, and
tracing it back to the second half of the nineteenth century, she discusses
the ambivalent quality of modern conjuring. For the illusion to be effec-
tive, the means of producing it must become imperceptible. At the same
time, to enhance the effect, audiences are deliberately alerted of the fact
that they are witnessing an illusion. Modern secular magic, Rein argues,
thus emerges as a performative practice reflecting on its own mediality.
Karel Vanhaesebrouck enters into dialogue with Jozef Wouters, a con-
temporary scenographer who developed a project inspired by Giovanni
Niccolo Servandoni (1695–1766). Wouters took the work of this French
architect, painter, and set designer as a starting point for Infini
(2015–2017), a title referring to the tradition of painted backcloths. Most
old theatres today are still equipped with a full fly installation but unused,
it has become, in the words of Wouters “a slide projector without slides”.
In a media-archaeological spirit, Wouters investigated, in association with
a number of other artists, how these old techniques can inspire, but also
question, today’s theatre. In this interview, introduced and contextualized
by Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Jozef Wouters addresses the potential of histori-
cal techniques for present-day performing arts.
14 N. WYNANTS
The chapters in Part II, “Embodied Technics”, engage with the ambiv-
alent but reciprocal relationship between bodies, media, and experience.
By focussing on the embodied relationship with media and technology,
the authors shift the traditional emphasis on visual perception in the analy-
sis of theatrical performance and open up critical approaches to examine
the impact of technologies on the way we perceive and make sense of the
world.
Érika Wicky outlines the ways in which the history of olfactory art and
theatre appears to be linked to wider olfactory culture. By raising issues
of proximity and conceptions of smell inherited from the hygienic nine-
teenth century, Wicky highlights how smell challenges the traditional
theatre set-up. She demonstrates how contemporary olfactory art and
theatre devices play with the distance between the spectator and the
source of smell in order not only to make it legible and non-offensive but
also to initiate a reflection on the body and olfactory perception.
Kurt Vanhoutte discusses the history of human orreries, in which indi-
viduals take the place of the celestial bodies, re-enacting the motions of
the orbiting planets. Going back at least to the eighteenth century,
Vanhoutte traces the history of the orrery as an inherently theatrical
device, and demonstrates that the main purpose of a human orrery is to
enact the dynamics of the universe by playing the role of the planets,
“walking the orrery” as it were, in a scale model laid out across the land-
scape. Enacting the orrery in lockstep, Vanhoutte argues, makes users
immediately experience the planets moving at different speeds. This
dynamic interactive map of the solar system gives users the opportunity,
through performance and play, to cognitively map one’s sense of presence
and direction in space.
Kristof van Baarle traces the media-archaeological roots of Kris
Verdonck’s ISOS, an installation with 3D videos shown in nine viewing
boxes. The audio-visual installation acts as a short film edited in the view-
er’s imagination. By placing ISOS in the historical lineage of stereography,
diorama, and Muybridge, technologies that were all seminal media for the
nascent “society of spectacle”, he analyses their function in the political
and economic apparatus of their time. This allows for a deeper under-
standing can be obtained of ISOS’s implied critique of our contemporary
mediatized society and the evolution towards expanding objectification
and control of the body.
This ambivalent relationship between technology and the body is also

central in Kara Reilly’s contribution. She discusses robot actor
RoboThespian in his starring role in Pipeline Theatre Company’s produc-
tion Spillikin through the lens of earlier technologies such as puppets,
automata, and the robot in Capêk’s 1920 play R.U.R, Rossum’s Universal
Robot. Whereas Rossum’s Universal Robots projected anxiety about tech-
nology, robot rebellion, and massive loss of human life, Spillikin shows us
the human desire to make robots part of the family, to employ them as
caretakers and a key part of our domestic sphere. But, as Reilly argues,
despite the fact that we are a long way from robot sentience, we need to
remain critical about the shift towards industrialization and automation in
which robots are part of a corporate identity of global capitalism.
Finally, Part III, “Expanded Theatre”, provides a series of chapters on
artistic practice at the boundaries of theatre, film, and video art. These
authors challenge traditional artistic categories and disciplinary boundaries.
Edwin Carels focuses on the survival of the magic lantern, and more
particularly its performative features in live art projection. Before the lan-
tern became an affordable commodity, there could be no presentation
without the presence of a lanternist, who, in the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth century, was also called a Galantee showman or Savoyard. Taking a
cue from the performative film projections of Bruce McClure, Carels sug-
gests an unexpected legacy of these itinerant magic lanternists in the larger
field of expanded cinema practices, and links this work back to the legacy
of Peter Kubelka and Ken Jacobs. Requiring little more than a light source
and a filmstrip with a minimal amount of information, these artists maxi-
mize the potential of the projection apparatus. What separates their
approach from many other forms of expanded cinema or film installations
is a strong emphasis on an almost ritualized form of verbal interaction with
the audience. In this sense, Carels argues, the legacy of the Savoyard
appears not to be entirely extinct in the domain of cinema.
Chapter 11 gives the floor again to a media-archaeological artist. Rudi
Knoops discusses the history of anamorphosis and analyses its subversive
qualities and how it is linked to the changing status of the observer. As
part of a more hands-on engagement with the material traits and affor-
dances of the medium, Knoops translates these findings into a series of
media installations that are each media-archaeological appropriations of
cylindrical anamorphosis. In his chapter, he discusses Mirror Mirror
(2014), one such installation, to illustrate how a confrontation with the
16 N. WYNANTS
digital and the moving image magnifies the inherent qualities of cylindrical
anamorphosis to question representational conventions and to challenge
the role of the observer.
In my contribution I discuss the microscope as a public spectacle. Since
its inception, the microscope fulfilled a dual function as an instrument of
scientific research and as an amusement device lending itself to playful
inquiry. In the early nineteenth century, with the invention of the projec-
tion microscope—a magic lantern combined with a microscope—micros-
copy developed fully as a public spectacle well suited to show business.
The projection microscope brought the microscopic presence of living
organisms, invisible to the naked eye, into the room on a human scale,
almost as if it had taken physical form. This chapter discusses the appro-
priation of the microscope in the work of video artist Sarah Vanagt. Instead
of an explicit remake of this old magnifying apparatus or a historically
informed re-enactment of a lantern show, Vanagt opts for a contemporary
remediation of the projection microscope that allows for a reflection on
concepts of presence, mediation, and vision.
In a concluding afterword, Sarah Bay-Cheng considers the legacies of
more recent media from the mid-twentieth century, primarily the relation-
ships between the emergence of television and computers post-World War
II. Re-examining the critical reflections of French sociologist, Jacques
Ellul in his The Technological Society (1954; trans. 1964), she considers
contemporary performances that draw on the formal, conceptual, and
technological characteristics from that period, in particular the structure
of television boxes and their parallels to twenty-first-century social media.
As an example, she analyses the performance installation, My Voice Has an
Echo in It (2014), by Kenneth Collins and his New York-based company
Temporary Distortion. Considering contemporary media, Bay-Cheng
demonstrates how current media forms continue to reconfigure and replay
earlier medial histories.
In closing we may say that this volume assembles a large body of diverse
practices relating to media and their histories, a variantology of interme-
dial theatre. By cultivating these “dramaturgies of difference” (to repeat
Zielinski’s phrase), we hope to provide an essential counterbalance to the
current trend towards the standardization of technological devices and
nourish the cultivation of medial variations, alternatives, and possibilities
for the future.
NOTES
1. Quite a number of authors have tried to outline the field. In Media
Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications, Huhtamo and
Parikka, the editors of the anthology, sketch an overview of different exist-
ing approaches and provide the necessary impetus for the field to establish
itself more clearly as a discipline. See also Wanda Strauven (2013), Michael
Goddard (2014), and Thomas Elsaesser (2006, 2016).
2. Huhtamo elaborated a theoretical and historiographical foundation for his
topos approach in “Dismantling the Fairy Engine: Media Archaeology as
Topos Study” in Huhtamo and Parikka 2011, 27–47. The basis of topos
study is due to Curtius, Ernst Robert. 1979. Europäische Literatur und
lateinisches Mittelalter (1948), trans. Willard R. Trask as European Literature
and the Latin Middle Ages. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
3. Erkki Huhtamo is probably the exception that proves the rule. In his rich
and lengthy study of the moving panorama (2013) he gives a detailed
account of the performative aspects of the medium, and the many ways
contemporary spectators wrote about what he rightly calls a “storytelling
medium”. Huhtamo seamlessly intertwines this complex combination of
text (performed by a narrator), image, performance and public reception.
4. The limitation to Foucault’s analysis, according to Friedrich Kittler, is that
while based entirely on the written archive stored in libraries and other
repositories, they do not acknowledge that writing is just one technical
medium among others (Goddard 2014, 1766).
5. It has been claimed that the German tradition emphasizes the role of tech-
nology as a primum mobile, which has led to accusations of technological
determinism.
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Related Spectacles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Huhtamo, Erkki, and Jussi Parikka, eds. 2011. Media Archaeology. Approaches,
Applications, and Implications. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kattenbelt, Chiel, and Freda Chapple, eds. 2006. Intermediality in Theatre and
Performance. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Kessler, Frank. 2006. The Cinema of Attractions as Dispositif. In The Cinema of
Attractions Reloaded, ed. Wanda Strauven, 57–70. Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press.
Kluitenberg, Eric, ed. 2006. The Book of Imaginary Media: Excavating the Dream
of the Ultimate Communication Medium. Amsterdam: NAi Publishers.
———. 2011. On the Archaeology of Imaginary Media. In Media Archaeology.

Approaches, Applications, and Implications, ed. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi
Parikka, 48–69. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Dances. Dance Research Journal 42 (2): 28–48.
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Dialogues. London/New York: Routledge.
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Schneider, Rebecca. 2001. Performance Remains. Performance Research 6 (2):
100–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2001.10871792.
———. 2014. Theatre & History. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shanks, Michael, Nick Kaye, and Gabriella Giannachi. 2012. Archaeologies of
Presence. Art, Performance and the Persistence of Being. London: Routledge.
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Berkeley: University of California Press.
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———. 2006. Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and
Seeing by Technical Means. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
PART I
Stage Scenery and Technology

CHAPTER 2
Mechanisms in the Mist: A Media

Archaeological Excavation of the Mechanical
Theater
Erkki Huhtamo
INTRODUCTION: HOW THE NON-DISCOVERABLE

WAS DISCOVERED
While searching for traces of popular entertainments from nineteenth-
century newspaper notices and broadsides, one often encounters the
words “Mechanical Theater,” particularly as German (Mechanisches
Theater) or French (théatre mécanique) variants. The expression becomes
familiar but hides an enigma. What was it? How did it function? Where
and how was it used, and by whom? History books offer few answers; little
reliable information is available. In those rare cases when mechanical the-
aters are mentioned, we mainly learn about the places where they were
shown and perhaps find out the names of the people who exhibited them.
Beyond lists of curiosity-raising program numbers we rarely gain any clear
idea about how they were presented. The snippets of information are like
tiny islands in a sea of ignorance. Observing them with a telescope from a
distance provides clues but offers no substitute for being able to come
E. Huhtamo ( )
University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
e-mail: erhuhta@ucla.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_2
24 E. HUHTAMO
ashore, move inland, and witness the thing right in front of you, close
enough to be touched. This chapter got its inspiration from such a rare
occasion—a dream come true for the media archaeologist. I will describe
my unexpected encounter with the mechanical theater in a moment, but
first a caveat: this text will provide answers to the questions posed above,
but does not pretend to be the last word about the topic. Rather, it is a
tentative exposé of some basic issues, an overture to a more profound
excavation.
A decade ago I had no idea that such a thing ever existed, although I
had been researching—for years—another little-known spectacle from
roughly the same epoch: the moving panorama (Huhtamo 2013). I had
encountered the notion, but as my focus was elsewhere, I did not pay
much attention to it. Then, while I was attempting to locate existing
moving panorama paintings, I was alerted by my Belgian friend Thomas
Weynants about a discovery he had made at a local flea market in Ghent:
he had bought some items from a Théatre Mécanique, Pittoresque et
Maritime Morieux de Paris. There was a pencil sketch for a moving pan-
orama about the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition, letters, program leaf-
lets, trade cards, and some ingenious mechanical marionettes. My
interest was aroused. If all these things had been part of the same spec-
tacle, what had it been like? Weynants had no clear idea, but he found
out that a more extensive array of material from the same source had
been acquired by the Musée des Arts Forains in Paris. Having visited the
place, Weynants expressed his astonishment about what he saw, urging
me to travel to Paris and get in touch with Jean-Paul Favand, the owner
of the extraordinary museum. I did as he suggested, and was soon
engaged in another media archaeological excavation project, which still
continues.
In 2006, a nearly complete mechanical theater was unexpectedly found
from an abandoned warehouse in Ghent.1 When its touring days had
ended in the early 1930s, it had been locked into the building where many
of its program items had been created and from where it had set out on its
journeys. Under thick layers of dirt and in a state of abandon but mostly
intact, there were many mechanical marionettes and other types of “pup-
pet actors,” painted background canvases, dioramas, moving panoramas,
magic lantern slides, early silent films, and so on. The parts of the
fairground pavilion, where the presentations had been given, were there
too, including its decorative façade. A large quantity of documents—cor-
MECHANISMS IN THE MIST: A MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION… 25
respondence, notebooks, broadsides, flyers, program leaflets, and so on—

completed the find, carrying a promise that the history of Théatre
Morieux—until then entirely forgotten—could be reconstructed.2 This
seemed a perfect task for a media archaeologist, and so, with the support
and encouragement of Jean-Paul Favand, I began putting together a huge
jigsaw puzzle. I began by creating an archive of the paper materials.
Although many of the physical artifacts had been cleaned, identified, and
conserved, the papers were still in the cardboard boxes where they had
been piled up during the rescue operation. After several years the picture
is still incomplete, but its features are gradually becoming visible.
Understandably, my original idea about the mechanical theater was based
on Théatre Morieux—the words théatre mécanique were always men-
tioned in its promotional material. Little by little a question emerged: how
typical was it? Was it like all the other mechanical theaters mentioned in
nineteenth-century sources or somehow special—one-of-a-kind creation?
To find out, I began searching for information about other shows that
carried similar titles.
In this chapter, I will treat the mechanical theater as a medium—a man-
ifestation of media culture. I will discuss it as a dispositive, a system of
relationships between the pavilion, the exhibits, the technological infra-
structure, and the human operators and the audience. The dispositive is a
model, a schematic description of how a certain media form has been
arranged.3 However, characterizing the mechanical theater as an unchang-
ing entity floating above history would isolate it from the life it once was
part of. That would be incorrect: dispositives are activated within histori-
cal circumstances. They inform “media practices” and are modified, when
developments, such as competition by other spectacles, call for it (Huhtamo
2016). The mechanical theater should not be assessed in separation from
the contexts where it was exploited, commented on, and fantasized about.
I will begin by describing Théatre Morieux as a dispositive, not because it
was the most important, but because it is the only one about which we
have detailed information. I will then compare the information with what
we know about other mechanical theaters. Of particular interest are the
formative developments that preceded the entry of Théatre Morieux on the
scene of itinerant entertainments. What had happened until then? Did
Théatre Morieux inherit features from earlier forms? If so, in what kind of
circumstances had they been forged (Fig. 2.1)?
26 E. HUHTAMO
Fig. 2.1 Notice on the origins of Théatre Morieux. A flyer distributed for the
audience in the early twentieth century. It promotes the idea that the theater was
founded by P. Morieux in Paris in 1809. The owner Léon Van de Voorde has
added “Morieux” to his name to make the point more compelling. (Author’s
collection)
THE MECHANICAL THEATER ACCORDING TO THÉATRE

MORIEUX DE PARIS
The program booklets distributed by the exhibitors of Théatre Morieux
routinely reiterated a foundation myth. Again and again, they claimed that
the enterprise had been founded by a certain P. Morieux in Paris in 1809.
Often it was added that “for twenty years, his astonishing creations were
admired by the capital.” Occasionally the site was specified as Boulevard
du Temple, a popular nexus of theatrical and street entertainments.4 It was
even boasted that “all the capitals of the world, as well as the greatest cities
have admired it for a hundred years.”5 For further assurance, the words
Fondé 1809 (founded in 1809) were painted on the wall of the pavilion
that housed the attraction. It is wise to adopt a skeptical stance toward
such efforts of self-aggrandizement, which were common among show
people. There are no pre-1840s documents at the Musée des Arts et
Forains. The first piece of evidence about Théatre Morieux found so far
dates from 1842, when P. Morieux applied for permission to exhibit at the
fair of Ghent. It was denied, but he tried again the next year, this time with
success (Rousseau 1959, 56–57).6 Claiming that an itinerant spectacle was
“from Paris” and exhibited by a Parisian mécanicien (like P. Morieux) were
common tricks.7 The name of a great city most people knew from descrip-
tions only illuminated the modest fairground booth with metropolitan
luster.
Some background information is needed. Théatre Morieux toured
Central Europe for nearly a century from the 1840s (perhaps earlier) to
the beginning of the 1930s in the hands of four generations of showmen.
Pierre Morieux, the founder, seems to have been a Frenchman from the
village of Condé-sur-Noireau in Calvados, Normandy.8 Details of his life
are hazy; we do not know for sure how, when, and why he began exhibit-
ing a mechanical theater. No document from his hand survives. In the
1840s, he was joined by a young decorative painter from Ghent, Jean
Henri Van de Voorde (1824–1895).9 In his notebook, Jean Henri indi-
cated that his itinerant life with Théatre Morieux began in 1846. From
then on, he spent his time touring with Morieux in the German-speaking
part of Europe.10 In the 1860s it was time for Morieux to retire, so the
theater’s ownership was passed on to Jean Henri, who decided to adopt
the Northern Freistadt Bremen as the base for his growing family. Around
1875 Jean Henri ceded the theater to his eldest son Eugène (1851–1890),
concentrating on painting canvases and constructing mechanical
28 E. HUHTAMO
marionettes in his atelier in Bremen. In the early 1880s he helped his

younger son Léon (1858–1940) to build another mechanical theater. By
1888, Léon moved from Bremen to his father’s hometown Ghent and
continued touring mostly in Belgium and Northern France with his own
Théatre Morieux, eventually with his son Edmond (1883–1973). This is
the version that survived in its locked-up time capsule.11
Théatre Morieux defined itself as a “mechanical, picturesque and mari-
time theater” (expressions like Grand Théatre and Théatre des Variétés
were added in later years). It was an itinerant attraction normally exhibited
at fairs and other seasonal events organized by many European cities and
localities. Occasionally Léon Van de Voorde also exhibited his theater else-
where on rented lots. Even then he had to obtain a permission from the
local authorities. Fairs had from times immemorial been commercial gath-
erings where cattle and products changed hands. Entertainers and trick-
sters had tried to profit from the gatherings of crowds, but their offerings
had been secondary. In the nineteenth century the development led
toward the “fun fair.”12 Spectacular mechanized entertainments claimed a
central role. In French this shift was indicated by the difference between
the words foire and fête foraine. Although attractions like itinerant theaters
were already exhibited at eighteenth-century fairs like the Foire Saint-
Germain in Paris, at the nineteenth-century fête forains they became the
main crowd magnets. Erected in dense formations there were barracks,
booths and tents with tumblers, acrobats and living curiosities, touring
menageries, wax cabinets and museums of anatomy, carousels (manège),
panoramas, dioramas and cosmoramas, and, last but not least, mechanical
theaters. Huge fairground organs filled the air with pompous tunes. The
caravans where the exhibitors and performers lived were hidden behind
the scenes.
The pavilion Léon Van de Voorde used in the later nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries was spacious—35 meters wide, 6–7 meters high, and
9 meters deep. He characterized it as a “Grand Theater.”13 Constructed of
wooden panels and canvases, it had to be sturdy to weather a storm, but
light enough to be easily transported, erected, and dismantled. The ele-
ments of the spectacle were transported in a series of wagons that were
normally loaded on trains and drawn from the station to the exhibition
grounds by a locomobile. The orientalistic façade of Théatre Morieux had
a series of arches topped by minarets and cupolas (large one in the middle,
smaller ones on both ends).14 Underneath the arches was a gallery or
“parade” which ran almost the whole length of the front side.15 It could
be used for pre-shows to attract bystanders, and no doubt served as a tem-

porary shelter in rainy weather. Four allegorical figures stood silhouetted
against the sky along the roof line, realized—like the minarets and cupo-
las—as flat painted cutouts. Wall panels above the arches carried the words
Progrès, Mécanismes, Féeries, Sciénces, Attractions, Arts, while a wider one
in the middle stated: Grand Théatre Morieux. Posters were attached to the
wooden fence of the gallery. A hut-like rectangular structure to the right
of the façade displayed further announcements and carried a panel con-
firming the identity of the enterprise: Théatre Mécanique, Pittoresque et
Maritime Morieux de Paris. In the center of the building there were a few
steps leading to the ticket booth; the entrance to the corridor leading to
the auditorium must have been behind it.
The main features of the interior were the auditorium and the stage.
The former had slightly ascending rows of seats and was embellished with
decorated panels and hanging tapestries.16 Over the years the illumination
was upgraded from oil to gas lamps and finally to electric lights.17 The size
of the auditorium is uncertain, but seems to have accommodated about
300 people.18 It was divided into categories according to price. The most
expensive front seats were numbered from 1 to 121. Behind them were
the regular seats (benches) divided into “firsts and seconds” and a gallery
at the back with standing room only. After World War I when Théatre
Morieux resumed its activities, the gallery seems to have been eliminated
and replaced with more rows of seats. According to preserved diagrams,
the stage was very deep, about one-third of the width of the pavilion. This
was necessary because it had to be adapted to different types of programs
that followed each other in rapid succession. The stage was said to be
“open” which raises questions about the proscenium: was it fixed or
adjustable?19 How high was the stage? Could operators work underneath
in standing position? Where was the orchestra? The presentations were
accompanied by 5–10 musicians, but where they performed is not per-
fectly clear. Was there an orchestra pit, or did the musicians appear on
stage when the scenery was being changed and perform at other times
from the wings (Fig. 2.2)?
THÉATRE MORIEUX SEEN THROUGH ITS PROGRAMS

The programming was based on the principle of formula and variation.
Certain elements were repeated for decades. Novelties were introduced
from time to time. If they became popular, they remained in the repertory;
30 E. HUHTAMO
Fig. 2.2 Page from the program leaflet for the Hamburg Christmas fair 1867,
showing an advertisement of Théatre Morieux, featuring “bombardment of the
town of Valparaiso,” an otherwise unknown program item. G. A. Fischtl, Weihnacht
1867. Geschäfts- und Vergnügungs-Führer für Domwanderer, Hamburg: Carl
Fischer’s Buch- und Steindrückerei, 1867. (Author’s collection)
if not, they were silently dropped and replaced by something else. Many of
the additions, such as program numbers focusing on battles and expedi-
tions, had topical interest. The art of programming was to keep those who
had seen the show—perhaps at previous year’s fair—coming back, while
attracting new clients. Letters of thanks addressed to the exhibitors show
that some spectators returned again and again, passing the habit in the
family from one generation to the next. What did the program consist of?
Considering the fact that Théatre Morieux was exhibited for nearly a cen-
tury, I can only provide a general idea in this context, skipping the differ-
ences between the programs of Pierre, Jean Henri, Léon, and Eugène, as
well as the details about the purchase and exchange of program items with
other show people.
I will compare three program booklets produced decades apart. None
of them bears the printing date, but can be approximately dated by inter-
nal evidence. The earliest of all known booklets is at the Stadtgeschichtliches
Museum, Leipzig, and bears the title Erklärung und Darstellung des mech-
anischen Theaters von M. Morieux, Mechaniker aus Paris.20 It was likely
used when the theater was exhibited at the Leipzig Fair (Leipziger Messe),
a major gathering of fairground exhibitors, but perhaps elsewhere as well.
Probably dating from the late 1850s or early 1860s, it solely bears the
name of M[onsieur] Morieux. Thirteen numbered pieces, followed by an
unnumbered item, “Diophrame, Welt- und Naturspiegel” (Diophramas,
the Mirror of the World and Nature), are described on its 16 pages. The
booklet seems to contain the entire repertory of Théatre Morieux at the
time. It is unlikely that more than a few of the acts would have been pre-
sented in a single performance. This impression is supported by the
Morieux broadsides from the same period also preserved at the
Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
The first piece, “Die malerische Reise von London nach Paris”
(Picturesque Journey from London to Paris), is characterized as a “tab-
leau.” It is clearly a moving panorama, said to have been painted by the
well-known Parisian scene painter Charles-Antoine Cambon
(1802–1875).21 A stationary view of London with the dome of St. Paul’s
Cathedral in the center and the Thames in the foreground was seen first.
Larger and smaller ships, no doubt flat mechanical figures in motion,
enlivened the scene.22 The canvas then began to move, depicting 12 scenes
from the trip toward Paris (including a visit to the country house of
Alexandre Dumas in Port-Marly, Yvelines) and the destination itself. The
second program piece, “Interior of the Church of Notre-Dame in Paris,”
32 E. HUHTAMO
formed a neat continuity with the preceding one. It seems to have been
used to facilitate a scene change behind it. A Morieux broadside from the
same period explains that it was a “double-effect” diorama canvas painted
by “Monsieur Philaster” from Paris.23
Moving on, number three is “The great and dangerous lion hunt in the
Sahara desert,” a scene “from recent times.” This is a classic mechanical
theater act with figures moving across the stage. Many animals are seen
passing an oasis; then a lion appears, followed by hunters. The “king of
animals” is killed and carried away by slaves, followed by a hunting party.
The roar of the lion and the sounds of the shooting are mentioned. Next
(4) comes another view of Paris (no doubt again a transparency), “taken”
from the Pont de St. Peres in 1848. The scene is comical: sailors are hav-
ing a swimming competition, while people are seen promenading by the
river (mechanical figures were possibly used again). Then it is the time for
a perennial Théatre Morieux classic (5), which is included in every pro-
gram booklet I have seen: Die mechanischen Seilschwenker-Automaten.
The scene featured two mechanical aerobatic marionettes swinging on a
flying rope (cloud swing). The characters, which were said to have been
invented and constructed by Pierre Morieux, were pseudo-automata
rather than real automata. Instead of being self-propelled by an internal
mechanism, they were controlled by a hidden human operator manipulat-
ing a special tightrope to which they were attached.
Another interlude (Zwichenact) follows, depicting the “Royal Bridge”
in Paris by moonlight (6). Then comes “Malerische Ansicht von Sidon
nach Alexandria” (Picturesque view from Sidon to Alexandria), a voyage
said to take 1200 hours. It consisted of no less than 18 scenes, and may
have been a moving panorama or a series of magic lantern slides. It is fol-
lowed by (7) “Lower and New California,” a series of scenes from the
“western territories of the United States”—again, paintings or lantern
slides. Curiously, next (8) comes “A trip to California” from Marseille to
the Gold Regions of Sacramento, said to have been painted by the “most
famous decorative painter in France” (Cambon?) on 2700 square feet of
canvas. The list of scenes is long but erratic; beside a sea storm and ship-
wreck and views about Sierra Nevada and the gold diggers at Sacramento
and Joaquin rivers, it also includes anomalies like “tiger hunt in the jun-
gle,” “igloos of the Eskimo in Greenland,” “The Arctic Sea,” and “Polar
bears attacking seafarers.” Most likely the acts 7 and 8 were not be pre-
sented in the same evening, but why the scenes of arctic regions ended up
in the mix is a mystery—perhaps they were fragments from a 500 feet long
cyclorama (moving panorama) about the search for the arctic explorer Sir
John Franklin, said to have been also painted by Cambon for Morieux.24
Item No. 9, “Festival in Venice,” depicts a national festival near Rialto,
with a “feast of numerous mechanical figures.” Again an interlude, “Old
Paris in the year 1482” (10), followed by a view of the Siege of Sebastopol
in March 1855 (11). Then another Morieux favorite (12), “Jardin de
Jouvence oder Jupiter’s Fest im Götterhimmel” (Garden of Youth, or
Jupiter’s Festival in the Pantheon of Gods), “a fantasy scene from Greek
mythology.” It was an elaborate tableau composed of numerous mytho-
logical figures cut of cardboard.25 The following scene (12) is interesting,
but did not survive long in the Théatre Morieux repertory. “Der fürchterli-
che Brand von Moskau und Napoleon’s Rückzug aus Rußland im Jahre
1812” (The Terrible Conflagration of Moscow and Napoleon’s Retreat
from Russia in 1812) was a popular feature of many mechanical theaters,
thanks to Johann Nepomuk Maelzel’s famous creation, which was widely
exhibited and imitated by others (Arrington 1960, 1951–1952).26 It was
known for its spectacular visual effects and the considerable noise it made,
and was particularly popular in the United States, where Maelzel spend
long periods. The ending of Morieux’s version was different: the retreat of
Napoleon’s troops was presented against a continuous moving backdrop
showing with cities, villages, and castles. In the end the beaten emperor
reached Paris.
We have now reached the concluding non-numbered section titled
“Diophrame, Welt- und Naturspiegel” (Diophramas, the Mirror of the
World and Nature). It is divided into no less than 42 scenes and two spe-
cials, “Die Erschaffung der Welt” (The Creation of the World) and
“Chromatropes, Linien- und Farbenspiele” (Chromatropes, plays with
lines and colors). The listed items are magic lantern slides of different
types. Slide projections were practically always part of Théatre Morieux,
particularly as a conclusion to the program, until cinematographic moving
pictures stole their climactic role. The majority of the views depict geo-
graphic locations. Considering the date, most of them must have been
hand-painted rather than photographic.27 Many had animated features.
Dissolving views are also included. A view of Moscow in 1812 is trans-
formed in front of the spectator’s eyes from summer into winter; then the
snow starts falling and the day turns into night; flames burst out swallow-
ing the city (oddly, this was the Conflagration of Moscow again). Toward
the end of the list we encounter “mechanical caricatures and comical
scenes,” astronomical views (allegories based on Granville’s illustrations),
34 E. HUHTAMO
and “marble statues,” which were a novelty: photographic lantern slides.

Abstract chromatropes were the climax. The magic lantern section was
advanced for the time; a broadside even informs us that the latest light
source, oxy-hydrogen limelight, was used.28 The surviving lantern slides
used at Théatre Morieux are huge and of outstanding quality.
The second program booklet I will discuss is the earliest known from
the era of Jean Henri van Devoorde, titled Album des Mechanischen
Theaters von M. Morieux, patentirter Mechaniker aus Paris.29 The front
page confirms the theater was under his direction, although a statement
on the back page has been signed “M. Morieux.” The booklet was printed
in Bremen and can be dated c. 1872–1875, before the theater was ceded
to Jean Henri’s son Eugène. Pierre Morieux was no longer involved in the
activities. Mentioning his name may have been an homage or just a car-
ryover from the texts of earlier booklets. This time the program consists of
six numbered parts. The first is the “Malerische Reise von London nach
Paris,” which we already encountered in the previous booklet. One won-
ders in what its condition may have been like after so much use? Next
comes “Eruption of Vesuvius, 1872,” a diorama that may have been
painted by Jean Henri.30 It was exhibited in the 1880s at young Léon’s
Mechanisches Theater.31 Painted from both sides, the painting was made to
undergo a transformation by changing the lighting. The description indi-
cates there were moving figures in front of the painting—swans floating
on the bay of Naples and a procession and vehicles on the streets of Naples.
The painting may well have been produced years earlier—Vesuvius had
erupted several times since the mid-nineteenth century.
The third act is the Morieux classic we have also encountered: “Die
mechanischen Seilschwenker-Automaten.” They were not only claimed to
have life-like motions, but to answer questions by moving their heads.
When Eugène van Devoorde began exhibiting Théatre Morieux in the
mid-1870s, a larger mechanical figure was designed and made for him by
Jean Henri. It was monsieur Koseke, a comical orchestra conductor. In the
end of the act he grabbed the second aerobat from the cord and carried it
away from the stage. The ingeniosity of the figures was acknowledged, and
other showmen asked Jean Henri to produce similar ones for them.32 He
may have learned the art from Pierre Morieux. For Léon Jean Henri made
another orchestra conductor, but also a mechanical clown.33 These were
larger than the aerobats. They were attached to metal rods provided with
strings and gears to be manipulated from below. Their mechanisms were
also hidden from the audience’s gazes, giving the impression that they
were clockwork powered automata. The charming quartette of mechani-

cal performers—preserved at Musée des Arts et Forains—formed a part of
every presentation Léon ever gave from the second half of the 1890s
onward until the end of his career. One can assume that they were beloved
and eagerly anticipated by the audiences.
We have already encountered the fourth act, Carnival of Venice, but are
now given more information about it. It was a scene of Canale Grande,
with Rialto in the background. “Countless” masked figures were moving
both on the canal and along its quays, “bringing the theater to life.” The
night fell over the city, and it became illuminated by the moon and lights
from windows and shops. The scene ended with a masked ball. This act
was a mechanical theater scene proper: a tableau where rows of mechanical
figures moved laterally, ones behind the others, across the stage along rails.
At the back there was an illuminated dioramic backdrop that went through
atmospheric changes. The next scene may have been realized in the same
manner but we cannot be sure (how would the stage change have been
made?). It depicted the attack of the Versailles troupes against the Paris
Commune on May 23–24, 1871, in central Paris. The barricade la petite
rose and the Tuileries gardens in disarray were seen in the foreground. The
audience could also witness the right bank of the Seine with Place de la
Concorde and Pont Neuf and Notre Dame in the distance. A fierce battle
took place—firearms were banging and the Tuileries engulfed in flames.
The subject matter was topical, but the scene did not remain in the reper-
tory for long; perhaps, it was sold to another showman.
The final numbered act (6), “Darstellung des neu erfundenen und pat-
entierten Diophrame, Welt- und Natur-Spiegels” (Presentation of the
newly invented and patented Diophramas, Mirrors of the World and
Nature), again sounds familiar. The list of lantern slides is still the same,
which raises doubts. Lantern slides break; new ones are painted, bought,
and sold without much difficulty. I doubt the list corresponded with what
was presented. Its main significance may have been to point out that lan-
tern slides were part of the program. The only difference is the longer
description given of “The Creation of the World.” The biblical story was
interpreted in “14 transformations and enlivened by moving figures and
appropriate lighting effects.”34 This makes it sounds like another mechani-
cal theater number, but that may not have been the case. The general
commentary about this section in both booklets is vague: “These presen-
tations beyond belief show us in the most natural possible way the move-
ments of the planets, fire and water, as well as of rainstorms, snowfall,
36 E. HUHTAMO
avalanches, earthquakes, sea storms, etc.” Visualization of places and sto-

ries, a central asset of the lantern slide, was discursively subordinated to
depiction of motion and atmospheric effects, the forte of the théatre
mécanique.
The third booklet shows how the principle of formula and variation was
applied in later years. I have selected for closer look one of Léon Van de
Voorde’s many program booklets, printed in Ghent around 1907–1908.
Léon was calling his spectacle with a rather baroque title: Théatre des
Variétés Mécanique, Pittoresque et Maritime Morieux de Paris et son
Impériator Bio Cinématographe Géant. The rear of the front cover
informed the reader that the program was accompanied by an “Orchestre
Hongrois (Tchèque), Fanfare et Symphonie.”35 First on the agenda was
Exposition Universelle de Paris 1900, a moving panorama Léon had painted
in his atelier in Ghent from sketches he made in situ in Paris.36 This “mar-
velous diorama” was said to extend to “more than 500 meters,” although
its true length was and still is 60 meters. It was followed by Guerre Russo-
Japonaise, a shorter, 30 meters long moving panorama in eight scenes
(tableaux), depicting battles in the Far East in 1904. It was commissioned
from the Hamburg-based theatrical scene painter Franz Gruber, whose
services Léon used often over the years.37 Showing the two panoramas one
after another made sense because the canvases had been stitched together
on the same cylinder, totaling 90 meters in length. Mechanical mario-
nettes may have been used to enliven the foreground as they were unrolled
in front of the audience. The panorama of the Paris exposition culminated
with illuminated (transparent dioramic) views of the Palais Lumineux and
the Palais de l’Electricité (see Fig. 2.3).
Next came the sine qua non scene with the four mechanical marionettes
(No. 3), followed (No. 4) by “Wellmann’s Expedition to the North Pole.”
The American Walter E. Wellman (1858–1934) had announced in 1905
his intention to reach the North Pole in an airship. He made a failed
attempt in 1907 and another in 1909. The haphazardly described scene is
subtitled Hivernage (Winter stay) and has nothing to do with Wellman’s
actual efforts. It was most likely put together from magic lantern slides
used earlier, for example, in a program about Fridtjof Nansen’s arctic
expedition.38 Evoking Wellman’s name gave the slides new actuality. No.
5 was an equally vague effort, “The Troubles of Morocco.” Probably
influenced by international skirmishes there around 1905, it was a generic
bombardment scene in the tradition of Conflagration of Moscow, realized
with mechanical marionettes waging a Lilliputian battle in front of
Fig. 2.3 Programme du Théatre des Variétés Mécanique, Pittoresque et

Maritime Morieux de Paris et son Impériator Bio Cinématographe Géant. The
cover of a typical program leaflet produced by Léon Van de Voorde (Gand: F &
R. Buyck Frères, c. 1907–1908). (Author’s collection)
38 E. HUHTAMO
“marvelous African scenery.” The scene disappeared soon from the reper-
tory, but the next (No. 7) was a long-lasting favorite: “Carnival on Ice in
St. Petersbourg” (curiously, the background canvas depicted the Kremlin
in Moscow). By means of mechanical marionettes moving back and forth
along rails, it presented a masked ball on ice. The day gradually turned
into night. Masked skaters were pushing sledges. Oddly, the ending
depicted blacksmiths hammering to the rhythm of music.
The program was now approaching its conclusion. Le Fête de Soleil (The
Festival of the Sun) was described as a “grand and brilliant electrical apo-
theosis.”39 It was likely a revamped version of an older allegorical scene,
now associating Greek gods and other mythological figures with Napoleon
“in the kingdom of immortality” and with the personifications of France
and—as culmination—Belgium “announcing the 75th Anniversary of its
Independence to the entire universe” (1905). The patriotism and franco-
phone pathos was associated with Léon’s personal triumph: he had recently
acquired an electric generator and was exploiting its illuminating powers
to the full. The inspiration may also have come from the elaborate tab-
leaux presented on stage in the French genre of féeries, which influenced
similar finals in early silent films by Méliès, Pathé, and other manufactur-
ers. Léon had become increasingly concerned about the challenge perma-
nent variety theaters and cinemas were posing to itinerant entertainments.
It is therefore not surprising that his program ended with the projections
of the “Impériator Bio, Giant Cinematograph.” However, the right to do
so was not a given. The issue led Léon and other forains to heated legal
disputes with owners of cinematograph pavilions and local authorities sid-
ing with them.
Although the program items kept changing over the years in response
to entertainment trends, local and world affairs, and technological novel-
ties, the overall structure, as well as quite a few of the program numbers,
remained remarkably unchanged. Still, the format was flexible enough to
accommodate new things.40 Adding variety while retaining predictability
and continuity was a guiding idea. Le Photographe Géant was exhibited for
a while in the mid-1890s. Portrait photographs of celebrities were magni-
fied and projected to the screen with a Megascope, an opaque projector.
Visitors were encouraged to bring their own photographs and hand them
in to be projected for the audience (they were returned after the represen-
tation). Whereas many fairground booths continued to exhibit living
things—animals, trained performers, and humans with extraordinary fea-
tures (freak shows)—Théatre Morieux concentrated on mechanical and
optical marvels (although a clown was employed for a while). Human

actors were displaced from the center stage; pictures and mechanical fan-
tasies took their place. The pseudo-automata performed as machine-
actors, although operators were turning the cranks and pulling the cords
behind the scenes. More than an example of “naive” folk art or “inno-
cent” fairground entertainment, Théatre Morieux was part of a trend that
was giving rise to media culture, familiarizing audiences with “self-acting”
things and revealing the world through pictorial representations, often set
in motion.
MECHANICAL SPECTACLES BEFORE THÉATRE MORIEUX

Théatre Morieux was not the first attraction that identified itself as a
mechanical theater. Neither was it the only one—there were many. The
routes—including railway routes—leading to the fairs became crowded.
The rapid development of railways on the European continent from the
1830s onward played a role in the growing popularity of the mechanical
theater and other elaborate fairground attractions. As we will see, the pio-
neering showmen Pierre and Degabriel still used horse-drawn wagons on
the astonishingly long voyages they made from year to year, but Théatre
Morieux traveled by train, possibly from the very beginning. It is worth
asking where Pierre Morieux and after him the Van de Voorde family got
their ideas from. Original creation without knowledge of predecessors
must be ruled out. I will next investigate sources that may have influenced
Théatre Morieux either directly or indirectly. I will pass the histories of the
magic lantern, the panorama, and the diorama here, because I have already
written about them in Illusions in Motion, and concentrate on the core
aspect of the mechanical theater: the use of tableaux with mechanical mar-
ionettes moving laterally across the stage along rails.
In those rare cases where mechanical theaters have been discussed, it
has usually taken place in the context of folk art, puppet theater, and pop-
ular fairground entertainments. Media studies have ignored them. The
literature on the history of automata has largely passed them by as well, for
a reason: the showmen may have claimed they were presenting automata,
but their offerings fell short of that description. An automaton is a self-
operating device. It contains a source of motive power that allows it to
function without constant interventions from a human operator. An
automaton may be hydraulic or animated by a clockwork. The mechanical
puppets used by Théatre Morieux were animated by invisible human
40 E. HUHTAMO
hands; they were pseudo-automata that only gave the impression of inde-
pendent agency. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the line
between genuine automata and ones that pretended to be such was blurry,
often deliberately. The best-known case is Baron von Kempelen’s chess-
playing “automaton.”41 Was it a mechanical device making chess moves on
its own or a cover-up for a hidden human player, the true source of its
operations, it was asked. Ambiguity raised curiosity, but eventually the lat-
ter alternative proved to be correct.
The origins of mechanical theaters are obscure, but traces point to the
eighteenth century, perhaps earlier. Instead of trying to identify chains of
cause and effect, it is better to conceive of a field, where many things coex-
ist and come into contact. This field extended, although not without
cracks and gaps, from the life worlds of “common people” to the realms
of the nobility. The (dis)communications between social classes and the
vectors of influence have long been debated by historians of popular cul-
ture (Burke 1978; Mandrou 1985). Attractions like nativity scenes (crèche,
crib) exhibited during Christmas time in Southern and Central European
chapels could be witnessed both by the hoi polloi and the elite. They were
originally stationary and sometimes life-size, with designs inspired by reli-
gious iconography, altarpieces, effigies, and votive gifts. Many nativity dis-
plays were surrounded by depictions of contemporary life, which may
have overshadowed their religious content. Moving elements were added
as an attractive novelty. Functioning models of mines and mining com-
munities (Bergwerk) were later created and shown for money by former
miners, emphasizing the link with the everyday. Ideas spread: large variet-
ies of mechanical miniature environments, called by names like “Busy
World,” traveled on the exhibition circuit in the nineteenth century.
Particularly common were horizontal panstereoramas, “tabletop” scenes
of cities observed from a bird’s-eye perspective, sometimes misleadingly
labeled as “dioramas” (Ellis 2018).
When it comes to automata proper and their influence, one should
keep in mind that they were rarely available for inspection, except by the
chosen few who had access to the princely cabinets of curiosities. For the
general population the most accessible forms were the Jacquemarts that
stroke the hour in clock towers, and the huge astronomical clocks of
cathedrals and town halls, with mechanical figures performing allegorical
plays. Scenes performed by moving figures were also incorporated into
pendulum clocks. Most were made for the rich, but some were exhibited
publicly, even for centuries. Jacob Lovelace’s “Exeter Clock” began its
long itinerant career in 1733. The clock movement animated an elaborate
iconographic program, which included, among other features, “A Moving

Panorama, descriptive of Day and Night – Day is beautifully represented
by Apollo in his Car drawn by four spirited Coursers, accompanied by the
12 hours – and Diana in her car drawn by Stags, attended by the 12 hours,
represent Night.”42 It was not a moving panorama in the common sense
of the expression, which referred to a long roll painting unrolled from one
vertical spool to another in front of an audience. The adoption of the con-
cept reminds us that mechanical and optical spectacles were associated
with each other by contemporaries rather than kept separate. They should
not be segregated into their own prison-cells by scholars either, which is
too often the case. The principle of animating the inanimate covers both,
overriding technical differences of execution and operation (see Fig. 2.4).
A subgenre of automata was the tableau mécanique, a framed oil paint-
ing with parts made to move by a clockwork (Chapuis and Droz 1949,
147–162). The tradition goes back to the late sixteenth century, but was
particularly prominent in the eighteenth century and still popular in the
next (ibid., 148). The most typical feature, which turned into a cliché, was
inserting a functioning clock face in a painted clocktower. Processions,
water wheels, windmills, farm animals, humans at work, sailing ships, and
(after the 1830s) trains appearing from tunnels and crossing waterways by
a bridge were typical motifs. An intriguing case is the famous mechanical
tableau that used to belong to Madame Pompadour and has been pre-
served at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Fabricated in
1759, it depicts a scene taking place in the milieu of the long since lost
Chateau Saint-Ouen in the Seine-Saint Denis region.43 The castle with its
gardens is seen in the background; the foreground is filled with figures
engaged in everyday activities, while boats are seen moving laterally on the
Seine. The scene is exceptionally rich in animated mechanical details. The
Russian scholar Boris Goldovsky described it as follows:
We can imagine Madame Pompadour – because it was her property – con-

templating the moving scenery, accomplished by the mechanisms. You could
see dogs appear, run one after the other and vanish behind the isolated
building in the part. A little further on two marquises make multiple rever-
ences before a lady of high quality who in her turn, touched by their gal-
lantry, returns a graceful bow. A coachman, some sheep, and a brave peasant
woman pulling the bridle of her cow parade along the road… Workers on
the river try to make their wood float, and in the boats cheerful gentlemen
and ladies take refreshment, while the washer-women beat their linen rhyth-
mically and an angler, unconcerned, pokes playfully at a gudgeon.
42 E. HUHTAMO
Fig. 2.4 Explanation of Jacob Lovelace’s Exeter Clock (1739). Lithograph by

Hackett (Exeter 1833). (Author’s collection)
Henryk Jurkowski quotes this description in his history of European pup-

petry, adding: “It sufficed to make this kind of ‘living picture’ bigger and
the subjects more variable to arrive at the mechanical theatre later known
as Theatrum Mundi” (Jurkowski 1996, 221).44 As we will see, the words
theatrum mundi were often used about mechanical theaters. The compari-
son is appropriate, because the horizontally moving ships of the tableau
have been arranged in rows one after the other, which brings to mind the
typical arrangement of the mechanical theater. However, a question about
the transmission of ideas remains. Could any prospective showman have
seen the tableau? Or did its maker copy the idea from a presentation seen
at a fair?
Similar questions must be raised about another mechanical wonder,
which evokes features of itinerant mechanical theaters: the Mechanisches
Theater at the Hellbrunn pleasure gardens near Salzburg, Austria.
Hellbrunn is a premier destination for the automata enthusiast. Built in
the early seventeenth century as a private resort and hunting grounds for
the powerful archbishop Markus Sittikus von Hohenems, it is the best-
preserved example of Italian-style Baroque-era giochi d’aqua or Wasserspiele
featuring hydraulic automata in a fantastic garden setting. There are water-
sprouting statues, artificial grottoes with figures and scenes animated by
water power, and so on. For us the main object of interest is a later attrac-
tion, which was added during renovation works in the mid-eighteenth
century, and still survives in perfect working condition. It was a substitu-
tion for a grotto that had deteriorated beyond repair, realized by the
German mechanic and miner Lorenz Rosenegger. The spectacular new
attraction, housed in a pavilion of its own behind doors that can be closed
for protection, was unveiled on October 28, 1752, after three years of
work (see Fig. 2.5).45
A curved proscenium arch appears when the doors are opened. It
reveals a fantastic architectural environment representing a busy manufac-
turing town. The huge doll-house-like setting recalls Baroque scenogra-
phy for theater or opera, and could perhaps be traced to an iconographic
model from the works of Galli-Bibiena or other masters of scenic design.
A decorative tower-like structure rises in the middle, flanked by three-
story buildings with galleries left open from both sides to reveal their inte-
riors. The background is a half-dome with a painted sky. The scene is
dotted with c. 20 cm tall mechanical moving figures powered by a hori-
zontal water wheel underneath. The general impression is one of intense
hustle and bustle. 138 moving and 107 static figures survive.46 Many stock
44 E. HUHTAMO
Fig. 2.5 The Mechanical Theater of Hellbrunn, Salzburg, Austria. An unidenti-

fied stipple engraving, c. 1850. (Author’s collection)
characters can be identified among them: watchmen, craftspeople, shop-

keepers, even a showman exhibiting a dancing bear. Because the mecha-
nism makes considerable noise, a hydraulic organ—animated by its own
water wheel—was added in 1753.
This extraordinary creation raises questions. Where did the idea come
from? Did it influence itinerant mechanical theaters? One possible inter-
pretation is to see it as a secular mega-version of mechanical crib theaters,
which were particularly prevalent in the Roman Catholic Austria (Jurkowski
1996, 293). However, the figures of crib theaters, also known as nativity
plays, were often animated by humans hiding behind the scenes. The
influence of stage scenery or architectural models cannot be ruled out
either. Rosenegger’s design was certainly associated with the themes of
Hellbrunn’s artificial grottoes, some of which depict scenes of work. Such
scenes were as if combined and extended into a synthesis, a massive cross-
section of the life forms of contemporary society (see Fig. 2.6).
Was it influential? It must be remembered that Hellbrunn was a private
domain and only available for the gazes of the privileged classes. We do
Fig. 2.6 A detail of the Mechanical Theater at Hellbrunn. (Photo: Machiko

Kusahara 2014)
not even know when the term Mechanisches Theater was associated with
Rosenegger’s creation. The words appear under a stipple engraving printed
around 1850, but that does not prove anything: they may have been cho-
sen because itinerant mechanical theaters were by then ubiquitous. The
mechanics of these spectacles were different. The Hellbrunn theater is a
genuine automaton. A single water wheel, familiar from the history of
hydraulic automata since the classical Antiquity, distributes its motive
power to all the figures at the same time. At Théatre Morieux this applied
only to the figures marching along a single rail, and they were powered by
turning a hand crank. The Hellbrunn figures are three-dimensional wood
carvings, not flat cutouts. Many of them rotate on moving circular plat-
forms; circular motions were normally not used in the itinerant mechani-
cal theaters. The figures moved along straight lines. Of course, circular
motion was a feature of the carousel (manège).
46 E. HUHTAMO
MECHANICAL THEATER: QUESTION OF ORIGINS

The nineteenth-century mechanical theater was a hybrid form, a kind of
multimedia spectacle avant la lettre. The busy little figures rambling back
and forth across the stage were eye-catching, but even though the general
speed of life was slower than it is now, they could hardly maintain the
spectator’s attention for very long. Animating the scene with lighting
effects and sounds helped, but before long it was necessary to recapture
the audience’s attention by presenting something else. The changes
between the scenes also had a practical purpose: the team needed time to
prepare another mechanical tableau without being seen. Otto Link
(1888–1959), a pioneering puppet theater enthusiast and collector, sug-
gested that mechanical puppets moving along rails were originally an
adjunct to the puppet theater (1984, 8–12).47 Such scenes were known as
theatrum mundi (sometimes translated as Welttheater).48 When the con-
cept was first applied to the puppet theater is open for speculation. The
idea of the world as a stage, where humans act like puppets animated by a
supreme being, is a well-known topos—a familiar migrating formula (see
Curtius 1979, 138–144). The idea was very familiar in the eighteenth
century. It had appeared in the dramatic works of Shakespeare and
Calderón (among others), and was also used in book titles.49 The Italian
words Mundo nuovo, used already in the eighteenth century about peep-
show boxes containing perspective views of different countries, may reso-
nate with the same topos tradition. Appropriating theatrum mundi to folk
culture and applying it to crowded scenes, where tiny mechanical figures
were busily moving back and forth, animated by huge invisible hands, feels
like a logical step.50
Link concentrated on the puppet theaters that toured the German-
speaking part of Central Europe, particularly Saxony. They were a mani-
festation of Volkskultur, non-industrial popular culture.51 The theaters
were family businesses, passed from one generation to the next.52 The
main action was performed with string-operated marionettes. Theatrum
mundi was a short episode, which was featured as an independent high-
light in the end, but could also be inserted within the main feature. It was
performed on an extended area behind the main stage, revealed by raising
the backdrop. Such double-framing emphasized theatrum mundi’s char-
acter as a tableau in motion. Although the vogue for theatrum mundi
seems to have first developed on the European continent, puppeteers in
England used it too. Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) included mechanical
interpretations of landscapes and well-known events in his “miscellanies”

(Jurkowski 1996, 198). The repertory of the famous Patagonian Theatre,
which performed in London at a popular showplace named Exeter Change
on The Strand between 1776 and 1781, included elaborate scenery with
atmospheric and mechanical effects like moonlight, shipwrecks, thunder-
storms, and the eruption of Vesuvius (ibid., 198–200). Such elements
became standard features at itinerant mechanical theaters.
Marionette puppet shows enjoyed huge popularity in eighteenth-
century Europe; many regional variants developed.53 As Jurkowski, a lead-
ing authority, has noted, optical techniques and mechanical tricks were
constantly gaining ground, sometimes overshadowing the acts with tradi-
tional string puppets (1996, 222). Shadow theater, which reached Europe
in the seventeenth century, was still considered a novelty. It was advertised
by names like Italian Shadows or ombres chinoises. Shadow puppetry was
performed either as an independent spectacle or as an addition to the pup-
pet theater. Magic lantern projections were occasionally added, and theat-
rum mundi became increasingly common. Variety rather than purity was
the call of the day. Resources allowing, anything that promised to attract
an audience and create income was put on display. Popular entertainments
were a low-level manifestation of the emerging spirit of capitalism.
Educational concerns or political indoctrination and satire were not
absent, but they were normally subordinated to the goal of making a
profit. Since most communities were small and local demand easily satu-
rated, a solution was to adopt an itinerant lifestyle. Yearly and seasonal
events became the nodes around which the exhibitors’ maps were drawn;
a kind of theatrum mundi, enacted in real space, was produced by their
peregrinations.
As a device the magic lantern relied on discoveries in optics and lens
grinding. It could only appear when these conditions had been fulfilled by
the mid-seventeenth century (Rossell 2008). In its basic form theatrum
mundi had no such constraints, as it relied on a combination of simple
mechanics and illusionistic painting, both of which had been already mas-
tered in classical Greece. It comes as no surprise that Link singles out the
automaton theaters invented by Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–70 CE) and
before him Philo of Byzantium (c. 280–220 BCE, active in Alexandria) as
anticipations (see Prou (1881) and Xagoraris (1991) for detailed descrip-
tions of their mechanisms). One type, the “fixed stage” or staton automa-
ton theater, was housed in an upright cabinet and was said to have
presented a story in five acts. Scene changes took place behind doors that
48 E. HUHTAMO
closed and opened automatically. The mechanism was gravity-based, pow-

ered by descending weights. Was the idea of such contraptions familiar in
the early modern age, making them potential models for mechanical the-
aters? It is not impossible, because Hero’s Greek-language work
Automatopoietica, where Philo’s automaton theater is discussed together
with his own creations, existed as multiple manuscript copies and in Italian
(1589) and Latin printed translations (1693) (Prou 1881, 9).
Theatrum mundi could also be interpreted as a miniaturized adaptation
of the scenic illusions and macchine (machines) used in Baroque theaters
or, less likely, simply as a product of creative tinkering with mechanics.
During the eighteenth century, signs of itinerant spectacles that antici-
pated nineteenth-century mechanical theaters without being part of a pup-
pet theater accumulated. Exhibitions of views of cities and events, effects
like sunrises and sunsets, and simulations of storms and shipwrecks were
already shown by the mid-century.54 Using Johann Friedrich Schütze’s
extraordinary history of theatrical spectacles in Hamburg (1794) as the
main source, Link suggested that theatrum mundi may have existed as an
independent attraction already around 1700 (1984, 8–12).55 However,
the evidence is uncertain and scant. Signs of mechanical spectacles shown
separately of the puppet theater can be found from the 1740s onward. In
his history of marionettes, Charles Magnin mentioned a showman named
Toscani, who brought a mechanical spectacle to the Foire Saint-Germain
in 1744 (Magnin 1852, 168). According to Émile Campardon, he was
active in Paris between 1744 and 1748 at two Parisian fairs, Foire Saint-
Germain and Foire Saint-Laurent (1877, 434). The notice Toscani placed
in Les Affiches de Paris in 1748 to promote his Nouveau Théatre pittoresque
(New picturesque theater) is striking as an anticipation of later spectacles
and deserves to be reproduced in full:
Mr. Toscani, who is Polish and the inventor of the “New picturesque the-
atre” which has been admired by the entire Italy, Germany and other coun-
tries where it has been exhibited, informs the curious that it has arrived in
this city and opened to the public; one sees there perspective views of moun-
tains, castles, seaports, marketplaces, buildings, amphitheatres, etc., every-
thing at the largest scale of architecture and drawing. One also sees small
figures that perfectly imitate all kinds of natural movements and all things of
the theatre of the world [le théatre du monde] without being visibly acted
upon by any string; one sees a magician, who performs varied transforma-
tions; and, most surprisingly of all, one sees a storm, rain, thunder, sinking
ships, swimming sailors, etc., executed in a natural way, and as precisely as

possible. The theatre is located at the Foire Saint-Germain, at the entrance
to the rue de Paris, opposite the Grande Troupe etrangère [the Grand
Foreign Company].56
It is interesting to note that Toscani used the expression le théatre du

monde. It may be a translation of theatrum mundi, which would not be
surprising, if he really had exhibited in the listed countries. Toscani was
obviously part of an international scene where public presentations of
tableau-like scenery with mechanical and painted effects were spreading.
The fact that his name has been preserved does not mean that his spectacle
would have been unique in any way.
LOUTHERBOURG, PIERRE, AND DEGABRIEL:

FROM EIDOPHUSIKON TO SPECTACLE PITTORESQUE ET
MÉCANIQUE
It seems fair to say that by the time the somewhat better known creations
of Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812) and Messrs. Pierre
and Degabriel began gaining attention in the 1780s, the ground had
already been laid. Loutherbourg’s Eidophusikon: Or various imitations of
Natural Phenomena, Represented by Moving Pictures is often claimed to be
the model for all mechanical theaters to come. Eidophusikon was an inti-
mate spectacle introduced in London in 1781 (Huhtamo 2013, 93–104).
Loutherbourg, a famous Alsatian scene painter, who had become a staple
of the theatrical world of London, presented it for the polite society in an
elegant private theater constructed for the purpose, together with an exhi-
bition of his paintings. Of all attractions related with mechanical theaters,
it is the only one that is mentioned in the histories of early moving image
media with some frequency. It is usually presented as a unique innovation
that was ahead of its time. Using ideas from his celebrated scenic designs
and visual effects from the stage of the Drury Lane, Loutherbourg con-
cocted a dramatically scaled-down spectacle from where actors had been
eliminated. Although it was seen by relatively few people, Eidophusikon
was widely written about and imitated by showmen the best they could.
As far as Edward Francis Burney’s watercolor (1782, British Museum),
the only known illustration of an Eidophusikon performance, can be trusted,
the scenes were experienced through a double frame. The spectators sat on
50 E. HUHTAMO
benches in front of a square opening, which had a stage curtain. Beyond it

there was another wall with a smaller opening, slightly above the specta-
tors’ eye level. This is where the scenes were staged. Between the walls,
hidden from gazes, stood a grand piano. The first program established the
formula that was followed throughout Eidophusikon’s existence. There
were five “imitations”: “Aurora, or the Effects of the Dawn, with a View
of London from Greenwich Park,” “Noon, the Port of Tangier in Africa,
with the distant View of the Rock Gibraltar and Europa Point,” “Sun set,
a View near Naples,” “Moon light, a View in the Mediterranean, the Rising
of the Moon contrasted with the Effect of Fire,” and “A Storm and
Shipwreck.” While the scene was being changed, a transparency was dis-
played, and two well-known actor-musicians, Mr. and Mrs. Arne, per-
formed music. No patent was applied for and no detailed description of the
mechanism exists, but it is known that the stage created an illusion of a
deep perspectival space. Waves and clouds were made to move by custom
machinery, and the lighting manipulated to create atmospheric transfor-
mations. Moving miniature boats and mechanical figures were also used.
The simulations were accompanied, beside music, with “foley” sound
effects (detailed, although not entirely reliable contemporary description is
in Hardcastle 1824).
Rather than as an abrupt innovation, Eidophusikon should be inter-
preted as a refinement—a kind of transfiguration—of an existing tradition.
It must have been realized with great care and ingenuity, but Eidophusikon’s
renown can partly be explained by Loutherbourg’s fame and the status of
the target audience, which legitimized its value and made it worthy of
public commentaries. Whether Eidophusikon influenced another noted
mechanical exhibition that appeared in the 1780s or whether both drew
on influences from earlier sources is a question that cannot yet be answered
with certainty. I mean a spectacle by Messrs. Pierre and Degabriel, adver-
tised as Perspektivisches Theater von einer neuen Art or Großes Schauspiel
theatralischer Perspektiven.57 Pierre and Degabriel, a “mechanician” and
an “experimental physicist,” were approximately the same age as
Loutherbourg.58 They were active in Strasbourg, his original hometown.
Loutherbourg is claimed to have demonstrated there “a mechanical the-
ater” in 1780, the year before Eidophusikon was introduced in London
(Ménard 1876, 90).59 If this episode really took place, Pierre and Degabriel
may have been present, or heard descriptions of it. All three may have been
familiar with the tradition of theatrum mundi. An archaeology of the
mechanical theater—particularly one bent on uncovering the background

of Théatre Morieux—has specific reasons to pay attention to the activities
of Pierre and Degabriel.
Little is known about what the duo did before 1780, although Pierre—
and probably Degabriel as well—had already celebrated his fortieth birth-
day. Pierre seems to have been active as an itinerant entertainer.60 Degabriel
was first mentioned in 1780 as one of the inventors of a new type of light
source, normally known as the Argand oil lamp.61 We next meet Degabriel
and Pierre—listed in this order—in partnership staging a balloon ascent in
Strasbourg in 1784, a year after Montgolfier’s pioneering achievement.
The idea was not theirs—they were approached by “people of the first
rank” from Strasbourg, who were eager to stage an aeronautic “theatre
piece” (Schauspiel) in their town.62 The Montgolfier brothers’ success in
the summer of 1783 led to an immense enthusiasm all over France, and
many began attempting similar stunts. Twenty-two attempts have been
counted in 1784 alone (Thébaud-Sorger 2010, 10). Degabriel and Pierre
were approached because their “mechanical and physical works had been
known in the town for many years.”63 It would be interesting to know the
nature of these works. They may have been a combination of practical
applications, popular scientific demonstrations, and pure showmanship.
Similar combinations were becoming common, as Étienne-Gaspard
Robertson’s better known career demonstrates.64 Another balloon
ascent—featuring a richly painted balloon—was staged in Strasbourg in
the same year by the German painter and showman Johann Carl Enslen,
whose paths were to cross those of Pierre and Degabriel in the future
(Heitz 1961).65
Although Degabriel and Pierre’s aerial venture was only partly success-
ful, it earned them a place in the annals of aeronautics.66 Unlike Robertson
and Enslen, they made no follow-up attempts, but their heavy promo-
tional efforts by broadsides, flyers, brochures, and town criers reveal the
acumen of show people (Heitz 1961, 96). We cannot be sure if Pierre and
Degabriel had been involved as a team with optical spectacles before the
ballooning attempt. Their balloon was covered by fanciful decorations,
which may well point to earlier experiences with visual spectacles. In an
extensive article published in 1828, Carl Seidel claimed they had exhibited
landscape views observed through lenses in 1783 and sold them to the
Basel-based Sarasin brothers, who had then shown them in many large
cities. Seidel even suggested that they already called these peepshow views
with “the later often used name” as Cosmoramas (68–69)—a word
52 E. HUHTAMO
thought to have been first introduced by Abbé Gazzera when he opened

his Cosmorama at Palais-Royal, Paris, in 1808. According to Seidel, Pierre
and Degabriel then launched the spectacle that became well known,
exhibiting “little stiff figures” moving in front of a painted landscape. I
have not been able to verify this information from other sources, but the
quality of Seidel’s text does not lead to immediate doubts about it.
By 1786 Pierre and Degabriel—now always listed in this order—were
actively exhibiting and advertising a “new kind of Perspectival Theater” or
“Great Play of Theatrical Perspectives” in various Central European cities.
They gave presentations in Frankfurt in 1786, 1787, and 1788.67 When
they announced their arrival in Munich from Augsburg in the gloom of
early November 1789, they reminded the readers of the Münchener-
Zeitung of their fame as the inventors of a “large mechanical theater
(Mechanisches Theater) which is more than 25 Schuh [about eight meters]
deep.”68 When they left Regensburg on January 7, 1890, crossing the
Danube along the medieval Steinerne Brücke, Pierre and Degabriel were
reported to be traveling with two horse-drawn wagons.69 One can imagine
how unpleasant their voyage must have been; perhaps there was snow on
the ground. In August and September 1790 Pierre and Degabriel were
exhibiting in Budapest.70 Their fame was spreading; in September 1791
the spectacle was featured in Prague as part of the official festivities to
celebrate the ascent to the throne of Bohemia of Holy Roman Emperor
Leopold II and his spouse Maria Luisa. Pierre and Degabriel, the “masters
of large theatrical perspectives,” who, it was said, had astonished Prague’s
inhabitants in the past, entertained visitors crowding to the city for the
coronation.71 The royal visit to their booth was reported in the publica-
tions chronicling the event.72
A description of Pierre and Degabriel’s spectacle can be found from
Schütze’s 1794 history of Hamburg theater (105–107). The enterprising
showmen had been exhibiting in the town the year before, installing their
large booth (Bude) on the Grossneumarkt. The presentations continued
for several months. It is likely that Schütze had attended the spectacle and
noted down his impressions. Countering Pierre and Degabriel’s promise
of “large theatrical perspectives,” he states that they were “in fact small
painterly views” depicting natural phenomena, a sunset, a storm at sea
with thunder and lightning, and so on. Schütze assumed that the atmo-
spheric color effects and swelling waves were “very likely” created with a
magic lantern (1794, 105).73 Puppets and ships, as well as horses and carts
running over bridges, seemed to move by themselves without strings,
leaving Schütze wondering how the trick was done—were woundable

spring mechanisms (Federwerk), “like in the English marionette theater,”
used? Side rooms offered small transparent pictures simulating fireworks
(no doubt feux pyriques) and Degabriel performing experiments in physics
and mathematics.74 During the first months the exhibition drew “unbe-
lievably huge” crowds of both sexes and from both the upper and lower
ranks of the society. When the interest started waning, Pierre and Degabriel
countered by changing the title, adding new scenes (including one of
Hamburg—perhaps made on the spot) and lowering the ticket prices.
The works of the natural magician Andreas Svendsen implied that
Pierre and Degabriel may have performed in Denmark as well. Svendsen
published in 1794 a large compendium titled Naturlig Magie eller
Naturens og Kunstens lønlige og underfulde Virkningar (Kiobenhavn:
H. Goldins Vorlag hos Zacharias Breum, 1794), which contains an exten-
sive range of demonstrations of natural magic, many of which could be
performed on stage. The next year he released a short 36-page book with
an intriguing title, Det magiske Skuespil, eller Beskrivelse og Udvikling af
Pierres og Degabriels Forestillinger og Kunster; samt de magiske hemme-
ligheder i samme, til Underretning for dem, som have bivaanet samme, og
have Lust til at giore lignende Kunster (“The Magic Play, or Description of
Pierre’s and Degabriel’s Presentations and Arts; as well as the magical
secrets of the same, as instructions for those who have attended them or
have a desire to practice similar arts”).75 It presents a smaller selection of
stage tricks. Although it does not say anything about Pierre and Degabriel
(except for the title), it may have been inspired by their performances.
There is no way to tell if all the attractions Svendsen describes were from
their repertory, although one should doubt it. However, the essential fea-
tures of the mechanical theater are explained and even illustrated: the
making of figures with animated limbs, moving them across the stage, and
creating illusionistic backdrops.
PIERRE AND HIS STUDENTS PERFORMING IN PARIS

Pierre and Degabriel’s collaboration may have come to an end around
1795.76 The information of their vicissitudes around this time is vague.
The latter died around 1801.77 Pierre, whose real name was Jean-Pierre
Claude (1739–1814), was already over 60.78 He decided to settle down in
Paris, where he opened a permanent Spectacle Pittoresque et Mécanique on
May 16, 1802, at Carrefour Gaillon, a short walk toward Palais-Royal
54 E. HUHTAMO
from where Boulevard des Capucines meets Boulevard des Italiens.79 He

thereby joined a trend which had been evolving for some years, inspired
by the fact that regulations concerning the right to give theatrical specta-
cles had been abolished during the Revolution. Beside a rich miscellany of
spectacles with living performers, permanent optical entertainments were
established: panorama rotundas, Robertson’s Fantasmagorie, and now a
mechanical theater. The list would be continued by Abbé Gazzera’s
Cosmorama (1808), Bouton’s and Daguerre’s Diorama (1822) and other
speculations. Pierre’s little theater, which has been almost totally ignored
by scholars of visual media, became a noted destination. It was mentioned
in guidebooks and written about by local and foreign commentators alike.
Spectacle Pittoresque et Mécanique was normally considered a novelty. The
Courrier des Spectacles endorsed it as “unique in its genre in all Europe.”80
The quality of Pierre’s presentations must have contributed to the lapse of
memory: spectacles with very similar features had been shown at Parisian
fairs already half a century earlier (see Fig. 2.7).
Much like he had done already when traveling around Europe with
Degabriel, Pierre presented mechanically and optically enlivened tableaux
of geographic locations (transparencies may have been shown during the
scene changes). Loutherbourg’s mode of presentation may have inspired
Pierre to open a permanent venue, but age and perhaps health could have
contributed. Both Loutherbourg and Pierre emphasized artistic quality,
appealing to the taste for voyages pittoresques—graphic depictions of natu-
ral landscapes and picturesque scenes. In the context of Romanticism,
Baroque artifice became coated with the awe-inspiring effects of the sub-
lime. An anonymous commentator wrote about Pierre’s theater: “It is
difficult to paint the nature in a manner which would be more true; to
imitate its most astonishing effects with more magic. The words Pittoresque
and Mécanique are used for a reason; painting and mechanics have been
joined in the most ingenious way to increase the pleasure of the eye”
(Manuel du Voyageur à Paris 1803, 255, author’s translation). Like
Loutherbourg, Pierre kept ticket prices high, charging 5 francs for the best
seats, 3 francs for middle seats, and 1 franc and 50 centimes for back
seats.81 His Parisian establishment was not to be confused with low class
fairground entertainments; Pierre’s peripatetic past among tumblers and
conjurers was of course never mentioned in his advertisements.82
We do not know if Pierre and Degabriel ever performed in Paris or even
in France. No Parisian commentator I am familiar with was able to link
Pierre’s spectacle with his decades-long exploits. Those who did were
Fig. 2.7 A broadside advertising the Theatrum mundi oder: Geographische Bühne
(“Theater of the world or the geographic stage) of Mechanicus Mayrhofer from
Vienna, printed to announce the last performance on December 10, 1826. The
showplace was “Redouten Saale,” which probably points to famous ballroom in
the Hofburg in Vienna but other towns like Linz, Erlangen, and Ofen Pest
(Budapest) also had ballrooms so named. As usual, the presentation ended with a
Storm at Sea. (Author’s collection)
56 E. HUHTAMO
from the German-speaking part of the continent and may have witnessed
him in action with Degabriel.83 Pierre and Degabriel were dedicated self-
promoters, publishing carefully worded broadsides and flyers that con-
tained more detailed information than those of their competitors. Pierre
advertised regularly in Parisian newspapers, which no doubt contributed
to the attention his spectacle received. In a series of letters sent from Paris
in 1806–1807 and published as a book in 1809, Carl C. Berkheim
described the Spectacle Pittoresque et Mécanique enthusiastically, although
he criticized the aging showman’s verbal performance:
I visited Pierre’s picturesque and mechanical theatre tonight. The spectacle

offers moving tableaux that are made livelier and more varied by the inter-
esting regions and sites they depict, such as the bridges of Saint-Cloud and
Neuilly, with all their hustle and bustle. The bridges are covered by people
coming and going on foot, horseback or in chariots; their trajectories cross,
but they don’t collide, passing without touching each other. All this has
been naturally achieved by applying mechanics. But what is really surprising
are the magical light effects the artist produces within these scenes. All the
different tints and visible changes in the shades of color in the sky at differ-
ent times of the day; all the gradations of colors that are perfectly visible at
sunset and sunrise; best of all, the representation of a storm that has an
admirable effect. What a pity that the good and honest Mr. Pierre does not
have better talents as an orator, for his explanations are almost insupportable
in their monotony. (von Berkheim 1809, 317–318, author’s translation)
Ignoring his earlier activities in a provincial Alsatian town and disregard-

ing the fact that his accent revealed he was a “foreigner,” Parisians adopted
Pierre as one of their own masters, crediting him as the originator of the
spectacle (“Mécanique ingenieuse” 1803, 162). Tourist guidebooks
reproduced the inscription carved on his tombstone at Père Lachaise:
“Here rests Claude, known as Pierre, the inventor of the ingenious
Mechanical and Picturesque spectacle, who died September 26, 1814 in
the age of 75 years. This modest monument was erected by his students in
friendly appreciation. De profundis.”84 Although the subject matter of
Pierre’s tableaux kept changing, the format remained unchanged. A sur-
viving program leaflet lists eight pieces, which were supposedly all pre-
sented in the same evening: the Aukerk promenade near Amsterdam, “La
Place” of Bordeaux, Chateau of Pilnitz, the island and city of Corfu,
Eisenach and its surroundings, the castle of Wartburg, the port of Cadiz
with the setting sun, and a representation of the effects of the sea during a
storm.85 This was much like what Pierre and Degabriel had presented in
the past—at least the Cadiz scene had already been part of their repertory.
Not a word is said about side attractions, which had been featured in the
programs of the past. The popular scientific demonstrations, displays of
automata, and so on, may have been Degabriel’s contribution, whereas it
had been Pierre who exhibited the mechanical theater.
After Pierre’s death in 1814 the spectacle was continued by his widow
and former apprentices. Little changed, except that sometime between
1818 and 1820 it was moved to a new location, Rue et Galerie Montesquieu,
a stone’s throw away from the lively entertainment scene of Palais-Royal.
Pierre’s widow is said to have sold the enterprise on September 15, 1821.86
We can witness the continuity of the programming by comparing
Berkheim’s account with a lively description that appeared over two
decades later in the tourist guidebook The New Picture of Paris from the
Latest Observations (1829). Since the information in guidebooks is not
always properly updated, it is possible that the spectacle no longer existed.
A description of one of these scenes will give an idea of the remainder of

these interesting objects: The audience are in the dark; a curtain rises, a city
and the adjacent country are before us, but the sun has not yet appeared! the
dawn just glimmers, the clouds disperse, the landscape becomes more dis-
tinct. The sun’s rays throw a roseate hue on every object. Vessels appear
upon the river, coming from Amsterdam – pedestrians cross the fields – the
sun dazzles the eyes – the cheerful morning, the country girls plucking flow-
ers and smelling them, the gardeners, the cows and horses, the flock of
geese, with all their motions, a duck hunt, and the dog bringing the strug-
gling captive in his mouth to his master – are wonderfully contrived. There
is no stiffness, and all is in due proportion; the sky is well painted, and con-
stantly varying. A storm at sea, and the interior of several cities, with all their
bustling incidents and just costumes, are among the happiest efforts. On
larger scale and improved plan, we might, in this manner, pay a satisfactory
visit to St. Petersburgh [sic] and Grand Cairo, without being frozen or
scorched, learn the dress and many of the customs of the inhabitants, and
the form and habit of all their animals. (Hervé and Galignani 1829, 299)87
Like Loutherbourg’s Eidophusikon, which was particularly influential in

England, Pierre’s Spectacle Pittoresque et Mécanique was imitated by others
in Paris and elsewhere. A 1822 guidebook characterized the Théatre des
Pygmées, or Spectacle du Monde en Miniature, which was exhibited by
another Parisian showman, Sieur Dromal, by saying that those “who have
58 E. HUHTAMO
seen Pierre’s style, will recognize it here” (Galignani 1822, 519).88 Five
years later another source confirmed that Dromal was presenting a
“humble imitation of M. Pierre’s [spectacle]” (Hervé and Galignani 1829,
413)89 Cosmo-Mécanicos, exhibited at Passage des Panoramas No. 14 in
the 1820s, was in the Almanach des Spectacles Pour 1828 characterized as
a “melange between the spectacle of Pierre, the one of Monsieur Comte,
and phantasmagoria” (1828, 241).90 Earlier, when Dromal took his spec-
tacle on a tour through the French provinces, Journal de l’Ain, a local
newspaper, characterized him as a “painter and mechanic of the late
M. Pierre” (August 31 1820).91 That may or may not have been true.
Those who had been or claimed to have been his students or assistants
played an important role in the dissemination of Pierre’s influence. In
1813, when Pierre was still alive, “his students” (élèves) brought a similar
spectacle to Ghent, as the Journal du Département de l’Escaut reported on
April 2, 1813. Even Étienne-Gaspard Robertson, who had become well-
known thanks to Fantasmagorie, fell under his spell. In 1805 he was
reported to have presented in Saint Petersburg a spectacle named La
Kinetozographie. From the description the reporter had received he con-
cluded it was nothing but an imitation of Pierre’s Théatre Pittoresque et
Mécanique (“Gazette Littéraire” 1805, iii–iv).92
Robertson was keen on promoting his own name, so he would not have
credited his competitor, but many others crowned their spectacles by
evoking Pierre’s name. A showman who called himself “Mr. Conus from
Paris” and introduced himself on a broadside in Vienna as Professor der
Physik, claimed he was the owner of the “mechanical-picturesque theater
founded by Pierre.”93 The mechanism, which had been invented by “de
Gabrielle [sic] and Pierre, who had both passed away,” had been “signifi-
cantly improved” (ibid.). Similarly, when “Messrs. Le Fort and Company,
with Assistants from Paris” brought its Mechanical Exhibition to the Sans
Pareil Theatre on the Strand in London in 1816, the broadside claimed it
was “on the Model of the celebrated one of Monsieur Pierre’s of Paris, to
whom Monsieur Le Fort was Assistant, and which is now exhibiting there,
with Unbounded Applause and Admiration.”94 Persons identifying them-
selves as Pierre’s former students also gave presentations in other London
showplaces, such as Spring Gardens.95 The Frenchman Jean-François
Thiodon, whose Mechanical and Picturesque Theatre of Arts crisscrossed
the British Isles for decades, helped mix Pierre’s influence with that of
Loutherbourg.96 Through the efforts of such showmen the mechanical
theater became an international phenomenon. It reached the United
Fig. 2.8 Invitation card to attend the Spectacle Pittoresque et Mécanique de

Pierre, 1816. The card states that the theater was then operated by Pierre’s pupils.
It has been issued to M. “Villenave,” which may be a misspelling for “Villallave.”
José Villallave became a well-known mechanical theater operator and may be visit-
ing Paris. (Author’s collection)
States already in the 1810s, and even found its way to the islands of the
Caribbean.97 Thiodon’s theater was exhibited in the United States and
also in Australia (Bradshaw 2007; Fig. 2.8).
FROM PIERRE TO PIERRE: HYPOTHETICAL TRAJECTORIES

There are reasons why I have spent this much time tracing the careers of
Messrs. Pierre and Degabriel. For years, I have been scouring documents
about popular entertainments in the early nineteenth-century Paris, hop-
ing to find a glimpse of Pierre Morieux. Messrs. Pierre, Dromal, Comte,
and Maffey, all of whom were associated with mechanical theaters, have
become familiar. I have also encountered popular scientific demonstrators
like Olivier, Robertson, and Lebreton, but Morieux has remained evasive.
With relative certainty I can state that during the first three decades of the
century there never was a public exhibition in Paris carrying his name. Was
60 E. HUHTAMO
repeating the year 1809 as the birth date of Théatre Morieux an act of
deception or make believe? It does not have to be so. I have come to think,
without being able to verify it, that Pierre Morieux may have joined
Pierre’s Spectacle Mécanique et Pittoresque in that year as an apprentice. If
his assumed date of birth (1794) is correct, he would have been 15 years
old—young but not too young. I have also been wondering if Pierre
Morieux’s first name is real or adopted as an homage to Pierre. The claim
that he had exhibited in Paris for 22 years does not match the remaining
years of Pierre’s theater but he could have found another employer.
The problem with my hypothesis is that Pierre and later his widow and
students never exhibited at Boulevard du Temple. There were those who
did. Pierre Morieux could have been employed by Charles Dromal, whose
Théatre des Pygmées, or Spectacle du Monde en Miniature operated along
Boulevard du Temple between 1809 and 1814. Another possibility is
Messrs. Maffey. The Maffey family was a dynasty of puppet theater per-
formers active in France already in the late eighteenth century.98 Influenced
by Pierre (as they later admitted), they added mechanical theater numbers
to their performances and took them abroad. In 1817 we find Maffey with
a partner named Cramer exhibiting in Spain, then on his own 1817–1818 in
the United States, where the spectacle was called by names like
“Metamorphoses, Picturesque, and Maritime Theatre.”99 In 1820 Maffey
settled down in Paris, establishing a theater named Petit Lazari at 58,
Boulevard du Temple, probably on the same site, where Dromal had been
operating his spectacle a few years earlier. In 1824, the Maffey troupe
again began traveling, performing frequently in England until at least the
end of the decade.
Petit Lazari belonged to petits spectacles, minor shows. Information
about its whereabouts is full of lacunae. It is unclear if it operated during
the late 1820s and 1830s, but it is quite possible. Part of the family may
have remained in Paris keeping the doors open; Pierre Morieux could have
been a team member.100 In 1837, Maffey requested for a permission to
open a new theater, “Gymnase maritime et pittoresque,” at 84, Boulevard
du Temple (McCormick 1993, 42). It seems to have opened in 1840, but
information is vague. In the same year, in August, Louis Maffey, age 50,
and Julia Maffey, age 42, arrived in New York.101 The following year
Maffey, in partnership with Lonati, began exhibiting “chemical dioramas”
said to have been imported from France. In 1845, Felix-François-Benoit
Maffey, characterized as “owner of a petit spectacle mecanique,” died in
France. Pierre Morieux and the beginnings of Théatre Morieux around
1840 may have been part of this picture. A hint of his involvement could
be the word “maritime,” which Théatre Morieux used in posters (but not
in the program booklets). It was utilized by Dromal, Maffey, and another
showman, José Villallave, but never by Pierre and Degabriel. A case in
point, on March 26, 1824, Villallave advertised in the American &
Commercial Daily Advertiser “Grand Picturesque Theatre. Mechanical
Metamorphoses and Maritime Views” on view at the New Theatre,
Belvidere [sic] street in Baltimore. Théatre Morieux never traveled over-
seas, but was indirectly related with an international circuit of spectacles.
As a self-important showman, Léon van de Voorde (1858–1940)
repeatedly emphasized the high artistic quality of Théatre Morieux’s. It is
understandable, because the show people had to fight prejudice and obtain
permissions from local authorities. Official correspondence, which led to
disappointments and frustrations when permissions were denied, was an
integral part of the profession102 At fairs the kind of “purity” of program-
ming Loutherbourg in London and Pierre in Paris represented was rarely
possible because of the intense competition for the visitors’ eyes and
purses. Most spectacles, whatever the genre, consisted of elements that did
not fit together seamlessly: the format was composite. When Jean-François
Thiodon exhibited his Mechanical and Picturesque Theatre of Arts in the
Music-Saloon in Wakefield on January 14, 1828, he stated he was “desir-
ous of affording a diversity of rational Entertainment.” The program
included “The View of Tophana, Or, The Arsenal of Constantinople,”
“Mechanical and Mathematical Feats of Dexterity,” “Buonaparte Crossing
the Alps,” “The Wonderful & Unrivalled Automaton on the Flying Rope,”
and the indispensable “A Storm at Sea!”103
The programs of Thiodon and Morieux were by no means identical,
but they had much in common. “The Wonderful & Unrivalled Automaton
on the Flying Rope” must have resembled the Seilschwenker-Automaten of
Théatre Morieux. Both had adopted the number from other sources.
Christian Josef Tshuggmall (1785–1845), an autodidact Tyrolean
Mechaniker, became famous for the mechanical figures he constructed and
exhibited in his Automatentheater already in the late 1820s; the
Seilschwenker was among the most noted.104 However, Tschuggmall’s
work also built on tradition. He had been inspired by Matthias Tendler, a
Mechanicus from Eisenarz in Steuermark, who traveled with his
Mechanischen Kunstreuter und Seiltänzer in the early nineteenth century.
Georg Paulus Buchner exhibited similar programs around the same
62 E. HUHTAMO
time.105 Enslen’s mechanical figures did rope tricks already in the 1790s;
very likely he was not the first to exploit the idea.106
The words “original” and “authentic” were evoked over and over
again, but they were little more than figures of marketing speech. Even if
we one day found out the true identity of Pierre Morieux and discovered
his early affiliations, it would be less important than understanding the
complex ways in which Théatre Morieux became part of a multinodal
world. Rather than a miniaturized theatrum mundi, it was a theater of the
world crowded with human agents; a realm where lifestyles, habits, profes-
sions, social formations, and influential and uninfluential practices were
woven together. The resultant fabric was never finished; it kept breaking
apart from one end while the other end was being stitched together. Such
an unstable environment, in the process of constant becoming and unbe-
coming, was the terrain where itinerant exhibitions gained their roles and
meanings, contributing their share to what Norbert Elias famously called
the Civilizing Process—not in the sense of teaching table manners or dress
codes, but in the sense of familiarizing the spectators with living in realities
that were becoming mediatized.
CONCLUSION: ALL TOGETHER NOW

What was the identity of the mechanical theater? Perhaps we should
replace “identity” with “nonidentity” before asking the question, for
although we can single out the basic structural elements of the disposi-
tive—like the rows of painted flat figures with mechanical movable parts
moving along rails one behind the another in front of a painted back-
ground—it is evident that the configuration kept changing. Three perfor-
mative contexts have been identified: the mechanical theater as an element
of the puppet theater (theatrum mundi), as an independent attraction
(Loutherbourg’s Eidophusikon; Pierre’s Spectacle Pittoresque et
Mécanique), and as an element of itinerant multimedia “variety” spectacles
(Théatre Morieux and other attractions that used the words Mechanisches
Theater, Théatre mécanique, Welttheater, etc., as their “umbrella identifi-
ers”). In the latter case—the main target of this investigation—the ele-
ments were relatively stable, but their combinations unstable. The logic of
formula and its variation reigned. New things were added, old ones were
dropped. Predictability was complemented with unpredictability. The
audience’s expectations had to be fulfilled but also exceeded to maintain
curiosity and keep the word of mouth spreading.
Nineteenth-century audiences and commentators do not seem to have

made a clear separation between things “optical” and things “mechani-
cal.” It is instructive to peek at the contents of Maelzel’s Exhibition, when
it was offered for auction in 1847 by the exhibitor who owned it then:
Mae[l]zel’s Moscow, Maelzel’s Grand Carrousel, consisting of eight Horses

and twenty Figures, most ingeniously got up, Automaton Rope Dancers,
and Speaking Figures, a beautiful Phantasmagoria, complete with fifty-seven
Slides, Grand Cosmorama, comprising fourteen Views, two of which are
moved by Clock Work, with eight Lenses: also, a Splendid set of Leger-de-
Main apparatus, suitable for a Magician or an Amateur, with many other
Exhibition Fixtures, &c. &c.107
There was plenty of variety indeed. A broadside used to advertise the per-
formances at the Assembly Building, Philadelphia, in January 1845, stated
in a very appropriate manner: “Mr. Maelzel has so combined the arts of
Design, Mechanism and Music, as to produce, by a novel imitation of
nature, a perfect facsimile of the real scene.”108 Human performance was
often still part of the combinations and became momentarily fore-
grounded, when magic tricks or human dexterity (including ombromanie,
the art of hand shadows, as performed by Félicién Trewey and others)
were presented. Any combinations were allowed, not only within the same
performance but also within its individual components. Rules were meant
to be stretched and broken. The ways the concept mechanical theater was
applied at Théatre Morieux were an example of the trend the synthesized
miscellaneous elements rather than tried to keep them apart. If Théatre
Morieux was a “mechanical theater,” it was a far cry from the early theat-
rum mundi. It could be at the same time a mechanical theater in the tra-
ditional sense, a moving panorama, a diorama, a magic lantern show, and
a (pseudo)automaton cabinet. It even metamorphosed into a magic per-
formance, when Jean-Eugène-Robert Houdin’s latest trick, Suspension
éthéréenne (ethereal suspension, or the levitating lady, 1847), spread from
Paris to the fairgrounds, and was quickly staged by the novelty hungry
show people.109 Théatre Morieux could be all of these things, but it was
none of them exclusively—not even a “mechanical theater.”
Everything worked smoothly until cinematography appeared to the
fairgrounds around 1900. It was a different kind of business, more indus-
trial from the outset. The traditional exhibitors (Léon van de Voorde)
who jumped to add it to their offerings like they had added other
64 E. HUHTAMO
things in the past encountered problems. Exhibitors who concentrated

solely on exhibiting moving pictures began considering it their exclusive
right and tried to prevent others from doing so. Many municipal authori-
ties endorsed their claims. Frustrating moments were spent by Léon
scribbling letters to local officials to persuade them to let him add film
projections to the end of the programs of Théatre Morieux. In early
1909, he invested in a cinematograph pavilion, Imperial Bio Kruger.
Léon was now a film exhibitor, but he kept showing the traditional
Théatre Morieux favorites too.
One thing that fitted uneasily to Théatre Morieux was live performance.
Attempts were made over the years, but they did not lead to lasting
changes in the program. At one point, Léon hired a dancer and a clown,
but decided to get rid of them. The wax museum exhibitor Anatole
Buiron, who was associated with the van de Voordes through family ties,
could not agree more, stating frankly to Léon: “That did not suit to your
thing, particularly the dancer. I would rather think that it damaged your
reputation in the eyes of the respectable public.”110 Having characters per-
form a “parade” in front of the fairground booth to gain attention was a
common practice, but Anatole’s piercing eye, trained by years of itinerant
showmanship, detected a contradiction with the nature of Léon’s specta-
cle: “Why would you have this bunch do their tumbling on your narrow
parade, making the whole structure tremble? And how about the clown?
Are you a circus operator?” he slurred. A mechanical theater was some-
thing else than the performances of gymnasts on a tightrope, trained dogs,
or jolly tumblers. Léon’s spectacle was technological and mediatic.
Although he would never have come to think about it, Théatre Morieux
was a “laboratory” for exploring, exposing, and exhibiting forms of media
culture in the making.
Although tracing the formative developments of media culture was not
part of his mission, it is interesting to note that Rank titled his pioneering
1961 essay “Theatrum mundi—the Newsreel of Bygone Days” (Link
1984, 9). He made little effort to substantiate this insight, but evoking
newsreels resonates with my efforts to demonstrate that spectacles like the
moving panorama and the mechanical theater played roles in the gradual
formation of media culture. They gave the audiences glimpses of a world
where encounters and “conversations” with media would become standard
parts of everyday experience. Of course, there may be counterarguments.
Calling presentations of painted canvases in motion or the antics of
mechanical marionettes as “media” can seem over-determined. Are they
not simply variations of the proscenium arts, where real-time presentation

of pre-fabricated content reigns? I have presented my arguments about the
mediatic character of the moving panorama in Illusions in Motion (2013),
so I will only make a few comments about the mechanical theater here.
For me the crucial issue was the displacement of human protagonists with
something else. Optical illusions and mechanical effects took the place of
live actors carrying a linear storyline. One could argue that mechanical
marionettes were only extensions of their operators, much like string pup-
pets got their “lives,” gestures, and personalities from the puppeteer.
However, giving motion to mechanical marionettes moving along a rail
one after another was a much more impersonal act, not unlike turning the
crank of a silent film projector.
A mechanical theater performance offered a discontinuous series of vir-
tual trips, presenting the audience surrogate travel as the next best thing
for “really being there.” In its own particular way it shared this goal with
cosmoramas, dioramas, moving panoramas, and what the Germans called
Zimmerreisen (Room Journeys). All these forms existed side by side, influ-
encing each other. An intriguing issue is the relationship between the opti-
cal and the mechanical components of a spectacle like Théatre Morieux.
No basic contradiction was found in their coexistence by the contempo-
raries. Commentators, who wrote about Pierre’s Théatre pittoresque et
mécanique, emphasized how seamlessly these elements had been inte-
grated. Still, it is hard to imagine anyone confusing such composite scenes,
put together of highly discrepant ingredients, with the reality they pur-
ported to represent. Much like the grand scenic illusions of the Baroque
era, they were probably embraced simultaneously as gorgeously artificial
and palpably “real.”
Audiences of our time would probably find combination of little flat
painted metal figures, cardboard waves and clouds, illusionistic paintings,
and mechanical sound effects as weird. Media culture has become increas-
ingly virtual. Material gadgets function as user interfaces and portals to
reach realms that are physically absent. Virtual reality headsets are tools for
entering audiovisual worlds that may feel life-like and “tangible” but ema-
nate from an elsewhere. Smartphones are used to retrieve and send digital
information and to get in connection with remote participants. Robots,
the successors of automata, seem different: they are here and now. The
cleaning robot Roomba or Sony’s recently reintroduced robot dog Aibo
are material and tangible, although they are electronic as well. As media
culture keeps spreading to every aspect of the everyday, the relationship
66 E. HUHTAMO
between virtual and material things will become more and more symbi-
otic; whether we want it or not, in a world where the “Internet of Things”
rules, everything will be connected. The history of the mechanical theater
provides us glimpses of the cultural logic that began orchestrating such
mergers and rearrangements a long time ago.
Acknowledgments I am in eternal gratitude for Jean-Paul Favand for his support

and encouragement, which has made my research of Théatre Morieux possible.
The entire team of the Musée des Arts Forains (Paris Bercy) has helped me. Suzanne
Wray has shared ideas and sources about mechanical theaters for years. Without
Nele Wynants’ invitation and persistence this article would never have been fin-
ished. Thomas Weynants has helped in many ways; it was from Thomas that I first
learned about mechanical theaters. Last but not least, Lars Rebehn (Dresden),
Manfred Wegner (Munich), and Ingrid Sonvilla (Salzburg) gave me access to
important resources.
NOTES
1. The full story will be told in my forthcoming book, tentatively titled
“Théatre Morieux and the World of Mechanical-Optical Entertainments:
A Media Archaeological Study.”
2. Items such as magic lantern slides survive in private collections in Belgium
and the Netherlands. Early silent films from Théatre Morieux were
acquired and preserved at the Gaumont-Pathé Archives and the Fondation
Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, Paris.
3. I will discuss “dispositive” in a forthcoming book, “Dismantling the
Fairy-Engine: Media Archaeology as Topos Study.” See Kessler (2004–
2007, 2003); François Albera and Maria Tortajada (2010, 10–12);
François Albera, and Maria Tortajada (2015, 11–14, 15–16, 21–44).
4. One of the earliest known broadsides formulates it thus: “Theatre pit-
toresque maritime et mécanique aus Paris von M. Morieux, dasselbe,
welches 22 Jahre lang seine Vorstellungen zu Paris auf dem Boulevard du
Temple gegeben hat.” (“…the same who gave presentations for 22 years
along Boulevard du Temple”), broadside, no date (late 1850s?), printed
by J. J. Fischer in Leipzig. Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig. I thank
the museum for high resolution copies of the material on Théatre
Morieux in its collection.
5. “Notice sur les Origines du Grand Théatre Mécanique, Pittoresque,
Maritime Morieux de Paris,” flyer, one page, undated (c. 1909). Jean-
Paul Favand Collection, Paris (from now on: FC). A poster (FC) depicts
a sea battle where an ironclad steamship is shooting at two rigged battle-
ships. The text underneath says: “Thêatre mecanique. Morieux. 61

Boulevard du Temple. 61.” The poster was printed in Hamburg, which
seems to have served as the winter quarters for Morieux and Van de
Voorde in the 1850s and 1860s. No shows can be traced to 61 Boulevard
du Temple. Does the poster prove that Morieux really performed in Paris
or was it produced a posteriori to substantiate the myth about its origins?
I still have no answer.
6. The book mentions that Théatre Morieux did not appear again in Ghent
until 1888. It was then under the direction of Jean Henri’s son Léon Van
de Voorde, who had recently moved from Bremen to Belgium. I have not
been able to verify Rousseau’s information.
7. Jurkowski agrees: “All were known by the same title: ‘mechanician’. Little
or nothing is known of most of them but they were many and their shows
were more or less similar” (Jurkowski 1996, 350).
8. A Pierre Morieux, born in the village of Condé-sur-Noireau in Calvados,
Northern France, on July 5, 1794, may have been the founder of Théatre
Morieux. Email from Fabien Gossart, Médiathèque de Condé-sur-
Noireau, to Dominique Hebert, Musée des Arts Forains, November 4,
2009. The parents are listed as Pierre Morieux and Marie Bizet (Relevés
Généalogiques de la Commune de Condé-sur-Noireau, B.M.S. 1793–
1798, Réference 261D). A letter sent from Condé-sur-Noireau by “Mère
Morieux” (likely Pierre Morieux’s widow Marie Morieux, born Vanet) to
“Bien chers enfants” (probably Jean Henri Van de Voorde and his wife
Henriette Falckenberg) on January 9, 1876, implies that Pierre Morieux
had passed away. Marie was living with a sister, the only remaining local
relative. This indicates that Marie may have been a native of Condé-sur-
Noireau, although I have not managed to trace her.
9. The spelling of the family name kept changing depending on country and
family member.
10. Visas granted by German authorities to Jean Henri have been preserved
in FC. Similar information has been found from German archives.
11. The surviving pavilion may be an extended and refurbished version of the
one Léon constructed with Jean Henri around 1883–1884. Comparing
surviving cabinet card photographs (FC) of both reveals similarities such
as the double columns toward both ends of the façade.
12. My views have been profoundly influenced by conversations with Jean-
Paul Favand. He recommended me the works of Florian Dering, which
have provided important background information (see Dering 1986;
Messen-Jaschin et al. 1986).
13. Based mainly on British material, Brooks McNamara (1974) presented a
classification of the scenography of popular entertainments. Théatre
Morieux does not fit neatly within any of his categories. It was more
68 E. HUHTAMO
sophisticated than “improvised theater,” an itinerant form. Its exhibitors

were highly concerned of the quality of their presentations, and ended up
being well-to-do bourgeoisie. Thanks to Vanessa Toulmin for pointing
out this article.
14. The description is mainly based on an official cabinet card photograph,
stamped on the back “P. Geeraerts, 15, rue des Brasseurs, Châtelet.”
Undated, c. 1900–1910. The personnel, nine men and three women, are
posing on the parade.
15. The arches at the left and right extremes of the façade were fake. The
purpose of the spaces behind them is unclear. The details were modified
from time to time.
16. Many of the elements have been preserved in FC, but no instructions
have been found about how to put it all together. I have made tentative
efforts to reassemble the auditorium with the museum team.
17. Many different illuminants have been preserved in FC.
18. The estimate is based on the seats preserved at Musée des Arts Forains. In
a newspaper announcement “Vorläufige Anzeige, Grosses mechanisches
Theater ‘Morieux’” (source unknown, c. 1884, FC) Eugène Van de
Voorde claimed that Théatre Morieux had room for 1000 people and was
illuminated by 250 gas and electric lights. The figures cannot be trusted.
The pavilions of Eugène and Léon were not necessarily identical.
19. The drop curtain with its mechanism has been preserved in FC.
20. “Explanation and Presentation of the mechanical theater of Mr. Morieux,
a mechanic from Paris.” Printed by J. Gottsleben, Mainz, hand-dated
(when?) “1857.”
21. Cambon exhibited a moving panorama of Versailles in London in the
early 1850s, so the information may be correct, although nothing else is
known about the panorama in question. The moving panorama enjoyed
high popularity in the 1850s.
22. The broadside states: “painted by Mr. Cambon, mechanics by Mr.
Morieux.” “Théatre pittoresque maritime et mécanique aus Paris von
M. Morieux,” broadside, Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
23. Ibid. Ansichten à double effets. The text states that the technique was
invented by Louis Daguerre. “Monsieur Philaster” was likely the Parisian
scene painter Humanité-René Philastre, who collaborated with Cambon.
Around 1838 they are said to have painted a panorama of Paris, which
was exhibited in New Orleans in 1839. Philastre’s son Eugène Philastre
(1827 or 1828–1886) also became a theatrical scene painter. David Karel,
Dictionnaire des artistes de langue française en Amerique du Nord
(Québec: Presses de l’Université de Laval 1992), p. 634. Cambon’s and
Philastre’s presence in the program may point to Morieux’s connections
in Paris.
24. It is mentioned in the broadside Heute und folgende Tage während der
Messe [Leipzig?] täglich drei Haupt-Vorstellungen in der eigends dazu
erbauten großen, elegant decorirten und gegen jedes ungünstige Wetter
geschützten Bude: Mechanisches Theater von M. Morieux, Mechanicus aus
Paris, no date [post 1859], Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
25. The elements have been reconstructed at Musée des Arts Forains.
26. An eyewitness report of a performance of Maelzel’s Burning of Moscow
is quoted in The Good Companion Chess Problem Club (Philadelphia: The
Good Companion Chess Problem Club), Vol. IV, Nos. 11–12 (May 11,
1917): 178.
27. Photographic lantern slides began spreading in the 1850s (Huhtamo
2013, 275–276). Because of the depth of the stage, lantern slides may
have been rear-projected on a translucent screen.
28. Die neuerfundenen, durch Hydro-Oxygen Gas erleuchteten mecha-
nischen Nebelbilder (“Recently invented, with oxy-hydrogen [limelight]
illuminated dissolving views”). Heute und folgende Tage während der
Messe. A pair of identical magic lanterns was probably used, because a
biunial lantern (with two optical tubes in one lantern body) was a very
recent invention. A magnificent dissolving lantern pair from Théatre
Morieux is in a Dutch private collection, with spectacular large format
slides. It is marked on a brass dissolver “H. J. Harting Bank” and carries
hand-painted words “Pauer St.” and “Strass[en]. G[us],” possibly indi-
cating the manufacturer of the lanterns’ wooden bodies. The lanterns
seem from the 1870s to 1880s. Harting Bank was a philosophical instru-
ment maker in Utrecht.
29. Copies in FC, Bibliothèque nationale (BnF) Paris.
30. The eruption began on April 26, 1872, and lasted for a few days. It
destroyed some villages and killed 20 spectators.
31. It is at the Musée des Arts Forains, and has been restored and exhibited.
For the first few years Léon did not use the name Théatre Morieux, prob-
ably because his elder brother was touring with a theater carrying that
name.
32. In May 1886 Jean Henri received a letter from Kursk, Russia, from a
showman named Edmond Peygnot. In broken French Peygnot asked
Jean Henri to produce for him a “tableau” as well as a “drunken clown”
and acrobatic automaton making tricks on the cloud swing, “like the one
your son Eugène has.” Peygnot had written earlier, only to be told Jean
Henri was too busy. If he had time now, Peygnot suggested, he could
send an advance payment. He asked Jean Henri to make the mechanical
figures sturdier, because the two acrobatic automata he had been exhibit-
ing were “quite destroyed.” Edmond Peygnot to Jean Henri Van de
Voorde from Kursk, “ville du gouvernement,” May 26, 1886 (FC).
70 E. HUHTAMO
33. Léon called the conductor Hinko and the clown Chico. It became the
latter’s task to lift one of the unnamed aeronautical pseudo-automata
from the rope and carry it away. Léon’s booklets often localize the scene
as Fantaisies Bruxelloises. Léon always stated that the “automates et acro-
bates gymnasiarques” had been invented and constructed by his beloved
father (rather than by P. Morieux, as his brother Eugène had stated).
34. “Die Erschaffung der Welt, nach der biblischen Geschichte in 14
Verwandlungen, belebt durch bewegliche Figuren und dazu sich eignende
Beleuchtungs-Effecte.” “La création du monde” with the same descrip-
tion reappears in Léon’s later program booklet (printed in Namur, 1890s)
in the section “Productions merveilleuses du Diophrama,” which at
Théatre Morieux meant magic lantern slide projections. He may have
inherited the slide set from Jean Henri or his brother Eugène, who had
died in 1890.
35. The musicians were not mentioned in the early booklets, but were always
part of the show, as profuse correspondence preserved in FC
demonstrates.
36. A complete pencil sketch has been preserved in the Thomas Weynants
Collection (Ronse, Belgium) and the panorama canvas itself in
FC. Additional sources that may have been used were postcards Léon
bought in Paris (FC), as well as stereoscopic photographs taken by
Charles Buiron, the son of the wax museum owner Anatole Buiron, who
was doing his apprentice at Théatre Morieux and accompanied Léon and
his son Edmond to Paris (FC).
37. It is signed by Gruber. There is correspondence about its creation and
purchase (FC).
38. Léon’s magnificent set of slides about Nansen’s expedition (made by
Krüss, Hamburg), together with Théatre Morieux’s magic lantern pair
for dissolving views, is in the collection of Martin Vliegenhardt, the
Netherlands.
39. Around 1894 Léon still exhibited an earlier traditional version. Elements
of the electrical version have been preserved at Musée des Arts Forains.
40. The notion mechanical theater or spectacle mécanique—another related
term—sometimes referred to displays of automata or even to traditional
string puppet theater.
41. There is much literature about this topic, perhaps because von Kempelen’s
chess player resonates with current debates about Artificial Intelligence
and chess-playing computer programs trying to beat humans.
42. Explanatory text to a lithograph depicting the Exeter Clock, printed by
Hackett, Exeter 1833 (author’s collection). The lower part (the pedestal)
opened to reveal a panoramic view of Exeter. The Exeter Clock is said to
have been about eight feet tall. It was passed from one owner to another
and still exhibited in the nineteenth century. It was destroyed in an aerial

bombing in 1941 but remains were put on display at the Exeter City
Museum in 2001 (they belong to the William Brown Street Museum,
Liverpool). A history can be downloaded from www.lovelacetrust.org.
uk/gallery/jacoblovelacesclocks.pdf (last accessed January 28, 2018).
43. www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/tableau-anime-chateau-de-saint-ouen
(last accessed January 25, 2018). The maker’s information has been
engraved to the mechanism: “Desmares Machinistre [sic] Semtier St Jean
Paris, 1759.” Chapuis and Droz could not decipher the maker’s name
but published a photograph of the mechanism (Chapuis and Droz 1949,
153).
44. Quotation from Goldovsky’s book in Russian (Moscow, 1994). I have
not seen it.
45. There is little focused research about Hellbrunn’s Mechanisches Theater.
The most important source is Eduard Schnöll, “Funktionsanalyse des
Mechanischen Theaters in Hellbrunn,” Diplomarbeit (unprinted),
Institut für Feinwerktechnik der Technischen Universität Wien, 1978. I
am grateful for Ingrid Sonvilla, Schlossverwaltung Hellbrunn, for provid-
ing me a copy. I did research in Hellbrunn in August 2013.
46. Ibid., Chap. 2.1. Due to reparations over the years, the number of figures
has somewhat varied. I was allowed to enter inside the mechanical theater
through a doorway at the back. An old sign warns: Rauchen verboten!
47. This hard-to-find exhibition catalog remains the main source about theat-
rum mundi. Link’s posthumous text was first published in 1961.
Unfortunately, it is not annotated.
48. This expression can be found from numerous German language broad-
sides for itinerant puppet theaters. (Mechanisches) Welttheater was an
alternative expression.
49. Pierre Boistuau’s Le theatre du monde, ou il est fait un ample discours des
miseres humaines (Rouan: Theodore Reinsard, c. 1590 [1588]) discussed
the miseries of human life. A German version (by Boistuau and Laurenz
Rothmund) was titled Theatrum mundi, Das ist, Schauwplatz der Welt:
Darinnen von ellend und arbeitseligkeit dess Menschen, durch alle und jede
Alter und Stände menschliches Lebens gehandelt wird […] (Basel: Jacobum
Trew, Jn verlegung Hans Conrads, 1607). Giovanni Paolo Gallucci
applied the notion to celestial mechanics in his Theatrum mundi, et tem-
poris (Venice: Giovanni Battista Somasco, 1588). A related notion was
Theatrum historicum, which was used about history books.
50. In Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift used Lilliputians to satirize
contemporary British society, presenting a kind of theatrum mundi.
51. Lars Rebehn, the curator of the Puppentheatersammlung (the National
Puppet Theater Collection) in the Museum für Sächsische Volkskunst in
72 E. HUHTAMO
Dresden, agrees with this idea, as I found out when talking to him during
my research stay in Dresden in May 2016.
52. Some survived into the twentieth century, allowing Link to have first-
hand experience of them. Link’s extensive collection is the origin of the
Staatliche Puppentheatersammlung (Dresden). Some material ended up
in the puppet theater collection of the Stadtsmuseum in Munich, which
lost much of its holdings in the bombing raids of World War II. The cura-
tor Manfred Wegner graciously allowed me to study the latter resource.
53. The principal histories include Magnin (1981 [1852]) and Jurkowski
(1996).
54. According to Link (1984), a mechanical spectacle called Weltmachine
oder Natürlichen Schauplatz der Welt was presented in the 1740s by
Johann Ferdinand Beck, an itinerant actor turned marionettist. I have not
been able to trace the source of Link’s information, but Beck is known to
have added mechanical novelties to his presentations. About Beck, see
Brandt and Hogendoorn (1993, 117).
55. Johann Friedrich Schütze, Hamburgische Theatergeschichte (Hamburg:
with author’s cost, printed by J. P. Treber, 1794). It has been claimed
that theatrum mundi was invented by the mechanic Johann Samuel Brede
in the beginning of the eighteenth century. See https://skd-online-col-
lection.skd.museum/Details/Index/234901 (last visited March 3,
2018). No hard evidence is provided.
56. Les Affiches de Paris, Thursday, February 8, 1748 (author’s translation). I
found the exact date from the original uploaded in www.gallica.fr.
Reproduced in Campardon 1877, 434. Partial translation was published
in April 1854 in “The Puppets of all Nations,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh
Magazine 75, 462: 392–413 (quot. p. 406).
57. See their advertisement in Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt,
No. 34 (April 21, 1789); Pierre and Degabriel also announced bewegende
Kunstbilder (moving paintings), which may have been the same thing or
clockwork-operated mechanical paintings. They were advertised in the
Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt, No. 77 (Sept. 11, 1788).
Stephan Oettermann’s privately produced broadside archive
Ankündigungs-Zettel contains several program flyers from them (copy in
the author’s collection).
58. A nineteenth-century encyclopedia entry about Loutherbourg, repro-
duced numerous times in other encyclopedias, stated that “the invention
of the Théatre mécanique et pittoresque realized by the artist Pierre has
been attributed” to Loutherbourg. The original source may be Pierre
Courtin, Encyclopédie moderne, ou dictionnaire abrégé des hommes et des
choses, des sciences, des lettres et des arts, IIe ed. (Bruxelles: Th. Lejeune,
1830): 470.
59. Ménard compares Loutherbourg’s presentation with Séraphin’s Ombres

chinoises, which may be a misunderstanding. He gives no source, but the
information can be found from an encyclopedia entry, which claims that
his first experiments with théatre mecanique et pittoresque, since then per-
fected by Pierre, took place in Strasbourg in 1780. The entry claims that
Séraphin’s shadow theater was based on Loutherbourg’s system, which is
incorrect (Sitzmann 1910, 211).
60. Toward the end of the period 1756–1763 Pierre is said to have applied
for a permission to perform “mathematical arts” in Prague (Alice Dubská
in Jakubcová (2007, 460–461). According to miscellaneous references,
he may also have exhibited ombres chinoises.
61. This was mentioned in several sources, for example, Le Journal des Sçavans
(Paris), Vol. 1 (June 1780): 1133. Degabriel was described as a
“Frenchman known for his talents in experimental physics.”
62. Beschreibung der von den Herren Degabriel und Pierre Mechanikern in
Strasburg verfertigten Luft-Maschine (Strasburg: Kurschnerische
Buckdruckerei [1784]), 3). Pierre’s and Degabriel’s ascent has been dis-
cussed in detail by Fernand J. Heitz (1961, 88–97). Heitz had found no
information about their origin or personality.
63. Beschreibung der von den Herren Degabriel und Pierre Mechanikern in
Strasburg verfertigten Luft-Maschine, 1784, 3.
64. The first volume of Étienne-Gaspard Robertson’s Mémoires récreatifs, sci-
entifiques et anecdotiques d’un physicien-aéronaute (Paris: chez l’auteur,
1831–1833) centered on Fantasmagorie, the second on his balloon
experiments. On Robertson, see Levie (1990).
65. Enslen made his attempts with his brother, the painter, Gottfried Christian
Enslen. Unlike Degabriel and Pierre, he continued staging balloon stunts
besides offering optical entertainments. In 1789 he released in Lübeck
“colossal air filled figures” in the shape of animals, and the like (Becker
1805, 380). Like Pierre and Degabriel, Enslen was among the featured
entertainers in Prague during the coronation festivities of Leopold II in
1791.
66. Their balloon experiment was described in French and German in Kramp
1784, 230–233.
67. See advertisements in Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt, 76
(September 8, 1788), 9.
68. “Avertissements, 1,” in Kurfürstlich gnädigst privilegiertes Müncher
Wochen- und Intelligenzblatt, XLV (Nov. 5, 1789), 286. Pierre and
Degabriel were still in Munich in late December. Their final presentation
was announced for Sunday, December 27. The shows took place at the
Schwarzen Adler, in the hall of Weingastgeber (inn owner) Mr. Albert.
The place was said to be nicely decorated, well heated, and illuminated
74 E. HUHTAMO
with wax lights. The seats were priced according to four categories, 1–3
Platz (rows of benches?) and behind them a gallery, probably for standing
spectators. See ibid., No. LI (December 23, 1789), p. 324.
69. Regenburgisches DIARIUM, Oder: Wochentliche Frag- und Anzeige
Nachrichten, II (January 12, 1790), 12. Steinerne Brücke is Germany’s
oldest surviving bridge still in use.
70. The exhibitions were held next to the Duna-híd (Danube bridge) at
Buda’s summer theater. Katalin Czibula, “A pest-budai német sajtó
szinháztörténeti híradásai 1781–1790 között,” Magyar Könyvszemle, 111
évf., 1. szám (1995), pp. 34–35.
71. Vollständiges Archiv der doppelten böhmischen Kronung Leopolds des
Zweiten und Marien Louisens, Infantin von Spanien, in Prag im Jahre
1791. Prag und Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht [1791],
198–199.
72. Krönungsjournal fur Prag: Siebentes Stück. Prag: Johann Friedrich Ernst
Albrecht [1791], 414.
73. It is possible, because of Degabriel’s involvement with the invention of
the Argand lamp. It was an improved oil lamp that became the standard
light source for professional magic lanterns, including those used in
phantasmagoria.
74. According to Schütze, Degabriel’s demonstrations were inferior to those
of the Italian Taschenspieler (conjurer) Professor Pinetti, who had per-
formed at the Drillhause in Hamburg in 1789 (1794, 106).
75. Kiobenhavn: Der Kongelige Wansenhuses Bogtryggerie, Carl Friderich
Schubart, 1795. I thank Det Kongelige Bibliothek, Copenhagen, for
making me a copy of this rare book. The word Skuespil seems to come
directly from Pierre and Degabriel who sometimes used Schauspiel (play,
theater piece) about their spectacle.
76. There is little information about Pierre’s and Degabriel’s performances
from 1793 onward. A list of entertainers who had performed in Kiel,
compiled much later, includes “Pierre, Degabriel und Saphir, Physiker
und Mechaniker, Oct. und Nov. [17]94.” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft
für kieler Stadt, issue 27 (1911), 326. Kiel: Verlag von Lipsius & Tischer.
Is this an error or did the aging showmen partner with a third person?
Degabriel is said to have exhibited in Warsaw in 1795. Pierre was not
mentioned (Waszkiel 1990, 87).
77. According to a medical doctor from Warsaw who had treated Degabriel,
his death was caused by heart failure. It had had happened “a couple of
years ago” (Wolff 1804, 17). Did Degabriel retire in Warsaw? In 1801,
Pierre is said to have applied for a permission to settle down in Vienna
(Dubská 2007). See also “Pierre, Jean-Claude” in Ceská divadelní encyk-
lopedie (Czech theater encyclopedia), online at http://encyklopedie.idu.
cz/index.php/Pierre, Jean-Claude (last accessed February 26, 2018).
78. In a letter to the mayor (of Paris?), dated September 11, 1809, Pierre
asked to be released from being conscripted to “the guard” (la garde)
because of his age. He specified that he was born on May 7, 1739, and
was then 70 years old. The petition was accepted. Collection de manu-
scrits d’Auguste Rondel, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. A document in
the Rondel collection suggests Pierre’s birthplace was the village of Herny
near Dieuze (Lorrain).
79. The theater was at the intersection of rue du Port-Mahon, rue de la
Michodière, and rue Gaillon. The address was given in different ways
over the years, including Rue Neuve de la Fontaine, which referred to the
fountain of Louis-le-Grand at the intersection. As the author has tested,
the theater was quite a walk away from Boulevard du Temple but much
closer to Palais-Royal, another nexus of entertainments (Séraphin’s
Ombres chinoises was there.).
80. Calvel 1804. “Théatre Pittoresque et Mécanique de M. Pierre.” Courrier
des Spectacles, January 10 (no. 2507), 2. Several notices about Pierre’s
theater appeared in 1803–1804.
81. Programme des pièces qui se donnent aujourd’hui et jours suivants
(Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris). By 1812, the ticket prices had been low-
ered to 3 fr, 2 fr., and 1 fr. (Tynna 1812, 433).
82. A handwritten document in the Auguste Rondel collection at Bibliothèque
nationale, Paris, confirms this. Under the letterhead of the administrator
of Theatre de Pierre it talks about the visit a group of notables, including
Duc de Berry, Duc and Duchesse d’Orleans, and so on, had made to the
theater. The letter was no doubt meant as press material. 4-NRO-386 (2).
83. V. A. 1803. “Pierre’s optisches und mechanisches Theater in Paris.” In
Minerva, Vol. IV, No. XII, 565–567. Hamburg. The writer says that
many publications, including German, have praised Pierre’s theater with-
out knowing that he had already performed in Hamburg in 1793, “dur-
ing the entire summer.” The writer praises Pierre’s spectacle, saying
Ombres Chinoises is “child’s play” compared with it, but wonders how
something that had been seen in Germany for a decade could be consid-
ered “something very new,” unique dans son genre, in Paris (p. 567).
According to the writer, Pierre was an ignorant person, who had come to
the possession of his theater by chance and did not fully understand its
value until a learned person named Courant told him about it in Hamburg
(ibid.).
84. M. P. De S.-A. (1825, 121). The information was repeated in many pub-
lications, for example, in Galignani (1822, 564).
85. Programme DES PIÈCES qui se donnent aujourd’hui et jours suivans, à
7 heures et demie précises, AU THÉATRE PITTORESQUE ET
MECANIQUE, RUE NEUVE DE LA FONTAINE […], do date
(pre.1814), Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, available via Gallica.org.
76 E. HUHTAMO
86. The information comes from handwritten notes attached to a few manu-
scripts about Pierre’s theater, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, collection
Auguste Rondel, 4-NRO-386 (1–3). It is said the theater re-opened
under the new direction on December 1, 1821. “After being closed for a
long time it opened again May 29, 1824 under the direction of
Vanhoestenberghe and Courtois, whose program included mechanical
pieces, [demonstrations of] physics and phantasmagoria. It was re-named
Spectacle de Nouveauté de physique amusante.” “Spectacle de physique
amusante (Passage Montesquieu)” can be found from a list of weekly
opening hours of attractions, in G. Harmand (1824), before page 1
(probably inserted as a last minute addition). Théatre Pittoresque et méca-
nique de M. Pirrre [sic] is still included in the list of theaters (294–295),
which indicates that the transition of ownership was recent.
87. However, Almanach des Spectacles Pour 1829 (Paris: Barba 1828, 240–
241) also still listed Pierre’s theater. Had it made a comeback by its origi-
nal name?
88. His full name was Charles Dromal (also written Dromale). He is said to
have begun his career as an exhibitor of tightrope acts in Versailles before
moving to Boulevard du Temple in 1809, where his show was called
Théatre des Pygmées, or Spectacle du Monde en Miniature. It was to the left
from Madame Saqui’s Spectacle des Acrobates (No. 62), probably at No.
58, where Théatre du Petit-Laz(z)ari was opened some years later. John
McCormick (1993, 59) claims that Dromale had exhibited on the boule-
vard since the 1790s, referring to Paul Ginisty (1925, 41). This is unlikely.
Théatre des Pygmées is said to have started its operations on the Boulevard
du Temple around 1811 by Gourdon de Genouillac (1893, 409).
89. The show had been closed for years, or Dromal may have reintroduced it.
According to McCormick, Pierre’s spectacle also became a reference
point for itinerant puppeteers who were applying for a permit: “They
would often describe their shows as being ‘after the manner of Citizen
Pierre’” (1993, 59).
90. Another source spoke about théatre de la galerie du Panorama cosmo-
mechanicos. Tableaux with mechanical effects were exhibited by the
owner, M. Henri, who may have been the famous British magician and
exhibitor (Annales du barreau français […] 1823, 531–532).
91. Online at www.memoireetactualite.org (last visited July 16, 2013).
92. Back in Paris, an announcement promoting the Spectacle instructif de
M. Robertson listed the following program: “fantasmagorie, théatre pit-
toresque et mécanique, machine parlante et trompette mécanique” (Le
moniteur universel 9 August 1815, 888).
93. Herr Conus, no date [1820]. Mit hoher Bewilligung. THEATRE
PITTORESQUE und unterhaltendes physicalishes Cabinett. Broadside,
Vienna: Vienna Library Collection, online at www.digital.wienbibliothek.at

(last visited February 27, 2018). Other broadsides from Conus are in the
same collection. The library dates all 1828, probably by relying on informa-
tion from other sources. When Conus exhibited in Augsburg in 1824, he
called his spectacle Bewegliches Panorama und physikalishes Cabinet
(Moving panorama and physical cabinet) des herrn Conus, but still men-
tioned it as an improvement of “de Gabrielle’s and Pierre’s” invention. It
was clearly a mechanical theater rather than a moving panorama proper.
Several broadsides have been reproduced in Oettermann (2003, nos 1700–
1707). Conus also performed “physical” experiments and magic tricks.
94. Messrs. Le Fort and Company. 1816. “Mechanical Exhibition! From
Paris.” Broadside, Paris: Sans Pareil Theatre, The Strand, April 8–13
(Oxford: John Johnson Collection, Bodleian Library).
95. Encyclopedia Londinensis 1821, 484–485. The article mentions a presen-
tation at Sans Pareil, probably meaning Le Fort’s appearance in 1816 (see
previous note). According to the article, Pierre’s spectacle did not receive
in London the attention it deserved. Too numerous imitations of
Eidophusikon may have already been seen.
96. Much like at Théatre Morieux, the direction was passed on in the family
to the next generation. Jean-François’ assistant Thomas Henry Aspinall,
who married his daughter, became the director. Under the name Aspinall
Thiodon he took the spectacle to America and Australia. See Bradshaw
2007.
97. Writing the history of the mechanical theater is a huge task and beyond
the scope of my book on Théatre Morieux. Suzanne Wray has traced
histories of Messrs. Maffey and José Vilallave, who was probably Cuban
and began his career as a rope dancer before becoming a mechanical the-
ater exhibitor. Vilallave may have attended Pierre’s spectacle in Paris (see
illustration).
98. Their complicated chronology (still unprinted) has been put together by
fellow media archaeologist Suzanne Wray, who has shared it with me.
Felix-François-Benoit Maffey was married to Henriette-Sophie Cramer,
who came from another show family.
99. Mentioned, among several other known sources, in NY Evening Post,
June 17, 1818.
100. In 1830, the “Spectacle mécanique du Petit Lazari” was described as a
“species of puppet show, suited to amuse the lower ranks and children.
The puppets undergo various transformations by means of mechanism.”
(Galignani 1830, 562).
101. Information from Suzanne Wray’s Messrs. Maffey chronology (author’s
archive).
102. Large quantities of letters from local municipal authorities as well as drafts
of letters sent to them by Léon have been preserved in FC.
78 E. HUHTAMO
103. See www.invaluable.co.uk/auction-lot/thiodon-s-mechanical-and-pic-

turesque-theatre-of-the.arts/ (last accessed February 27, 2018).
104. One of them survives, together with a group of other mechanical figures
created by Tschggmall, in the Puppentheatersammlung, München
Stadtmuseum.
105. See Oettermann 2003, vol. 5 no. 1208 (Tendler, also with “Chinese opti-
cal firework,” no doubt feux pyriques); vol. 6 no. 1740–1742 (Tendler);
vol. 7 no. 2051 (Tendler 1817); 2048–2049 (Buchner 1818, 1819).
106. Schelesische Provinzialblätter, March 1794, 306. The article mentioned
similar figures had been copied from Enslen by the master mason Johann
Müller from Trebnitz.
107. “Positively the Last Ten Nights of Maelzel’s Conflagration of Moscow!”
newspaper announcement, Montreal, Canada, hand-dated July 1847,
reproduced in The Good Companion Chess Problem Club (vol. IV, 11–12),
May 11, 1917, 180. Philadelphia: The Good Companion Chess Problem
Club. The owner was Mr. P. L. Zaionczek. In the United States mechani-
cal theaters were often advertised as “mechanical panoramas” or
“mechanical dioramas.”
108. Reproduced in ibid., 1917, 179.
109. Both Théatre Morieux and its competitor, Grosses Mechanisches Theater
oder: Theatre des Arts, exhibited by J. Flutiaux “from Paris,” were soon
staging it. Morieux promoted Die frei in der Luft schlafende Dame in
“Théatre pittoresque maritime et mécanique aus Paris von M. Morieux,”
broadside, no date (after 1850), Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig.
Flutiaux stated that the hovering body belonged to “Mademoiselle
Flutiaux” (Nürnberger Beobachter, September 15, 1853, 440. Woodcut
included). Morieux’s levitating lady was described as a sleeping Greek
maiden. M. Herrmann from Hanover brought it to the Theatre Royal
Hay-Market, London, April 17–22, 1848. Broadside in Evanion, British
Library, online at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/evanion/Record.
aspx?EvanID=024-000000428&ImageIndex=0
110. Letter from Anatole Buiron (Remoiville) to Léon Van de Voorde (Ghent),
August 11, 1898 (FC).
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CHAPTER 3
“Rendre réel aux yeux du public”: Stage Craft,

Film Tricks, and the Féerie
Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk
One way to describe a realist work conceived for the stage or the screen
could be to qualify it as an “artifice that aims to produce an effect of
authenticity”. The authenticity, then, would lie in a specific effect created
by the work with the help of certain devices, that is, the impression of a
faithful, adequate, and accurate rendering of a situation, an event, or the
living conditions of people under given circumstances, while the norms,
according to which such a rendering is seen as authentic, are constructed
intermedially (literature, painting, photography, etc.). The artificiality,
conversely, would have to be disguised by the very devices the artist has
used to create the effect of authenticity. In some cases, the claim to authen-
ticity in a realist work is underscored by framing it as being “based on a
true story”.
F. Kessler ( )
Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: F.E.Kessler@uu.nl
S. Lenk
e-mail: S.Lenk@uu.nl

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_3
84 F. KESSLER AND S. LENK
But what about fantastic events, which, from the outset, have to be
considered “impossible” when judged against our knowledge about the
world we live in, such as, for instance, wizardry, teleportation, or shape-
shifting? At first glance, the situation is not entirely different, because
here, too, we are in the presence of an artifice that has to appear authentic.
Yet, the frame of reference is a different one: the authenticity does not
concern the relation of the fantastic event to the real world as in the first
case, but the way in which it is presented and how its representation is
perceived as a diegetic element by the audience. The theatrical or filmic
representation needs to be convincing enough, so that the spectator’s
absorption into the fiction is not disrupted by, for instance, “the little
strings on the Giant Spider”, as Frank Zappa put it in his hymn to cheap
Hollywood horror movies.1 In other words, and to go back to Aristotle’s
famous observation in his Poetics, the fantastic has to appear as a “probable
impossibility”.2
To make the impossible appear probable, the strongest means that arts
of the stage and the screen have at their disposal, is to have the audience
witness it with their own eyes. This, of course, can only be achieved by
means of artifices, that is, through the use of tricks that are conceived by
mobilising advances in the sciences and technologies, including media
technologies. Their function is, as Arthur Pougin explained in his diction-
ary of theatrical terms in 1885, “de rendre réel aux yeux du public”, that is,
to “make appear real to the eyes of the audience” the fantastic events of a
play (Pougin 1885, 748).3 In order to do so, such tricks have to be exe-
cuted with the utmost precision, lest the devices used to perform the trick
become visible and thus clumsily reveal the artifice.
So as an artefact creating an effect of authenticity, the trick seems to
work in the first instance for the benefit of the audience’s belief in the
fictional event, to make the fantastic look real, to make appear probable
the impossible. The trick, in this respect, is a device that prevents the dis-
ruption of the “fictionalising mode” of a play or a film, to borrow this
concept from Roger Odin’s semio-pragmatics (Odin 2000). In a similar
vein, Georges Méliès’s stated in 1907 already that with the help of the
various tricks he had invented or introduced into cinema thanks to his
long experience as a stage magician, “it is possible today to achieve the
most impossible and improbable things in kinematography” (Méliès 1907,
148).
However, the smooth, preferably seamless integration of fantastic
events into a fictional narrative presented on the stage or on the screen is
not the only function of a trick, in particular in genres such as the féerie,
“RENDRE RÉEL AUX YEUX DU PUBLIC”: STAGE CRAFT, FILM TRICKS… 85
Fig. 3.1 Frame enlargement from Voyage autour d’une étoile (Pathé frères,
1906). (Authors’ own collection)
which was popular on the French stage throughout the nineteenth cen-
tury and was adapted for the screen by Georges Méliès and others around
1900. Despite its popularity, however, it is all but absent from most the-
atre histories, which makes it all the more interesting as an object for a
media archaeological excavation. In the féerie, the spectacular element
predominated, and while the tricks most certainly had to be convincing,
they had to be remarkable as well: not only amazing and impressive, but
also attracting the audience’s attention to themselves. In a féerie, in other
words, the tricks were attractions in their own right, and audiences came
to see and to appreciate them. The specific status of the trick as a device
that functions for the benefit of the narrative as well as drawing attention
to itself as an artificial element of the mise en scène and an attraction will
thus provide a central focus for our exploration (Fig. 3.1).
THE FÉERIE: A GENRE FULL OF PARADOXES

The féerie is a genre of paradoxes in several respects.4 Its main goal, as we
have seen, was to create an enchanting universe for the audience, where all
sorts of magic occur, with charming princes and lovely princesses, fairy
godmothers, witches, wizards, genies, and sprites. Behind the scenes,

however, highly sophisticated technical means had to be employed to
make such a world full of wonders come into existence. The magic, in
other words, was the result of a complex machinery, technical precision,
money, and a well-trained and efficient staff.
Yet, contemporary critics writing about stage féeries often emphasised
that their specific charm lay in the genre’s “naiveté”. Such a view leaves
out not only the immense technical efforts that were needed to produce
the effect of “naiveté” but also the fact that such a show was first and fore-
most based on strictly economic calculations. To stage a féerie, important
financial investments were needed and, to begin with, only theatres capa-
ble of seating large audiences could afford to take the commercial risks
that were involved. On the other hand, the earnings of a successful féerie
could indeed sustain a theatre for the rest of the season. As Émile Zola put
it: “One can earn two or three hundred thousand francs with this type of
play, if it is successful. But as the production costs are quite considerable,
an impresario is ruined if two féeries he produces turn out to be failures”
(Zola 1881, 353).
The entire production of such a play was strategically planned and cal-
culated for a maximal effect: from the elaboration of the scenario—which
was indeed the term used also for the stage play—to the various attractions
that in fact structured the show. Edmond Floury, technical director of the
Châtelet theatre in Paris, one of the stages that regularly presented féeries,
explained in an article published in two parts in 1906, how such a spec-
tacular play was conceived and produced:
Once the authors have been chosen, one has to find a subject that everyone
will agree upon and which is in line with the current fashion; when the sce-
nario has been outlined it will be read to the manager, who will give his
comments and ask for changes. The play will be written act by act; some-
times, when finalising the production, one will call upon an old stager who
will rearrange everything and finish the work (…). (Floury 1906a, 1387)
The scenario, in other words, was the product of a collaborative effort,

which also implies that the narrative was less important than the various
attractions built into the play as they in fact provided its underlying struc-
ture. The same strategy was employed by Georges Méliès, who declared
that, when filming a féerie, he first conceived the spectacular effects,
while the scenario only served to join them together (Méliès 1932, 23). As
Floury points out, when the outline was established, the producers had to
look for a number of sensational effects called “fins d’actes” (endings of
the acts) or “clous” (major effects or attractions). Their originality and
capacity to amaze and surprise was of the utmost importance, as they made
the critics talk about the show in the press and thus were essential for its
commercial success. To find the main attraction, the producers were will-
ing to undertake travels abroad and to import a successful act, even if it
was expensive.5 Consequently, they were prepared to have the scenario
rewritten in order to be able to integrate such an act, even at the last
moment, should that be necessary. According to Floury, a spectacular play
needed to have at least three “clous”, one of which had to be a real topper
(Floury 1906b, 1517). So, far from being a “naïve” type of show, staging
a féerie demanded above all sober economic calculation and a sound com-
mercial strategy.
Moreover, one of the topoi that recur in the discourses surrounding the
féerie since at least the mid-nineteenth century is nostalgia. In 1866
already, the French writer Théodore de Banville lamented that the original
charms of the genre were a thing of the past, as did Adrien Bernheim or
Paul Ginisty half a century later.6 Often, this nostalgia was linked to child-
hood memories, and the féerie was characterised more generally as a genre
addressing children “big and small”, as Zola phrased it, which also fed into
the idea that its principle charm was its “naiveté” (Zola 1881, 357). The
nostalgia for an idealised past, an original and purer form of the féerie,
contrasts with the continuous search for new attractions and the competi-
tive edge that were necessary to keep the genre economically viable. The
producers, in other words, had to be always on the look-out for novelties,
and in particular the most advanced technologies, which would allow
them to present to the audience the enchanting and enchanted universe
that could revive the childhood memories, which played such a central
role in the critics’ discourse. This discursive construction of the féerie in
terms of nostalgia is clearly at odds with the technological progressiveness
that characterised the productions, and it reveals the duplicity of the crit-
ics’ attitude. Talking about “naiveté” implies in fact a rational point of
view, and the degree to which one gave oneself over to the charms of the
spectacle depended on how authentic the magic appeared to the
spectator.
The charming fairy-tale world that the féerie presented on the stage and
later on the screen, as well as the genre’s discursive framing in terms of
“naiveté” and nostalgia, position its “authenticity” precisely in its remote-
ness from the harsh reality of the everyday world. Even though he fer-
vently called for a naturalist theatre, Émile Zola declared:
I confess my tenderness towards the féerie. This is, I repeat, the only setting
where I accept the disregard for truth on the stage. Here we are fully in the
realm of convention and fantasy, and its charm is to lie and to escape the
humble realities of our world. (Zola 1881, 356)
However, the naïve charms of the plays that so many commentators

praised are almost polar opposites to the economic and technological real-
ities that made such a show possible. Using not only the entire repertoire
of stage craft but also the most advanced technologies, the enchantment
was a product of highly rational operations. One thus has to, literally, look
behind the scenes to understand the rationale of the féerie.
Yet, and this makes the case of the féerie particularly interesting and
complex, we can conclude that both the financial investments and the
technological achievements were elements that were acknowledged and
assessed by the audience, because they were part and parcel of the perfor-
mance’s success or failure. As contemporary sources such as Floury sug-
gest, audiences flocked to the theatres not only to be charmed by the
enchanted universe and the wondrous events that unfolded on the stage
but also to enjoy the attractions, to admire the sophistication of the tricks
and effects, and to be overwhelmed by the means deployed by the
producers.
THE FÉERIE: A COMPLEX DISPOSITIF

In order to better understand the féerie as a stage and screen genre, we
think it is useful to try to describe it as a dispositif. With this concept, we
refer to the interdependence between three poles: a techno-pragmatic
pole, a textual pole, and the pole of spectatorship. Each pole interacts with
the two others, and these relations constitute the different aspects that
characterise a given dispositif (Fig. 3.2).
The first and probably most complex pole combines two aspects: on the
one hand, there are the technological affordances of a medium or perfor-
mance, the elements that characterise it, the means of expression it can
mobilise, and so on. On the other hand, there is the specific use to which
the medium is put. In relation to the textual pole, there is the establish-
ment of a space of communication as defined by Roger Odin: a theoreti-
Fig. 3.2 The performance dispositive by Frank Kessler
cally constructed (i.e. non-physical) space where a certain type of

communication takes place, such as, for instance, the transmission of
information, of knowledge, or of a fictional narrative. Here it is possible to
take into account not only the general pragmatic conditions governing
that type of communication but also the concrete historical, social, and
cultural circumstances that shape the communicative acts that take place
within it (Odin 2011, 37–41). In relation to the pole of spectatorship, the
techno-pragmatic conditions assign a communicative role to the spectator,
who is positioned as someone to be informed, influenced, taught, enter-
tained, and so on.
Looking at the triangle from the point of view of the textual pole, it is
possible to analyse the textual form, as it is organised according to a rheto-
ric strategy, which is adapted to the space of communication. In relation
to the spectator, this translates into a mode of address which signals to the
spectator how the text has to be framed in order to be understood
adequately.
The spectator, finally, will take a certain attitude in response to the role
assigned to her or him by the techno-pragmatic conditions. In order for
the communication to take place, this attitude will have to be an affirma-
tive one (but obviously, each individual member of an audience has always
the choice to reject this role). Regarding the textual pole, the spectator
will have expectations with respect to the textual form in accordance with
the text’s mode of address. These expectations also constitute the frame-
work for the way in which the text is understood. It goes without saying
that the concept of “text” is taken here in a very general sense, which
allows to include also images or performances.
For clarity’s sake, we will in a first step separate the two levels on which
the féerie functions, that is, the “naïve” and the “informed” perspective on
the performance. In the first case, starting from the techno-pragmatic
pole, the elaborate stage technology and all the elements of the mise en
scène are used to create a space of fictional communication, which, more
precisely, accommodates a fiction that implies a fantastic and fairy-tale like
diegetic universe. Accordingly, the spectator is assigned the role of a
fictionalising reader accepting the structures of this universe. Seen from
the textual pole, the rhetoric strategy of a féerie consists of providing a
series of fantastic events that, even though they are connected by a narra-
tive thread, do not result in a tightly knit plot. In particular, the féerie
operates with stock characters that are not driven by psychological motiva-
tions in the strong sense of the term, but rather follow the established
conventions of the genre. Correspondingly, the mode of address is one
that could be designated as “playful”, because it underscores the conven-
tionality of both the action and the characters and thus precludes any seri-
ous emotional involvement with them. From the point of view of the pole
of spectatorship, this is mirrored exactly by the spectator’s expectations
and results in the attitude of a fictionalising reader willing to accept the
rules of play, which are set by the genre.
This, however, is but one level of the féerie-dispositif. On the second
level, the techno-pragmatic pole consists in the display of the effects that
the technology can produce. This constitutes a space of spectacular or
attractional communication, assigning to the spectator the role of a viewer,
who is capable of appreciating the various marvels that the performance
presents, and at the same time admires them as achievements of stage, and
later kinematographic technology. The rhetoric strategy on this level con-
sists of highlighting the attractions and placing them in the overall struc-
ture of the play in such a way that their effect on the audience is optimal.
The mode of address is an attractional one, displaying a colourful and
luxurious world full of magic, thus attempting to meet the audience’s
expectations of a spectacle that aims to enchant them with new and aston-
ishing effects. The spectators’ attitude, finally, is one that includes both an
openness to the visual and other delights that will unfold before their eyes
and a critical appreciation of the degree to which their expectations are
actually met.
Both levels of the dispositif are interconnected and ideal—typically they
will have functioned in parallel, even though individual spectators may
have tended more to the one than to the other, or may have shifted con-
tinually between them. Children, undoubtedly, may have experienced a
féerie to a high degree on the first level, and may even have taken the
action very seriously, thus switching into an almost unrestrained fictional-
ising mode. But taking as a point of reference an adult spectator, who
knows the rules of the genre, the dispositif of the féerie has to be under-
stood as a complex interweaving of both levels.
THE LOGIC OF STAGE CRAFT AND TRICKS

The interrelationship between the creation of an enchanted diegetic uni-
verse and the display of attractions that have to be appreciated and admired
as such by the spectator is also constitutive for the trick as a central device
in the féerie as a genre. A trick, indeed, can be seen as functioning in a way
similar to a trompe l’œil: it presents something that aims at being perceived
as a convincing representation, but in order to be appreciated for what it
is, the spectator has to be aware of the trickery as an astonishing achieve-
ment. With respect to the use of tricks in cinema, this is the case in particu-
lar for what Christian Metz in his seminal article on this subject has called
“invisible trucage”, and which he defined as follows:
Invisible trucage is another matter. The spectator could not explain how it
was produced nor at exactly which point in the filmic text it intervenes. It is
invisible because we do not know where it is, because we do not see it
(whereas we see a blurred focus or a superimposition). But it is perceptible,
because we perceive its presence, because we ‘sense’ it, and because that
feeling may even be indispensable, according to the codes, to an accurate
appreciation of the film. (Metz 1977, 664)
Metz coined the felicitous phrase of trucage as an “avowed machniation”

(Metz 1977, 664) to characterise this strange configuration: there is some-
thing we cannot see nor explain, and yet we know it is there, because we
can perceive its effect. This, in turn, is the prerequisite for us to be able to
appreciate it as an effect produced by means of the technology of the
medium, in the case of cinema, or the stage machinery in the case of the-
atre. Metz described this foundational interrelationship, which is at work
in all kinds of trick effects, as follows:
There is then a certain duplicity attached to the very notion of trucages.

There is always something hidden inside it (since it remains trucage only to
the extent to which the perception of the spectator is taken by surprise), and
at the same time, something which flaunts itself, since it is important that
the powers of cinema be credited for this astonishing of the senses. (Metz
1977, 665)7
The trick, in other words, reproduces on a smaller scale the duplicity of the
féerie’s dispositif that we discussed earlier: it is offered as an attraction—“it
flaunts itself” and brings about an “astonishing of the senses”, as Metz put
it—while at the same time it works for the benefit of the diegesis, because
it allows to show an “impossibility” that, as an element within the story
world, is presented in such a way that the spectator accepts it as “proba-
ble” (to return briefly to Aristotle).
This spectatorial logic of the trick pointed out by Metz has, as it were,
an economical flipside, which is also characteristic for the féerie, as we have
noted earlier. In order to draw audiences into the theatre, the producers
have to always look out for new and spectacular effects, just as the film-
maker has to innovate to be able to stay competitive in the market. Georges
Méliès, for one, was very conscious of this fact and this is why he insisted
in his 1907 essay on the continuous innovation in his work and the advance
that he had on his competitors:
(…) I used my ingenuity and dreamt up, in turn, dissolving scene-changes

(created by a special device in the camera); apparitions, disappearances, and
metamorphoses created using superimpositions on black backgrounds or
separate sections of the set; and superimpositions on already-exposed white
backgrounds (something everybody declared to be impossible before they
saw it). I cannot discuss the subterfuge I used to create these superimposi-
tions because my imitators have not yet penetrated their full secret. (Méliès
1907, 148)
Novelty thus played an important role in the “astonishing of the senses”

that tricks aim to achieve according to Metz, and at the same time it was a
central economic factor. In the case of stage féeries, the most spectacular
tricks in a performance were often discussed extensively by the critics,
which helped to promote a production. Sometimes, however, this could
also have an adverse effect, as Émile Zola noted, because the articles in the
press created expectations that the performance could not always fulfil:
The general rule is that whenever there is a stir about a trick which is sup-
posed to cause excitement in Paris, it is almost certain that the trick will fail.
The audience shows up with high expectations and believes there will be an
absolute illusion, and when they do see the strings (…), there is no illusion
at all, because they have become too demanding. (Zola 1881, 330–1)
So there seems to have been a possible tension between the previous

knowledge of the audience and the degree to which the spectacle was
capable of surprising them. This is indeed an important factor for the suc-
cessful functioning of the dispositif that we sketched out. On the other
hand, a lack of appreciation may have been due to the fact that members
of an audience were not capable to adequately assess the effort that was
necessary to create an effect. Méliès, for instance, complained that
(…) the simplest tricks, much to my chagrin, make the greatest impact,
while those achieved through superimposition, which are much more diffi-
cult, are hardly appreciated, except by those who understand the problems
involved. (Méliès 1907, 148)
These two remarks by Zola and by Méliès combined indicate that there
must have been a precarious balance between the “naïve” and the
“informed” perspective on the féerie. When audiences did not possess suf-
ficient previous knowledge, they were incapable of appreciating the
achievements, and if they knew too much and came with high expecta-
tions, there was a risk that a trick failed to impress them. In both cases, the
complex dispositif of the féerie could no longer function adequately.8 In
that respect, the audience was in fact the decisive instance that judged
whether or not a trick, and on a more general level a féerie, was successful.
Their expectations had to be fulfilled, they had to be convinced that the
“impossibility” was indeed “probable”, whether the artifice could really
appear as “authentic”.
TRICKY MEALS
Before we conclude, we would like to have a brief look at two examples:
one from the stage and the other a kinematographic one. Both concern
scenes involving a table and various accidents that make it impossible for
the character to have a meal. In his book on stage machinery, the French
author J. Moynet describes a scene from a spectacular play, apparently a
féerie, but Moynet does not reveal its title. In this scene, the hero’s
antagonist is subjected to all sorts of pranks, there are apparently numer-
ous effects that, according to the description Moynet provides, must have
looked quite amazing:
Let’s see what happens on the stage, which represents a room in the palace
of the princess’s father, where the protégé of the fire-genie, who will marry
the girl once he has gotten rid of the one whom she prefers, is getting ready
for a good meal, followed by a good night’s sleep. But he has not taken into
account the protectors of his adversary, who will not give him a minute of
rest. First the candles on the table get bigger and bigger and illuminate the
ceiling. An enormous frog comes out of a door and makes the servants run
away. The warriors depicted on the tapestry step forward and sit down at the
table; the character cries and calls; people arrive: everything looks normal.
He asks the servants to stay with him; everything that is served to him is
eaten by a portrait, which decorates the room; the chairs change places,
fantastic creatures sit on the furniture, but when someone approaches, they
are gone. All these tricks, all these movements come from below [the stage].
(Moynet 1888, 228)
Most, if not all of the tricks in this scene, were thus executed with the help
of various sorts of traps, quite probably supported by stage lighting. The
major part of the effects concerns apparitions and disappearances. As they
were presented in rapid succession, this must have been rather demanding
for the technicians. While, quite probably, the scene described by Maynet
was but an intermezzo in the narrative, it was clearly conceived as a playful
display of astonishing effects. Playful, because this is not a scene of horror.
The character may be scared, but the audience was supposed to enjoy his
fear and laugh about it, while admiring the parade of spectacular tricks.
The second example is a short scene from Georges Méliès’s 1906 film
Les quatre cents farces du diable. The film includes footage that Méliès had
contributed to the stage féerie Les 400 coups du diable, which had pre-
miered at the end of 1905 at the Châtelet theatre in Paris. In the scene we
are referring to, two characters enter an inn that is run by no other than
Satan himself. When they sit down to have a meal, their chairs disappear,
and so does the table. They go to a second table, and again everything
disappears. Then another table emerges from the floor, they walk towards
it, but again it disappears. The tricks are executed using both stage traps
and substitution splices. In Méliès’s film, the artificiality of the scene is

underscored by the painted backgrounds and the cardboard tables, so the
playfulness of the depicted events is obvious right from the start. In the
overall construction of the film, the episode does not serve a specific nar-
rative function, the main point of the scene is the cavalcade of trick effects,
which the audience is supposed to enjoy and to admire.
Both examples thus point into the same direction as our general remarks
on the féerie as a spectacular genre, as well as our discussion of the trick as
its central device, and so they can serve as illustrations of our observations
both on a theoretical and a historical level. Yet, it is important to also note
the difference separating stage féeries from their kinematographic counter-
part. While the stage féerie was a spectacle in its own right, presented very
often during the holiday season around Christmas to attract family audi-
ences, the kinematographic féerie was generally part of a programme pre-
senting a variety of films of different genres and in many cases constituted
a climax of the show. Being often coloured, the féerie films offered indeed
both splendour and amazing technical achievements, which contrasted
with the other genres in the programme. Obviously, spoken text, songs,
sounds, and music were used extensively in stage performances, while
there was only musical accompaniment and maybe a spoken commentary
during a film show. As for the means through which the tricks were per-
formed, there was of course some overlap, such as the use of traps.
However, a film studio could not offer the same elaborate technical infra-
structure of stage machinery as theatres, while the range of kinemato-
graphic tricks (substitution splices, superimpositions, dissolves) could not
be reproduced in the same way on stage. So, the affordances of both media
differ considerably.
The kinematographic féerie can be considered a remediation of its stage
model, but on the other hand a film scene was used already in the 1896
production of La Biche au bois at the Paris Châtelet theatre in combina-
tion with a magic lantern slide. It was not necessarily one of the play’s
main attractions, but in any event an example of a technological novelty
that was integrated into a theatrical mise en scène. The two scenes that
Méliès filmed for Les 400 coups du diable were used as interludes allowing
a scene change behind the curtains.9 So the new kinematographic tech-
nology was absorbed into the stage practice for various ends, which dem-
onstrates that the appropriation of one medium by another did indeed
work both ways, albeit in different perspectives. Film-makers such as
Méliès used the stage genre as a model and adapted it to the affordances
of the kinematograph, while theatrical producers saw the new medium as

a technological novelty, which they could exploit as an attraction.
TO CONCLUDE
As we have seen, in the dispositif of the féerie, stage machinery or kinemat-
ographic technology and their respective uses, the textual form of the
plays and the films, as well as the attitude and expectations of the specta-
tors are tightly interconnected and function on the two interrelated levels
of the display of diegetic magic and the flaunting of the capacity of the
medium to achieve these effects. As Émile Zola astutely remarked: “So I
come to the conclusion that for me the charms of the féerie lie in the fact
that it so frank about its conventionality (…)” (Zola 1881, 358). The
discursive construction of the féerie and its general image at the time fore-
grounded the enchanting universe, which it presented, and the nostalgic
reminiscences of childhood pleasures that it evoked. At the same time,
however, critics were also aware of the fact that there was an economic and
technological reality underneath, which was necessary to bring the magic
about and which could not be separated from it, because this reality was
essential for the genre to exist, as was the case for its kinematographic
counterpart.
As we have argued here, both levels were by necessity present in the
perception of the féerie so that the genre could function. The féerie, in
other words, is a chief example to understand the workings of the “spec-
tacular”, both on the stage and on the screen in the specific historical
context of the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth cen-
turies. Positioning the féerie in a media archaeological perspective, our
analysis can allow to draw parallels to other spectacular—and often popu-
lar—media forms and the way in which they articulate the relationship
between, on the one hand, the foregrounding of effects to highlight the
powers of the technology involved, and, on the other hand, a diegesis that
flaunts the display of “probable impossibilities”.
NOTES
1. Frank Zappa, “Cheepnis” on Roxy & Elsewhere, DiscReet, 1974.
2. Aristotle (1895, 99) (chapter XXV.17). While we do not restrict the term
“fantastic” here to the narrow definition given by Tzvetan Todorov, because
many of the events shown in a féerie would for him rather belong to the
realm of the “marvelous”, one could say that the trick, as we shall see,
should optimally produce precisely “that hesitation experienced by a person
who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural
event” (Todorov 1975, 25). We thank Joe Culpepper for drawing our atten-
tion to Todorov’s definition.
3. This and all the following translations from French sources are ours.
4. See Kessler (2013, 71–80).
5. See Floury (1906a, 1388).
6. See De Banville (1866, 207–9), Bernheim (1909, 357–60), and Ginisty s.
d. ([1910], 9).
7. For a more detailed discussion of Metz’s article and its relation to Georges
Méliès’s views on film tricks, see Kessler (2010, 167–72).
8. We have addressed the problem of the complexities of an “aesthetics of
astonishment” with respect to the féerie in our contribution to the “Machine,
Magie, Médias”-conference at Cerisy la Salle in August 2016, “Magie spec-
taculaire: pour une esthétique de l’émerveillement” (forthcoming in the
conference proceedings).
9. For a detailed discussion of the use of moving images in these two stage féer-
ies, see Kessler (2012, 64–79).
REFERENCES
Aristotle. 1895. Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher. London: Macmillan.
Bernheim, Adrien. 1909. La féerie se meurt. Touche à tout 9: 357–360.
De Banville, Théodore. 1866. Les Parisiennes de Paris. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères.
Floury, Edmond. 1906a. La Cuisine théâtrale. La Revue théâtrale (Nouvelle Série)
54: 1387–1388.
———. 1906b. La Cuisine théâtrale (Suite). La Revue théâtrale (Nouvelle Série)
59: 1517–1519.
Ginisty, Paul. s. d. [1910]. La Féerie. Paris: Louis Michaud.
Kessler, Frank. 2010. Méliès/Metz: comment penser le trucage? In Dall’inizio,
alla fine/In the Beginning, at the Very End, ed. Francesco Casetti et al., 167–172.
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———. 2012. The Féerie Between Stage and Screen. In A Companion to Early
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———. 2013. La féerie: un spectacle paradoxal. Lendemains 152: 71–80.
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———. 1932. L’importance du scénario. Cinéa et Ciné pour tous réunis 24: 23–25.
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Odin, Roger. 2000. De la fiction. Brussels: DeBoeck.
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Pougin, Arthur. 1885. Dictionnaire historique et pittoresque du théâtre et des arts
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CHAPTER 4
Vanishing Technology: Transparency

of Media in Stage Magic
Katharina Rein
The “Vanishing Lady” from 1886 remains until this day one of the most
iconic stage illusions. Its basis is both simple and complex: The performer
spreads a newspaper on the floor and places a chair on top of it. Another
performer enters, takes a seat in this chair, and is covered from head to toe
with a large silk cloth. When the cloth is removed (some performers made
it vanish altogether), the chair is empty. Contemporary magicians refer to
this timeless illusion as the “De Kolta Chair”, after its inventor, the French
magician Buatier de Kolta (Joseph Buatier, 1847–1903), but it is probably
best known from Georges Méliès’s 1896 short silent trick film Escamotage
d’une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin. While a trapdoor enabled the dis-
appearance on stage, Méliès, a pioneer of cinematic special effects, used an
editing technique called the substitution splice to create the effect on film.
In both versions, the technology or machinery producing the effect
remains imperceptible to the audience. This chapter argues that the disap-
pearance of the means facilitating the illusion is an essential characteristic
of stage conjuring, especially of the highly mechanized, modern illusions
that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. Understood as
K. Rein ( )
Bauhaus-University Weimar, Weimar, Germany
e-mail: katharina.rein@uni-weimar.de

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_4
100 K. REIN
media in the broadest sense of the term, as the in-between, which allows
for an exchange between two or more things or entities, the stage itself
can be regarded as a medium. The same is true for stage machinery and
magicians’ apparatus. In German media theory, scholars such as Sibylle
Krämer and Dieter Mersch postulated a media theory of negativity. This
thesis claims that in order to achieve the best possible result, a medium
must become imperceptible, emerging as a means only in the moment of
dysfunction. The same applies to the magicians’ stage regarded as a media
dispositive: in order for the illusion to be effective, the means producing it
must become imperceptible. At the same time, to enhance the effect, audi-
ences are deliberately alerted of the fact that they are witnessing an illu-
sion. This ambiguous quality of modern conjuring—the vanishing of its
media and its thematization onstage—is the focal point of this chapter. To
elaborate on this thesis, this chapter historicizes the cultural tradition of
stage illusionism still popular today by tracing it back to the second half of
the nineteenth century.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF STAGE CONJURING

Most grand illusions still dominating the cultural imagination today—like
“Sawing a Person in Half”, the “De Kolta Chair” described above, or levi-
tations—were invented during what magic historians today consider to be
the Golden Age of stage conjuring, which ranged from roughly 1850 to
1920, or from 1880 to 1930, depending on whose periodization and
selection of representatives one chooses to rely on.1 During this time,
magicians seized upon the newest technologies, materials and inventions,
and incorporated them into their shows in various manners, especially in
grand illusions that combined mechanization, romantic wonder, and a
pre-World War belief in progress. The nineteenth century was an age of
unprecedented technological and scientific progress. It experienced not
only the industrialization of economy and the mechanization of transport
and labour but also the beginnings of modern medicine, and a mediatiza-
tion of everyday life. Technology reshaped perception as “a series of
sweeping changes in technology and culture created distinctive new modes
of thinking about and experiencing time and space” (Kern 2003, 1). The
entertainment business came to rely to a great extent on illusionism in the
shape of panoramas, dioramas, and optical devices such as thaumatropes,
kaleidoscopes, and stereoscopes. From the second half of the nineteenth
century on, magic made its way from fairground shows to theatre stages,
VANISHING TECHNOLOGY: TRANSPARENCY OF MEDIA IN STAGE MAGIC 101
as it became a more highly respected, bourgeois form of entertainment.

Modern magicians like Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin made a point of
appearing in evening dress, using clear props instead of bamboozling their
audiences with an array of shiny apparatus like their predecessors, such as
the Austrian magician Ludwig Leopold Döbler. As a watchmaker, Robert-
Houdin employed technical and mechanical principles. He used electricity
and magnetism in several of his illusions, and constructed a number of
automata, including a writing and drawing automaton and several magic
(pseudo-)automata, which he integrated into his performances on stage,
such as Antonio Diavolo, a trapeze artist who performed somersaults. In
the second half of the nineteenth century, many magicians specialized in
grand illusions, that is highly visible effects unfolding an (often rudimen-
tary) narrative around humans or large animals and employing extensive
stage machinery or apparatus.2
SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION IN STAGE MAGIC

At first glance, it seems paradoxical that Western European and American
stage conjuring reached its Golden Age in a time of industrialization,
mechanization, rationalism as well as an institutionalization and systemiza-
tion of knowledge. What kind of magic was it that was put out by the
Western culture of the late nineteenth century? To think of the Golden
Age of conjuring as a reaction to enlightenment in the shape of a re-
enchantment of the world simplifies the matter. Rather, the opposition
between the so-called enlightenment and what people who perceived
themselves as enlightened called “superstition” is a fictitious one. Thus,
the Golden Age of conjuring is neither a regression to a pre-enlightened
set of beliefs nor a reaction to modernity in the sense of a compensation
for or a countermovement to rationalism.3 It is not a response to an indus-
trialized, modern culture’s longing for a magically connoted, pre-scientific
worldview. On the contrary, the mechanization of the nineteenth century
is the sine qua non of modern, secular magic. These two do not stand in
opposition, but enter into a partnership with one another. For instance,
several grand illusions of the time relied on materials such as large sheets
of glass or mirror, or steel wires, which only became available as a result of
technological innovations of the mid-nineteenth century. Similarly, today,
numerous magicians integrate digital media technologies into their illu-
sions. For instance, Marco Tempest, who gained fame via his YouTube
channel, transfers three-dimensional objects in their representation on a
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smartphone or tablet PC or the other way around. Simon Pierro, billing

himself as “The iPad Magician”, preforms a version of the classic illusion
“In the News”, in which water is poured into a folded newspaper, and
then poured out again at the magician’s will, after it has been turned sev-
eral times without a single drop of water emerging.
Furthermore, magic in the Golden Age reflected on its technological,
material basis of the illusions as well as on the illusions’ fundamental con-
structivism. As practitioners of secular magic, a term introduced by Simon
During to describe “the technically produced magic of conjuring shows
and special effects (…), which stakes no serious claim to contact with the
supernatural” (During 2002, 1), modern magicians did not pretend to be
in league with otherworldly powers. Instead, this chapter argues that secu-
lar magic exhibits its own artificiality and technicity, its being made by
humans. What is more, by doing so, modern magic functions as an analysis
of media effects. Without doubt grand illusions rely on the use of media,
be it apparatus (Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin’s “Oranger merveilleux”),
stage machinery (Buatier de Kolta’s “Vanishing Lady”), technical com-
munication media (Archie Maskelyne’s “The Yogi’s Star”), or classical
media like glass or mirrors (Colonel Stodare’s “Sphinx”).4 As such, their
illusionary effect can be regarded as a media effect. However, in secular
magic, as opposed to presentations of magic referencing supernatural
agency, the spectators’ belief that they might witness anything truly
supernatural is generally out of the question. All in all, it is safe to assume
that stage conjurers’ audiences are aware that what they see on stage are
illusions rooted in technology or science. According to Wally Smith, the
premise that the supernatural agency is only a simulated one was well
established no later than at the time of Robert-Houdin, that is, in the
middle of the nineteenth century (Smith 2015, 325). This, in turn, means
that illusionists’ media effects were not presented merely for their own
sake but were always implicitly displayed as a product of an unknown or
invisible technology.
Special effects in theatre plays serve the purpose of furthering the nar-
rative or drama, and adding to the aesthetics, while striving to take a back
seat. They are not meant to draw attention to themselves as effects. The
illusions on a magician’s stage, in contrast, are emphasized as such. For
this reason, magic historian and illusion engineer Jim Steinmeyer states
that the concept of the willing suspension of disbelief, while it applies to
theatrical special effects, is not pertinent in regard to stage magic
(Steinmeyer 2006, 38). Here, in the contrary, the effects do not only want
to be perceived as such, they are emphasized as effects. Unlike theatre

plays trying to render an artificial world believable, a conjuring illusion
“starts with a basic reality and attempts to make it deliberately special or
surprising” (Steinmeyer 2006, 38). It takes place, so to speak, within the
very space and time inhabited by the spectators. Surprisingly, then, the
performer makes things happen on stage that are known to be impossible
within this time and space. Moreover, because spectators are aware of the
illusory character of secular magic, they are also implicitly aware that what
appears to be a supernatural event is, in fact, a media effect.
Illusionists have been referring to this implicit knowledge in their per-
formances at least since the late eighteenth century. At that time, the
phantasmagoria, a special kind of a magic lantern spectacle focusing on
supernatural motifs inspired by the literary Gothic, became popular. Its
best-known presenter, Robertson, explicitly underscored the show’s illu-
sory character in his introductory speech (Robertson 1985, 162–164). As
literary scholar Terry Castle has pointed out, in Robertson’s presentations,
spectators here were aware that real ghosts did not exist—a common
knowledge that was explicitly emphasized before the spectacle began.
However, immediately after that statement, the spectators saw ghosts that
“were not mere effects of imagination: they were indisputably there; one
saw them as clearly as any other object of sense” (Castle 1988, 49). And,
just as in later magic shows, the spectators did not know how the effect
they saw was created, being left with the unsettling experience of having
seen something they know to be impossible.
Secular magic offers a similar experience. In Our Magic (1911) Nevil
Maskelyne and David Devant, two of the most influential magicians
around 1900, name three methods of misdirection in stage conjuring:
Distraction, disguise, and simulation. While distraction can take many
forms of “the interpolation of non-essentials” from the performer’s gaze
and gestures to noises and so on, disguise is understood as “a skilful
blending of suspicious and innocent details in such manner that the for-
mer are overlooked” (Maskelyne and Devant 1911, 192–193), achieved
by inconspicuous props and apparatus. In our context, the method of
simulation is the most interesting one. Devant and Maskelyne define it as
“the principle of giving apparent existence to things that do not exist, or
presence to things that are absent” (1911, 197). For example, in Buatier
de Kolta’s “Vanishing Lady”, it is crucial that the vanishing performer
seems to be sitting in the chair longer than she actually is. This effect is
achieved by a wire frame, simulating her silhouette in the chair under the
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silk. As a result of this, when the vanished performer subsequently re-

enters from the wing, the time elapsed between her disappearance and
reappearance seems shorter, enhancing the effect. Therefore, the appear-
ance of the performer sitting in the chair under the silk cloth for a certain
time span, when she, in fact, is no longer there, plays a crucial role in the
staging of the illusion.
Following Devant and Maskelyne, Wally Smith adds another principle
of misdirection, dissimulation:
If simulation involves the production of an effect, then dissimulation refers

to the complementary means by which spectators are prevented from know-
ing about the secret methods and mechanisms behind that effect.
Importantly, dissimulation implies more than concealment; it implies that
the secret methods and mechanisms are rendered absent. (Smith 2015, 321)
Thus, in the example of “The Vanishing Lady”, it is also essential that the
impression of the vanishing performer still being in the chair is not per-
ceived as a possible illusion. There can be no doubt about the silhouette
visible under the silk cloth being created by the physical presence of the
performer. Under no circumstances must the audience suspect the exis-
tence of the wire frame—the technology necessary for the production of
the effect must be imperceptible. Or to put it differently: In stage
conjuring, the medium creating the effect must remain invisible, be it a
mirror, a trap door, a key, or a piece of large stage machinery. Maskelyne
and Devant also refer to this in Our Magic. They propose that the best way
to conceal apparatus and props on stage is, in fact, to hide them in plain
sight by camouflaging them:
(…), magical appliances should be so constructed that their inner devices are
not concealed by a mere covering of some sort, but are disguised by blending
with the general structure. In fact, so far from suggesting the possibility of
there being anything discoverable, a magician’s accessories should rather
look like objects of normal construction, which nobody would associate
with trickery. (Maskelyne and Devant 1911, 195–196)
By being inconspicuous, magical apparatus and props deny their agency in

the creation of the illusion. Furthermore, this does not only apply to
objects, but it also extends to the agency of the performers and stagehands
involved: “Just as agencies captured in apparatus had to be carefully
erased”, writes Wally Smith, “so too the instrumental role of the magician
was in need of dissimulation. This need extended to on-stage assistants”
(Smith 2015, 330–331). Thus, the physical effort and labour put into any
of the illusions was to remain invisible. While certain skills are displayed
and emphasized, especially in sleight of hand, others are concealed, just as
the agency of the performers in the production of the effects is often
negated. Along similar lines, Francesca Coppa mentions that magic shows
aim for the disappearance of physical labour—a thesis she elaborates on in
view of gender relations: while the male magician classically demonstrates
possession of knowledge and keeping secrets, Coppa writes, the female
assistant represents an incapacity to do so. Further, she is often rendered
passive, being in trance, asleep, and so on (see Coppa 2008). What is
more, in order to make the agency of the performers disappear, their well-
rehearsed words, movements, and gestures must seem natural and sponta-
neous to the audience. Therefore, handbooks and instructions often
recommend to practicing magicians to never repeat an effect on the same
night (see, e.g. Hoffmann 1877, 3–4). Repetition, Wally Smith pointed
out, would unmask movements, gestures, dialogues, and anecdotes that
appeared at first glance natural, as being artificial, scripted, and rehearsed
(Smith 2015, 332).
Having made the agency of the apparatus and persons involved unde-
tectable, conjurers of the late nineteenth century often emphasized not
only the effect itself but also the very imperceptibility of the means creat-
ing it. Again, the “Vanishing Lady” serves as a particularly interesting
example of this. For this, the illusion has to be regarded in more detail.
This is how David Devant described Buatier and Alice de Kolta’s perfor-
mance in his autobiography My Magic Life:
Buatier walked forward with a newspaper in his hand; this he unfolded and
spread out in the centre of the stage. He then picked up a light, ordinary-
looking chair, (…), and placed it in the centre of the newspaper. He then
handed a lady in and she seated herself on this chair. Buatier proceeded to
cover her up with a piece of purple silk, pinning it round her head and shoul-
ders, dropping the rest and draping it to the floor. No part of this silk was
allowed to lie outside the newspaper. There was a pause. Buatier came down
the stage, looked at the draped figure, took hold of the silk with two hands –
one about the waist and the other at the head – and threw the silk up in the
air; it seemed to leave his hands in a flash. Both woman and silk had utterly
disappeared. Again the chair was lifted off the newspaper, (…). He then
picked up the newspaper and folded it together. (Devant 1931, 29–30)
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What is most intriguing in the context of this chapter is a central ele-

ment, and an ingenious ingredient of Buatier de Kolta’s illusion—the
newspaper placed underneath the chair. It served to “demonstrate” that
no trap door was involved in the performer’s disappearance, since, by
implication, its use would rip a hole in the newspaper. Therefore, the
newspaper serves to demonstrate that the performer vanishes without
escaping through a trap door. The chair she is seated on serves a similar
purpose: Since the assumption is established that it is an ordinary, solid
piece of furniture, it would make slipping through a trap door impossi-
ble. The chair and the newspaper are examples of the disguise of magical
or gimmicked apparatus as common objects described by Devant and
Maskelyne.
These elements reveal that stage magic is, in fact, a self-reflexive prac-
tice: Firstly, they presuppose an audience familiar with the hidden techno-
logical repertory of magicians well enough to know that trap doors are a
common piece of theatre stage machinery, and that magicians use them to
make objects and persons appear or disappear. This, in turn, presupposes
an audience curious about magicians’ methods, and therefore—at least on
a basic level—acquainted with the numerous exposés of illusions published
at the time, such as Professor Hoffmann’s Modern Magic, which first
appeared ten years before Buatier de Kolta’s iconic “Vanishing Lady” illu-
sion was first performed and which contains a chapter on trap doors in
magic tables (Hoffmann 1877, 347–452).5 By relying on this kind of
knowledge, performers of magic played on the spectators’ inquisitiveness
about conjuring in general as well as on their expectations concerning the
method used to create this particular effect. Secondly, they showed their
awareness of the audience’s familiarity with illusions and their secret
modus operandi. Magicians, thirdly, refer to the trap door as a technology
likely to be used in this particular effect—a possibility that is then perfor-
matively excluded. The placement of the newspaper underneath the chair
replaces the performer saying to the audience: “I know what you’re think-
ing: ‘I’ve seen this before, she escapes through a trap door.’ But I am
going to show you something new: I am going to prove that there is no
trap door involved, and the lady is going to vanish nonetheless.”
Modern magic thus emerges as a second order observation as conceived
by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann—as an observation of observation
(Luhmann 1997, 94). Buatier de Kolta’s newspaper creates an epistemo-
logical loop, which shows that the performer is aware of the spectators
being aware that they witness an illusion. Nonetheless, he proves capable
of surprising them by getting them involved in the illusionism despite

their better knowledge. Magic is thus revealed as a self-referential and self-
reflexive practice: the reference to trap doors and other possible hidden
methods of stage illusionism is also a reference to the artificiality of the
presented effect. It is a reference to the illusionism of conjuring itself
because it implies that the spectators know that they are witnessing the
effect of a technology, and not real magic rooted in supernatural powers.
The “Vanishing Lady” therefore not only reflects on the artificiality of
secular magic but also the spectators’ reflexions about it. It does not only
present an illusory effect but it also points out that the spectators do not
see how it is accomplished. They know they are seeing an illusion, yet they
do not see how it is created, thus being left in a state of indecisiveness due
to a lack of explanation for something that must be impossible if it cannot
be accounted for by other means.
MEDIA THEORY OF NEGATIVITY

The fact that magicians underscore the invisibility of their technologies
and methods in their performances is testimony of the insight that a
medium works best when, firstly, its effect emerges detached from its
material basis, and, secondly, when the latter is imperceptible. For instance,
we do not perceive the television set as a technical hardware device when
watching TV. We also do not have to understand the apparatus’ workings
to be able to use it—in the time of the complex electronics of smart TVs
even less than in those of traditional tube television—the latter at least
offering the possibility of being opened, adjusted, and repaired by the
users, while the former have increasingly turned into a black box. Rather,
viewers typically focus on the programme they are seeing, which becomes
detached from the medium transmitting it. For the consumer watching,
for instance, the newest episode of Twin Peaks, it is—outside of media-
aesthetic preferences—irrelevant if the device transmitting it is a classic
television set, a smart TV, a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone. The
medium itself is transparent as long as it is working smoothly. It only
becomes apparent when a malfunction occurs, foregrounding the materi-
ality of the medium with its interferences, wear and tear, and so on.
Emerging around the middle of the nineteenth century, photography, as
Walter Benjamin has famously observed in his essay The Work of Art in the
Age of Its Technological Reproductibility, was the first medium to detach the
content of a medium from its material carrier. The reproduction process
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made possible by William H. Fox Talbot’s negative/positive process

allowed for the identical reproduction of images by technical means. As
Benjamin has shown, the technological reproducibility detached the work
of art from its unique temporality and spatiality as well as from tradition,
thus fundamentally changing the nature of art. At the time Buatier de Kolta
presented his “Vanishing Lady”, a painting like Hieronymus Bosch’s The
Conjurer was no longer to be seen only at the Musée Municipal in Saint-
Germain-en-Laye but could also be reproduced in photographs, books,
newspapers, and other printed material. The second aspect named above,
the disappearance of the medium behind its content, was already pointed
out by pioneer of media theory Marshall McLuhan. He used electric light
as an example for a medium without any content: instead of transmitting
any information, light transmits only itself. However, by doing so it enables
us to see other objects, persons, and so on, which would be imperceptible
without light. “[I]t is only too typical”, McLuhan notes in this context,
“that the ‘content’ of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium”
(McLuhan 2010, 9). That is to say, when dealing with technical media
which, unlike light, usually transmit a content, consumers tend to disregard
the distinction between the latter and the medium itself. German philoso-
pher and media theorist Sybille Krämer elaborated on this idea. She calls
this quality of media their “blind spot” or “aesthetic neutrality”:
Media work like windowpanes: The more transparent they remain, the more
inconspicuously they stay below the threshold of our awareness, the better
they do their job. It is only in the noise, that is, in the dysfunction or even
in the breakdown of their smooth service, that the medium itself is recalled.
The undistorted message, on the other hand, makes the medium almost
invisible. (Krämer 1998, 74)6
When operating smoothly, the medium vanishes, that is to say, we see

through it, perceiving only the content it transmits and forgetting the
device itself. It is only when its working is disrupted that it becomes appar-
ent as a technical apparatus, a material object. Along similar lines, media
philosopher Dieter Mersch postulated a constitutional negativity in media
usage as the medium itself eludes transmission, transgression, and trans-
formation (Mersch 2004, 79). Taking on the role of a “placeholder of
transmission” (“Platzhalter der Übertragung”), media themselves disap-
pear for the benefit of the content they transmit (Mersch 2004, 80).
Moreover, this means that, unless their own mediality emerges in the
moment of dysfunction, they work in an illusionistic way. By remaining a

secret and eluding definition through denial, media fascinate, Mersch con-
tinues, while also eluding addressability and criticism, and thus gaining a
proximity to idolatry and magic practices (Mersch 2004, 80–81).
INVISIBLE CONJURING APPARATUS

In stage conjuring, we can identify at least three types of devices establish-
ing dissimulation: apparatus immediately recognizable as a trick device,
apparatus camouflaged as an inconspicuous object according to the pas-
sage from Our Magic quoted above, and apparatus that is rendered entirely
invisible. Numerous illusions employ apparatus that is instantly recogniz-
able as a specially constructed, possibly gimmicked prop. Jean Eugène
Robert-Houdin’s “Pendule cabalistique” (1845) can serve as an example
for this first type. This illusion relied on an apparatus consisting of a trans-
parent glass clock face with a single, elegant golden hand, set in a golden
frame and mounted on a glass tube and a stand. Robert-Houdin asked a
member of the audience to think of a time, and to indicate if the hand
should move clockwise or counterclockwise. The spectator then rang a bell
according to the time she named. Subsequently, the hand on the glass face
set itself in motion until it stopped at the desired number (on this illusion
see Fechner 2002, 169–170). Not only was it at once clear that the device
presented was not an ordinary clock, the decorative, unusual item could
not be mistaken for an everyday object. However—unlike some magic
apparatus such as cones or other more peculiar things—it mimicked one.
The device used by Robert-Houdin clearly resembled a clock, an object a
nineteenth-century bourgeois audience would have been not only familiar
with but which it also would have associated with wealth and elegance.
However, Robert-Houdin’s clock was instantly recognizable as an extraor-
dinary, a “magical” one, not behaving the way usual clocks do, since it
only had one hand and lacked a clockwork mechanism—a circumstance
evidenced by the see-through clock face. The “Pendule cabalistique” dis-
played its special properties as a unique, illusionistic object, while, at the
same time, keeping its working method secret. Moreover, Robert-
Houdin’s programmatically transparent props, such as this one, played
with transparency and opacity. While displaying an elegant clarity, the glass
clock face simulated a transparency of its workings, suggesting that the
inside of the clock was, in fact, visible, or rather, that it did not contain any
secret, since one could see through it. The delicate device seemed to hide
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nothing, and yet, its operating method was undetectable. This apparent
transparency was, however, part of the operations of simulation and dis-
simulation: While the apparatus simulated transparency, it also concealed
the actual method, underscoring the question as to how it was done, since
the mechanism appeared to be visible. By demonstrating exceptional
behaviour, the clock proved to be an object existing within the spectators’
everyday reality, and yet apparently doing something they knew to be
impossible.
John Nevil Maskelyne’s “Box Trick”, one of the first illusions that made
him famous, serves as an example of the second type of magical appara-
tus—the one camouflaged as an ordinary object. The illusion relied on a
gimmicked box that looked like an ordinary steamer or costume trunk. A
performer was locked inside this box, sometimes it would be tied with a
rope on the outside and/or wrapped in a piece of canvas. Upon being
opened, the box was found to be empty. Harry Houdini’s famous
“Metamorphosis” was based on this effect. In this illusion, Houdini was
tied in a sack by volunteering spectators, who also sealed it with wax. He
was then locked inside the trunk, which was further secured by ropes and
a lock on the outside. Houdini’s wife Bess (in earlier performances Jacob
Hyman and then Harry’s brother Dash) would then draw a curtain
installed in front of the box. When it was re-opened, she and Harry had
exchanged places. Houdini came up with variations of this illusion, some-
times having his hands cuffed behind his back, or wearing a coat he bor-
rowed from a spectator (Silverman 1996, 12–13).
In Houdini’s famous illusion as well as in Maskelyne’s “Box Trick”,
members of the audience were invited to examine the box in order to
quash suspicions about it possibly being gimmicked. By implication, the
magician’s claim that it was in fact an ordinary box is presented as not
entirely trustworthy. To emphasize the lack of what Maskelyne and Devant
called the object’s “trickiness” (1911), representatives of the audience
were invited to ascertain its ordinariness. They thus functioned as substi-
tutes for any individual in the audience, for whom they testified the
authenticity of the prop used by the performers. Naturally, the apparatus
was gimmicked in a way undetectable to the untrained eye. Thus, the
spectators’ testimony itself—based on the magic apparatus being disguised
as an everyday object—became part of the operations of simulation and
dissimulation performed on stage.
An example of an apparatus that has to become entirely invisible is the
mechanism used in levitation illusions. Here, the entire lifting apparatus
needs to become imperceptible. In common versions of this illusion, a

performer who was often put into a state of sleep or trance, lies down on
a platform, sofa, and so on, from which she then rises vertically above the
stage, seemingly following the magician’s will. Regardless of whether the
levitating performer is supported by wires, a crane, or some other lifting
mechanism, if any part of the stage machinery supporting her is seen by
the audience, the effect no longer occurs. Similarly, all illusions employing
mirrors rely on the mirror itself being invisible. For example, “The
Enchanted Gorilla Den”, a trick cabinet employed by John Nevil Maskelyne
in his magic sketch The Mystic Freaks of Gyges (1866), contained a mirror
placed diagonally above a shelf horizontally installed inside it. Being
mounted on hinges, it could be released until it sat in a 45° angle on the
edge of the shelf, reflecting the ceiling of the cabinet, which looked exactly
like its walls. Thus, a person could hide underneath this mirror, seated on
the shelf. This allowed for appearances, vanishes, and transformations
inside the magic cabinet (see Steinmeyer 2005, 97–98). As Jim Steinmeyer
has pointed out, the crucial inspiration for mirror illusions, emerging in
the 1860s, was the realization that mirrors do not necessarily have to
reflect an object but can also reflect “nothing”, such as a wall or a ceiling
(Steinmeyer 2005, 77). Of course, the mirror is nonetheless always already
reflecting something; it just is something not recognizable as an object.
Crucially, this abstract something—wall or ceiling—appears in the mir-
ror’s own place, thus not only making the mirror itself, but also a person
or object behind it disappear. Naturally, unwanted reflections and other
light effects, especially at the mirror’s edges, would still reveal its presence
and had to be countered by careful lighting as well as the material conceal-
ment of the mirror’s edges by curtains, frames, smoke, and so on, while all
performers involved had to carefully watch their movements in order to
avoid unwanted reflections.
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION
Similar to the concept of the negativity of media developed by Krämer or
Mersch, magicians’ media, too, are rendered invisible and thus negated,
while, at the same time, their effect is foregrounded and emphasized. The
imperceptibility of the workings underlying the illusions is a necessary con-
dition of any performance of magic: the close-up performance is masterful
when even those spectators who know how the feat is accomplished cannot
discern the sleights of hand producing it. The electromagnetic workings of
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Robert-Houdin’s “Pendule cabalistique” must not be perceived by specta-

tors. The trap door through which the performer disappears in de Kolta’s
“Vanishing Lady” while her silhouette, remaining in the chair is simulated
by the wire frame, remains so much of an impossibility that the magician
even rules it out as a method. Thus, grand illusions are successful when
they make the machinery, respectively the crucial part of it creating the
illusion, vanish. In the levitation illusion, the machinery supporting the
“hovering” assistant must not be seen by the audience for the effect to set
in. Be it a trap door, a serving hatch, a false bottom, a hidden assistant,
foldable objects produced from a seemingly too small container, or a key,
secretly handed over—they all create the effect but must not become per-
ceptible themselves. For this purpose, in stage illusions, simulation is always
accompanied by dissimulation. What is more, magicians in the Golden Age
were aware of the disappearance of the apparatus being a necessary element
of conjuring, and often referred to it in their illusions by explicitly pointing
out to the spectators that they were unable to see the means responsible for
the illusion. By making the respective person, operation or prop disappear,
modern illusionists put their fingers on a central characteristic of media
technologies, which was articulated in media theory a century later.
Modern magic thus emerges as a performative practice reflecting on its
own media usage. By doing so, secular magic, unlike practices of real magi-
cal or spiritualism, not only applies media but it also analyses them. Here,
media effects are not merely presented but they are exhibited as effects.
Moreover, they are detached from the techniques and technologies creat-
ing them. Modern magicians realized that it is not enough to make these
techniques and technologies—material as well as operational—invisible.
They also emphasized the fact that these are imperceptible in the perfor-
mances. Taking the media theory of negativity into consideration, this
practice illustrates the mode of action of mediality. By constituting a sec-
ond order observation, modern magic thus performs a meta-theorization
of media and media practices.
NOTES
1. Jim Steinmeyer assumes a Golgen Age from 1845 to 1936 (Steinmeyer
2005). For Mike Caveney and David Charvet it starts in the 1880s (Caveney
2009; Charvet 1997, 57). The latter is a US-centric perspective, which con-
siders Harry Kellar’s and Alexander Herrmann’s careers in the United States
as the beginning. It has to be remembered that periodizations are always
problematic since they suggest singular events as beginning or starting

points, and often fail to reflect earlier influences and processes. However,
they are useful for the sake of communication. The one proposed by
Steinmeyer seems more convincing since it takes into account the influence
of the Egyptian Hall on Herrmann and Kellar as well as, in turn, the impor-
tance of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin for the Egyptian Hall.
2. On the definition of an illusion in magicians’ terms see “illusion”, in Whaley
(2007, 474–475).
3. On magic as compensation see During (2002, 62–64).
4. All of these examples are examined in length in my forthcoming doctoral
dissertation.
5. Hoffmann’s More Magic contains an exposé of “The Vanishing Lady”
(Hoffmann 1890, 448–456).
6. “Medien wirken wie Fensterscheiben: Sie werden ihrer Aufgabe um so
besser gerecht, je durchsichtiger sie bleiben, je unauffälliger sie unterhalb
der Schwelle unserer Aufmerksamkeit verharren. Nur im Rauschen, das aber
ist in der Störung oder gar im Zusammenbrechen ihres reibungslosen
Dienstes, bringt das Medium selbst sich in Erinnerung. Die unverzerrte
Botschaft hingegen macht das Medium nahezu unsichtbar” (translation:
KR).
REFERENCES
Benjamin, Walter. 2008. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological
Reproductibility. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological
Reproductibility, and Other Writings on Media, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid
Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, 19–55. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Castle, Terry. 1988. Phantasmagoria. Spectral Technology and the Metaphorics of
Modern Reverie. Critical Inquiry 15 (1): 26–61.
Caveney, Mike. 2009. The Masters of the Golden Age. In Magic, 1400s–1950s, ed.
Noel C. Daniel, 338–397. Cologne: Taschen.
Charvet, David. 1997. Twins. Magic: An Independent Magazine for Magicians 6
(10): 56–63.
Coppa, Francesca. 2008. The Body Immaterial. Magicians’ Assistants and the
Performance of Labor. In Performing Magic on the Western Stage. From the
Eighteenth Century to the Present, ed. Francesca Coppa, Lawrence Hass, and
James Peck, 85–106. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Devant, David. 1931. My Magic Life. London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd.
During, Simon. 2002. Modern Enchantments. The Cultural Power of Secular
Magic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fechner, Christian. 2002. La Magie de Robert-Houdin. Les Secrets des Soirées
Fantastiques. Vol. 3. Boulogne: Editions F.C.F.
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Hoffmann, Professor. 1877. Modern Magic. A Practical Treatise on the Art of

Conjuring. London/New York: George Routledge and Sons.
———. 1890. More Magic. London: Routledge.
Kern, Stephen. 2003. The Culture of Time and Space, 1880–1918. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Krämer, Sybille. 1998. Das Medium als Spur und als Apparat. In Medien, Computer,
Realität. Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen und Neue Medien, ed. Sybille Krämer,
73–94. Frankfurt on the Main: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1997. Die Kunst der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Maskelyne, Nevil, and David Devant. 1911. Our Magic. The Art in Magic, the
Theory of Magic, the Practice of Magic. London: Routledge.
McLuhan, Marshall. 2010. Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man. London:
Routledge.
Mersch, Dieter. 2004. Medialität und Undarstellbarkeit. Einleitung in eine ‘nega-
tive’ Medientheorie. In Performativität und Medialität, ed. Sybille Krämer,
75–95. Paderborn: Fink.
Robertson, Etienne Gaspard. 1985. Mémoires recréatifs, scientifiques et anecdotiques
d’un physicien-aéronaute. Vol. 1. Langre: Café, clima.
Silverman, Kenneth. 1996. Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss: American Self-
Liberator, Europe’s Eclipsing Sensation, World’s Handcuff King & Prison
Breaker – Nothing on Earth Can Hold Houdini a Prisoner!!! New York: Harper
Collins.
Smith, Wally. 2015. Technologies of Stage Magic. Simulation and Dissimulation.
Social Studies of Science 45 (3): 319–343.
Steinmeyer, Jim. 2005. Hiding the Elephant. In How Magicians Invented the
Impossible. London: Arrow.
———. 2006. Art and Artifice. In Art & Artifice and Other Essays on Illusion.
Concerning the Inventors, Traditions, Evolution & Rediscovery of Stage Magic,
7–47. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers.
Whaley, Bart. 2007. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Magic 1584–2007. Lybrary.
com.
CHAPTER 5
Deep Space or the Re-invention

of Scenography: Jozef Wouters on Infini 1-15
Karel Vanhaesebrouck and Jozef Wouters
Between 1738 and 1757, Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni (1695–1766)

obtained the concession for the Salle des Machines in Paris. This French
architect, painter and scenographer with Italian roots used (according to
some of his contemporaries ‘abused’) the infrastructure to research the
theatrality of scenography: indeed, he assumed that space itself can be an
autonomous theatrical language and thus he was a direct predecessor of
modernist scenographers such as Adolph Appia and Edward Gordon
Craig. He wanted to develop a theatre without actors, in which the sce-
nography developed into an autonomous language (Brockett 2010;
Surgers 2009).
The work and the ideas of Servandoni were a direct source of inspira-
tion for Infini 1-15, by the Brussels scenographer Jozef Wouters (born in
1986) (Peeters and Wouters 2017). The title of the project refers to the
backdrops that have been used in modern theatre since the Renaissance.
K. Vanhaesebrouck ( )
e-mail: kavhaese@ulb.ac.be
J. Wouters
Damaged Goods, the Brussels-based company of choreographer Meg Stuart,
Brussels, Belgium

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_5
116 K. VANHAESEBROUCK AND J. WOUTERS
These cloths are no longer used in our contemporary, anti-illusionist theatre,

except maybe as an ironic quotation. Together with dramaturg Jeroen Peeters
and curator Dries Douibi, Wouters invited 15 artists to design a present-day
infini each to fit in the BOL, the neorenaissance auditorium of the Brussels
Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg (KVS—Royal Flemish Theatre). That the-
atre is equipped with an extensive system of 49 trusses the backdrops origi-
nally were attached to. As the infinis are no longer used today, the infrastructure,
in the words of Jozef Wouters, has become ‘a slide projector without slides’.
Wouters gave each artist (theatre directors, writers, an architect) five trusses,
a limited budget and complete artistic freedom. He asked them what space or
landscape they would like to see represented in today’s theatre. All the pro-
posals, from minimalist to über-theatrical, from conceptual-abstract to radi-
cally political, were brought together in a ‘scenographic’ performance lasting
the whole evening, without any actors on stage, and presenting the different
proposals one after the other, as a succession of tableaux.
With Infini 1-15, Wouters investigated how old techniques and infra-
structure and also the additional aesthetic regime can be reinvented in the
light of present-day theatrical practice in which the purpose of set design
and theatrical architecture is no longer to create a perfect, coherent illu-
sion (see also Crary 1992). Infini 1-151 is a challenging answer to the mis-
understanding called ‘historically informed re-enactment’, which uses
historical techniques to give the spectator the illusion of historical authen-
ticity. Wouters and his team show that historical techniques can also be used
in another way, a more contradictory way, not to reconstruct them and thus
to come closer to an imagined historical truth, but to investigate what they
can mean for contemporary practice, how the past can shed a new light on
the present and at the same time invites us to think about the relation of the
spectator with theatrical reality. In a dialogue with Karel Vanhaesebrouck,
he explains the context and ambitions of Infini 1-15 (Fig. 5.1).
From the very beginning of his early career, Jozef Wouters has tried to
thoroughly re-think the profession of scenographer itself as well as scenog-
raphy. He thinks it is a strange trade, as a scenographer usually invents
designs for a fictitious place without a context, namely the ‘average
auditorium’. “To me scenography is not about filling black cubes”, as he
puts it in Etcetera (2014, 34). This probably explain Wouter’s interest in
Servandoni’s work. Neither Wouters nor Servandoni are set designers in
the classical sense of the word. Servandoni did not design sets, but theatri-
cal spaces, not only scenographies but also ponds, gardens, fireworks, pal-
aces and theatres. According to Wouters, a scenographer does not design
DEEP SPACE OR THE RE-INVENTION OF SCENOGRAPHY: JOZEF WOUTERS… 117
Fig. 5.1 Photo of one of the scenes of Infini 1-15, a performance by Decoratelier
and Jozef Wouters, KunstenfestivaldesArts Brussels, 2016. (© Phile Deprez)
sets just like that, but plays with lightness, speed, temporality. Rather than
the space on stage, he has to shape the mental space the spectator will
construct: in the first place, “one has to determine the viewpoint from
which something can be looked at”, as he states with an appropriate quo-
tation of philosopher Bart Verschaffel (1990, 22). As a scenographer, he is
always forced to collaborate—collaboration is the essence of his artistic
mindset. Therefore, his work is strongly determined by the context, the
client and his wishes and conditions. Every project is a renewed negotia-
tion with the specificity of that context (Coussens 2016).
A clear example of that broad, social view of scenography was Wouters’s
contribution to Tok Toc Knock, a large-scale urban project of KVS under
the direction of theatre maker Willy Thomas. During the season
2012–2013 KVS collaborated with numerous partners for new creations
on different locations in Brussels, outside the theatre. That way the city
theatre wanted to deepen its relations with the town and urban reality.
One of the neighbourhoods the project settled in was the Modelwijk in
Laken, a utopian, modernist project by Renaat Braem, of which little
remains today. The Modelwijk is a concrete village in a bad state of repair;
it looks miserable and has many social problems (poverty, neglect, unem-
ployment, tensions between the various sections of the population). In
fact, the neighbourhood should have been one of the showpieces for the
world fair Expo 58. But in 1958, the visitors only had a scale-model to
look at. And it all looked magnificent: residential towers surrounded by
lots of green, a sports centre, a cultural centre, a school, a library, and so
on. After the world fair, it became clear that the available budget was to be
much smaller and fewer means for the social project itself were available
than originally planned. Today, 2000 inhabitants are living in a failed uto-
pia. For Tok Toc Knock, Wouters assembled 43 scale-models made by
artists and architects in an exhibition. In one proposal, a Toyota advertis-
ing panel was replaced by a quotation of architect Robert Venturi: “All
problems can never be solved” (see also Wouters and Matthé 2014).
With Infini 1-15, Wouters shifts the focus of his work from the social
space to theatrical architecture. He asked 14 artistic correspondents what
landscape they would like to show in the theatre. In collaboration with the
set design department of the KVS, he built these landscapes with wood,
paper and paint on stage. The migration problem emphatically featured in
many of these proposals: Thomas Bellinck built a detailed reconstruction
of a security room of Frontex, the European border and coast guard
agency that monitors the European borders from such rooms via cameras
by order of the EU, and he had this surveillance unit rise from the stage
floor like a magic apparition. Writer and theatre maker Rimah Jabr used
the baroque trompe l’oeil effect to suggest the fathomless depth of subter-
ranean passageways. Others radically opted for imagination, as the more
abstract infinis of Michiel Vandevelde or Michiel Soete prove. Every pro-
posal was situated somewhere between idea and execution, between col-
lective approach, dialogue and individual reflection. The relation with the
city also played an important part here: according to Wouters, theatre is
not only an imagination machine but also a semi-public space, a square
within a building (Fig. 5.2).
With his project, Wouters puts an interesting ‘media-archaeological’
question on the agenda: how can you use an old auditorium that has 49
fully automatic trusses but does not use infinis anymore once again for its
original purpose: the representation of theatrical spaces? The KVS does
not have a stock of backdrops anymore. So, Wouters asked his colleagues
to produce a new stock and that way to confront the contemporary artistic
practice with the past of its production apparatus. That way they could
investigate how old techniques related to the salle à l’italienne still show
Fig. 5.2 Photo of infini by Rimah Jabr, Infini 1-15, a performance by Decoratelier
and Jozef Wouters, KunstenfestivaldesArts Brussels, 2016. (© Phile Deprez)
today in the way we look at the world. Thus, this quest perfectly fits in
with the ambitions of Servandoni who merely made scenographic perfor-
mances with animated setting elements in his Salle des Machines (which
was 5 times deeper than the KVS).
Karel Vanhaesebrouck: Whence your fascination for the figure of
Servandoni? Why did you opt for his work as a starting-point?
Jozef Wouters: I once read a quotation of Servandoni’s stating that he
wanted to liberate scenography from the yoke of its sisters poetry and
music. I do not remember where or when I read it for the first time, but I
have remembered the story and absorbed it. Servandoni’s machine spec-
tacles express a number of desires I directly relate to as a scenographer,
300 years later. But Servandoni was not the starting-point for Infini 1-15.
That was the building itself, the KVS-Bol.2 By taking that particular posi-
tion, by having to relate to this architecture, to the choices this kind of
building makes, the possibilities and limitations it imposes, Servandoni,
who had been at the back of my mind for ten years already at that moment,
emerged as an important story. To put it simply: 300 years later I found
myself in a more or less similar situation as he had been in, with an audi-
torium in which I can do what I like as a scenographer. By taking
Servandoni as a conceptual starting-point, I guessed, by taking on his
spectacles des machines once again, the differences between his world and
mine could possibly become the ‘story line’ of the project.
KV: What is the essence of this research for you? And how does it
relate to the concrete reality of the KVS building and its truss
installation?
JW: It is a good thing to call it research. I do not make a distinction
between performances and research. I use the concept of a public presen-
tation as a moment to connect with the audience, to invite them to con-
tribute to the work, by asking if this works and why or why not. Theatre
convention prescribes that what is ultimately shown is the result of a
month-long selection of what works and omission of what does not. I
refuse to accept this convention. My work always takes a very specific con-
text as its starting-point. I believe that all the choices that lead to a project
originate from the fact that I find myself in a given context. This ‘I’ is
important for that matter. I do not believe that a context produces a proj-
ect all of its own: it is I, with my desires, interests, shortcomings, ques-
tions, who acts in a given context. I have done this in the past, for instance,
in a housing estate in the Brussels municipality of Laken, near the museum
of natural history and at the UN climate negotiations in Lima. When the
KVS asked me to make a new work, I, for the first time, did not follow the
impulse to work in public space. I wanted to know if I could realize a site-
specific project inside the theatre with the same method of working.
Therefore, the essence of the Infini project stems from two questions: (1)
What does this building want? (And with building I mean the accumulation
of building, technical installation, the economy behind the building, the
organization behind the building); (2) What do I want in this building?
This may sound a bit abstract, but I really do believe that space, architec-
ture has desires one can dialogue with. A theatre is made of walls, it has an
enclosed character. And young theatre artists are often expected to break
open these walls and ‘turn the place into a square’. However, after a few
months of research, it became clear to me that it is much more interesting
to embrace the building rather than to turn it into something it is not.
There is a reason why these walls are there.
KV: With Infini 1-15, you also celebrated in some way the set
design department of the theatre. It became a laboratory in which
not only things are produced but also research is conducted. How
was this concretely organized? And what do the artist you invited
have in common in this? What quest do they share?
JW: The set design department is a space and a group of people at the
same time. The space consists of a big workshop and a small room for
talks. The people are technicians, woodworkers, craftsmen, painters, a dra-
maturgist, a scenographer and a group we call ‘the correspondents’, the
15 artists Dries Douibi and I invited to ‘initiate’ an infini. We asked every
artist to start from a desire to represent ‘a place that is not here’ via sce-
nography. These different correspondents had the following in common:
a starting-point, a budget, a timing, an auditorium and five trusses each.
How he or she dealt with the question, the possibilities and the limitations
was his or her choice. I tried to be as flexible as possible with the set design
department as the group had to accommodate the correspondents’ desires
as well as possible. Sometimes we made everything and the correspondent
dropped by now and again to have a look (e.g. Rimah Jabr), or did not
come round at all (e.g. Wim Cuyvers). Sometimes we just gave them the
key and they made everything themselves (Michiel Soete, Michiel
Vandevelde). Sometimes they asked us to accompany them (Thomas
Bellinck). So, there were as many different dialogues as there were infinis
made (Fig. 5.3).
KV: What is your personal fascination for historical theatrical tech-
niques all about? Can you tell us something about your fascination
for the work of Thierry Bosquet? Why is it relevant or interesting?
JW: Ever since I have known about theatre I have been fascinated by
the history of theatre technique, but especially the history of theatre halls,
the space that, at the same time, originates from and shapes our collective
view. I consider the theatrical techniques on stage to be a sort of trap-net
for that view. In the KVS, I was particularly interested in the truss wall.
This machinery came into being because painted cloths needed to appear
and disappear and later on, in an adapted electronic version without coun-
terweights, carried lamps, which was not the original idea. But the tech-
nique is still there and that is in itself a good reason to ask: what do we use
the trusses for today? After I had decided that Servandoni would be a sort
of ‘ancestor’ of this project and I would play the part of heir, it was obvi-
ous to start looking for a sort of living Servandoni. Via scenographer Rose
Werckx and technical director of the Muntschouwburg Frankie Goethals,
I had the pleasure to get to know Thierry Bosquet, an 80-year-old retired
set painter, who worked in the Munt for most of his life. My fascination
for Servandoni arose by working with him. First, I had to get rid of my
Fig. 5.3 Photo of infini by Wim Cuyvers, Infini 1-15, a performance by

Decoratelier and Jozef Wouters, KunstenfestivaldesArts Brussels, 2016. (© Phile
Deprez)
initial opinion about his outdated and hopelessly romantic style and trade.
At first sight, the differences are striking: I cannot draw or paint, I have
never worked inside a theatre building, I have a much smaller budget, I do
not particularly like the baroque, … In his lessons, he mostly told me
about the history of scenography and he taught me how to draw and make
perspective illusions and at a certain moment we started to go to restau-
rants for lunch. It was then that I discovered that the similarities between
him and me were much more interesting than the differences. Indeed,
Thierry and I are both continually dealing with ‘the architecture of the
gaze’. Our idea of space stems from a perspective, albeit usually in a less
literal sense of the word in my case, of course. But in my work, I also take
into account the idea of perspective. We also both make a difference
between work that is commissioned and ‘our own work’. Nothing of what
we have ever made still exists. By the way: this was exactly the starting-
point of Sis Matthé for his infini: “In our profession you have to accept
that everything you make is ephemeral”, he told me. Finally, Servandoni
also taught me that, historically speaking, scenography is shaped within as
well as without the theatre.
KV: Could you describe Infini 1-15 as a media-archaeological

research project during which you try to get a better grip on the func-
tioning of forgotten media or techniques, or rather: how do these
disappeared techniques continue to work in present-day practice?
JW: I am indeed truly fascinated by old theatrical techniques and I
really want to investigate their potential today. First of all, I want to com-
municate with space and I consider the language of space to be a fully-
fledged language, inside and outside of the theatre. For this form of
communication, architecture is a difficult field. It is easier via scenography.
Scenography enables you to make the negotiations with a space visible in
a flexible way. Infini 1-15 is an important step in that quest. During this
investigation, I discovered there was a whole tradition of in-between fig-
ures: spatial artists who are not architects, who developed techniques to
re-invent, time and again, that negotiation between artist, space and spec-
tator. Each time they looked for ways to lift the space beyond its own
weight. Think about the counterweights in the theatre, which overcome
gravity together and make it possible to hoist scenery elements.
Thus, Infini 1-15 is rooted in my fascination for old theatre techniques,
but it does not aspire to be a historical reconstruction at all. Also, the clas-
sical theatre building, such as the KVS, is interesting from that point of
view: it offers possibilities that are not used anymore and that perfectly fit
in with my ambitions. The unused trusses and backdrops were the ideal
occasion to test, together with a whole bunch of artists, the narrative
potential of scenography itself. Infini 1-15 thus became an essay-like,
explorative collaboration. That is why I am utterly intrigued by the old
instruments of theatre. But it does not primarily interest me how they
were used formerly, I focus on how they can be used today, within my own
practice. By the way that is how I also relate to the work of Bosquet. The
history of scenography is a palimpsest: the fictional spaces are continually
painted over. I am particularly interested in all those vanishing layers.
KV: What is specific about your fascination for the infini itself? As
a theatrical code the history of the infini is directly connected the idea
of the royal perspective and the ways in which one tried to discipline
the view of the spectator. Do you see a relation with the way in which
we deal with space and theatricality today? What does that theatrical
language mean today, knowing that the very notion of ‘illusion’ has
become highly problematic in itself? Have we become too sceptical as
a spectator? Or too conditioned by other media?
JW: In itself it is a really funny idea that so much effort and bricks and
money are invested in excluding the world so that there can be an inner
space without any noise or daylight in order to be able to represent

‘another world’. I do understand the present-day criticism of that system.
Still, I think the technology of the infini is a beautiful fact: first we build
walls, which we then try to forget by means of an infini. But that is not all.
The first set design in the renaissance theatre of Firenze, as Bart Verschaffel
writes in his splendid essay ‘Over theatraliteit’ (1990), was an idealized
landscape featuring Firenze with its theatre in the middle. I find this fasci-
nating: the bourgeoisie more or less desired to distance itself from its own
town in order to be able to look at it. Architect Sebastiano Serlio
(1475–1554) then developed the three ‘standard settings’: a group of
people collectively imagines a version of the town in the theatre. Michiel
Vandevelde opened my eyes during a first talk about infinis by asking the
following: if those walls, which then excluded the chaotic city so that an
idealized town could be shown, are still there, the question today probably
is: how do we exclude the idealized town so that something else origi-
nates? What is the function of an infini today? What is the function of illu-
sion today when the city, the town, the world are more and more becoming
an illusion, when the city (and with the city the image) as we knew it is
about to cease to exist? Therefore, the question is how a building that sets
down an old view can still be used today (Fig. 5.4).
KV: How does the tension between space and theatrality function in
your work? From what moment on does a space become theatrical?
JW: My work is based on a simple question that is very complicated at
the same time: does the theatre need actors? Can scenography exist as an
autonomous art? How does one take scenography beyond its function as
a setting, as a background or a piece of scenery? Servandoni’s failures fas-
cinate me more than what he did actually realize. In his case more failed
than succeeded. Scenographers always feel misunderstood. They strive to
be autonomous artists. That is also the case for Servandoni and Bosquet.
Infini 1-15 is also built on that paradox: even if I say at the beginning “this
is only scenography”, still each one of these artistic contributions aspires
to an autonomous status. We wanted to invite the public to think about
this together, for instance, by revealing the technique behind the work at
certain moments. Theatrality starts with movement, which is the minimal
condition to bring life to the theatre. This movement can be mechanical
(lowering the trusses), but can also be enclosed in the text, which literally
sets the image in motion (such as in the contribution of Rimah Jabr). But
above all, this motion has to originate in the eye of the spectator. Yes, this
may be it: scenography activates the view of the spectator in the move-
ment. Framing is crucial here. It makes me think about a photograph of
Fig. 5.4 Photo of infini by Anna Rispoli, Infini 1-15, a performance by

Decoratelier and Jozef Wouters, KunstenfestivaldesArts Brussels, 2016. (© Phile
Deprez)
war photographer Teun Voeten. You see a demolished street in Damascus.

The framing seems to have been made by Servandoni. Our dramaturgist
Jeroen Peeters aptly described this as the “view of scenography”, which is
a leitmotiv throughout modern western history.
KV: According to you, to what extent is the theatre building a
public space? And how does it then relate to the public space out there,
where theatricality is now a general principle?
JW: A classic answer is: the theatre and the museum are public spaces.
In the introduction to Infini 1-15 I say: ‘When, during the performance,
the theatre doors open and one sees the square beyond, this is only a tech-
nical necessity, because we need to put something outside, and not because
we want to reveal the square and the world behind those doors as some-
thing that could be more truthful than what is going on inside.’ There is
a great desire to ‘break open’ theatres. It seems alright to me and neces-
sary and it is a task that is not only there for the communication depart-
ment of a theatre. But as an artist I feel I have plenty of opportunities to
work in public spaces. If I want to produce something for everyone,
I mean a production that is potentially accessible for everyone, then I will

do this somewhere else and not in the KVS. I have a feeling that the divi-
sion between inside the walls/outside the walls is completely superseded
and that today’s young artists are able to use the many possibilities and
strategies others have invented in their own work with an unseen subtlety
and in such a way that the meaning is not caused by the chosen strategy.
At the same time, it is also nonsense to reproach the theatre that it is not
a square, because it is in the middle of a town square and cannot be sepa-
rated from that. All the same, I do not know if today, supposing the square
at the Lakensestraat where the KVS is now would be empty and I would
be asked to build something there for the city, I would plan a classical
theatrical building there. But, as it is there, it just seems to me to be worth
the trouble to keep asking why it is still there.
NOTES
1. The first part of the project, Infini 1-8, was staged in September 2015.
Infini 1-15, for which Wouters invited seven more artists, premiered in the
KVS on 13 May 2016 within the framework of the KunstenfestivaldesArts
in Brussels.
2. That is the nickname for the old building of the Koninklijke Vlaamse
Schouwburg, which was built in 1887 and renovated in 2001.
REFERENCES
Brockett, Oscar, et al. 2010. Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and
Technology in Europe and the United States. San Antonio: University of Texas
Press.
Coussens, Evelyne. 2016. Schijngevecht met de schouwburg. Etcetera 146: 37–41.
Crary, Jonathan. 1992. Techniques of the Observer. On Vision and Modernity in the
19th Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Peeters, Jeroen, and Jozef Wouters, eds. 2017. Infini 1-15. Amsterdam: De
Nieuwe Toneelbibliotheek.
Surgers, Anne. 2009. Scénographie du théâtre occidental. Paris: Armand Colin.
Verschaffel, Bart. 1990. Rome/Over Theatraliteit. Mechelen: Vlees & Beton.
Wouters, Jozef. 2014. “Ruimte heeft de neiging zich meer in het hoofd af te
spelen dan in de realiteit. Jozef Wouters over scenografie.” Etcetera. Tijdschrift
voor podiumkunsten 138: 34–37.
Wouters, Jozef, and Pol Matthé. 2014. All Problems Can Never Be Solved. Dijon:
Les presses du reel.
PART II
Embodied Technics
CHAPTER 6
Perfumed Performances: The Reception

of Olfactory Theatrical Devices from the Fin-
de-siècle to the Present Day
Érika Wicky
Parfums de l’âme (Scents of the Soul), a theatrical show created by Violaine

de Carné in 2013, presents staged bereaved people waiting in a technologi-
cal institute to receive a perfume that reproduces the smell of the dearly
departed. In this multisensory creation, elaborated in collaboration with
neurobiologists Roland Salesse and Didier Trotier, the evocation of olfac-
tory memories is accompanied by the diffusion of odours in the theatre,
which appeals to the olfactory memory of the spectators. As this example
shows, perfumes offer a great potential for the performing arts, mainly
because of the strong neurobiological links between olfaction, emotion, and
memory. Odours can also play an important role in immersive experiences
through their ability to create or to recreate an atmosphere (Cyr 2007).
However, if perfumes can support and extend the means of performing
artistic creations, experiments involving smell are fairly scarce in the history
of the theatre, and in those rare instances, the reception of olfactory perfor-
mances is generally, if not mixed, intensely negative. The very nature of
smells and the technical issues associated with their dissemination explain
É. Wicky ( )
Collegium de Lyon - Institute for Advanced Study, Lyon, France

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_6
130 É. WICKY
this phenomenon: smells do not circulate straightforwardly; they do not

appear and disappear easily. Therefore, it is still a challenge to bring a spe-
cific scent to the nose of each member of the public at a certain time and for
a limited period. Due to their molecular diffusion, smells do not spread as
sounds and light in theatre do. But beyond the practical problems of diffu-
sion of fragrances, the reception of perfume in theatre performances is
affected by our oversensitivity to smell, which has deep roots in the cultural
history of olfaction.1 In fact, in the case of olfactory media, understanding
the so-called anosmia in the performing arts requires excavating the sources
of reluctance to smell in the theatre. Perfume is not a common object for
media studies, but the devices created to spread and store perfume chal-
lenge, in a specific way, two major issues of media theory: novelty and prox-
imity. This chapter will outline the ways in which the history of olfactory
devices appears to be tied with the general history of olfactory culture. The
focus on mystic references to perfumes in the nineteenth century will dem-
onstrate how our obsession for body odours originates in a combination of
fascination and repulsion, a need for sublimation. The perfect deodoriza-
tion that affected society, including in theatre architecture, left us with a
strong fear and nostalgia of body smells that is still perceptible in contem-
porary olfactory art.
A RELATIVE NOVELTY
Fin-de-siècle France provides us with an example of an early use of olfactory
devices in the theatre: the theatrical adaptation of The Song of Songs by Paul-
Napoléon Roinard at Le Théâtre d’Art in 1891 is known as the first theatrical
play engaging the sense of smell (Shepherd-Barr 1999). Along with several
short plays, the performance was accompanied by the diffusion of several
perfumes in the theatre. According to the programme of Le Théâtre d’Art, the
nine perfumes diffused were frankincense, white violet, hyacinth, lilies, acacia,
lily of the valley, syringa, orange blossom, and jasmine. Since these were indi-
cated in the brochure, spectators knew what smell they were supposed to
recognize (Manescu et al. 2014). Each fragrance was presented along with a
musical theme and a specific colour. Apparently, two different devices were
used during the show in order to spread the smell all over the theatre: the
frankincense was burnt on stage, while the floral fragrances were vaporized all
over the theatre by people hidden in two loges using spray bottles.
Many contemporary theatre critics (Taillis 1891; Leclercq 1892) recog-
nized the innovative approach of Roinard, and The Song of Songs is still
PERFUMED PERFORMANCES: THE RECEPTION OF OLFACTORY… 131
considered by theatre historians as the first play involving the sense of

smell. However, the use of smell in theatre was already extensively present
in the rich historiography of antiquity in fin-de-siècle France. For instance,
Auguste Aurès dedicated a whole book to the study of perfume in ancient
theatres, developing the case of the theatre of Nîmes, which, he argued,
was equipped with small canals disseminating liquid perfume during the
shows (Aurès 1866). In 1887, another historian, Choquet, suggested an
attractive hypothesis: a soft perfumed rain would have been spread on the
public of antic theatre (Choquet 1887). Unlike these historical concep-
tions of perfume mixed with water, the representation of ancient perfume
in fin-de-siècle visual culture emphasizes the use of perfume burners
(Fig. 6.1). Moreover, the use of perfume in antique religious rituals such
Fig. 6.1 Alphons

Mucha, Incantation ou
Salammbô, lithograph,
1897. (© Alamy Images)
132 É. WICKY
as sacrifices was well known (Driou 1873, 295) and incense was so com-
monly burnt in churches at the time that it was often used as a metaphor
for bigotry. So, burning incense during a theatre performance could have
been interpreted as a reference to an historical and religious background
particularly in line with the biblical text staged, The Song of Songs, and with
the mysticism of Symbolist artists (Fleischer 2007). Besides, according to
the diary of Jules Renard, Roinard wanted to burn all the fragrances and
was disappointed by the expedient of vaporization. Quoted by Renard
(2004 [December 23, 1891]), Roinard seemed to be convinced that the
device used, the spray, was too modest to reach his ambitions.
Thus, if the experience of smelling burnt perfume in theatre is new, the
concept was familiar at the end of the nineteenth century. Among critics
marking or mocking the originality of this multisensory play, a theatre
critic named Charles Martel noticed, in an article published on the front
page of the daily newspaper La Justice, that the “concert of perfumes” had
already been employed in the seventeenth century by Fénelon and, more
recently, by Huysmans (Martel 1891). In fact, neither Fénelon nor
Huysmans ever staged a perfumed performance, but they described some-
thing similar. In his fable The Island of Pleasure, Fénelon imagined a world
wherein perfumes are composed like music (Fénelon 1983, 200–204).
Huysmans went even further by imagining an aesthetic experience based
on smell in his novel À Rebours (Against the Grain), published in 1884,
which evokes a series of aesthetic experiments by a very sophisticated
dandy called Des Esseintes. A passage of this novel, dedicated to the cre-
ation of perfume, can be read as a manifesto for olfactory art. First of all,
olfactory creation is compared with fine arts:
He had long been skilled in the science of smell. He believed that this sense
could give one delights equal to those of hearing and sight; each sense being
susceptible, if naturally keen and if properly cultivated, to new impressions,
which it could intensify, coordinate and compose into that unity which con-
stitutes a creative work. And it was not more abnormal and unnatural that
an art should be called into existence by disengaging odors than that another
art should be evoked by detaching sound waves or by striking the eye with
diversely colored rays. But if no person could discern, without intuition
developed by study, a painting by a master from a daub, a melody of
Beethoven from one by Clapisson, no more could any one at first, without
preliminary initiation, help confusing a bouquet invented by a sincere artist
with a pot pourri made by some manufacturer to be sold in groceries and
bazaars. (Huysmans 1922 [1884], 92)
Perfume as a work of art appears to be a new concept, part of the Symbolist

aesthetic, that is developed at a time when, following Kant in his Critique
of Judgment, most people think that if a perfume can be pleasant for some
people, it cannot be beautiful, because it only tickles the sense of smell and
does not imply the judgement of the mind like a poem would (Kant 1914
[1790], 65). Roinard pushes further the Symbolist conception of multi-
sensory aesthetics experience by putting it into practice.
Although the use of spray to diffuse perfumes was certainly new in the
theatre, people were nevertheless familiar with this device, invented at the
beginning of nineteenth century and commonly used for toiletry purpose
during its last quarter. Once again, the newness lies in the displacement of
uses. For instance, Des Esseintes starts his olfactory creation in his “cabi-
net de toilette” (a kind of non-gendered “powder room”) denying the
traditional gap between everyday life and artistic creation. Far from being
known as a medium for artistic expression, the spray was associated with
the intimate moment of toiletry and the trivial space of the bathroom. The
usefulness of the object and its direct connection with toiletry items,
assumed by Huymans, contributed, in the case of Roinard’s play, to down-
grade the use of spray in an artistic creation.
For the spectators of Roinard’s play, the reference to the trivial and
intimate space of the bathroom seems to have also been perceptible in the
choice of perfumes. Most of them were floral fragrances referring to veg-
etal scents, but also to toiletry. In fact, apart from acacia which was not
used in perfumery at the time (Henry 1892, 27), all fragrances diffused
during the show were sold by perfumers. Violet, for instance, was very
popular and frequently used in women’s and men’s cosmetics. Perfumes as
well as devices spreading them referred to daily cleansing, while the play in
which these scents were displayed was situated in the sphere of poetry and
spirituality. The offset between biblical and hygienic references may be
one of the reasons why, according to most critics, the use of perfume dur-
ing this play was perceived as very funny and made the spectators laugh.
Far from being the most emotional moment of the show, the vaporiza-
tions caused great hilarity. In order to gloss over this, favourable critics
omit to mention the spray by using the passive voice when it comes to
describing the vaporization of scents, and none of them commented on
the novelty of the device.
Moreover, fragrances spread during the show were not naturalistic.
Displayed in combination with music and coloured lights, they were sup-
posed to produce an atmosphere. But each smell is the smell of something,
134 É. WICKY
it refers to its source. Members of the audience therefore had to prevent

themselves from interpretation, because the link between the smells and
the text was purely aesthetic and not guided by the logic of the narrative.
Overall, it seems that naturalistic odours such as convivial smells of cooked
food on stage were better appreciated by the audience. For instance, the
aroma of cabbage soup during the ballet La Fille mal gardée presented in
1789 received an enthusiastic audience response (Paquet 2004).
PERFUMES IN THE THEATRE AND PUBLIC HYGIENE

In the nineteenth century, hygiene developed as a science. This resulted in
the enlargement of perfumed toiletry products. The salubrity and ventila-
tion of public spaces such as theatres remained a major issue in fin-de-
siècle France. At the time, theatres were far from odour-neutral. It is
telling that historian Germain Baps (1893) includes a reflection on hygiene
in his history of the theatre entitled Essay on History of Theatre: Staging,
Decor, Costume, Architecture, Lighting, Hygiene. As late as 1913, the pro-
gramme of the Ballets russes mentions the new aeration of the Théâtre des
champs Élysées inaugurated the same year. The search for techniques of
ventilation led to the analysis of movement of air and the dissemination of
smells. For instance, in 1867, the perfumer Eugene Rimmel in his Book of
Perfume mentions some new device that seems to remain a prototype:
The volatilisation of perfumes by means of steam is also a modern improve-

ment. A current of steam is made to pass through a concentrated essence,
from which it disengages the fragrant molecules, and spreads them through
the atmosphere with extraordinary rapidity and force. A whole theatre may
be perfumed by this means in ten minutes, and a drawing-room conse-
quently in much less time. This system has the advantage of purifying the air,
and has been adopted on that account by some of the hospitals and other
public institutions. (Rimmel 1867, 238)
Following the same paradigm of perfume as light as air, in the 1870s,

people made a growing use of spray bottles. Perfumers developed several
prototypes such as the lance-parfum or the odorisateur, for instance
(Krueger 2014), and perfumed fans were popular advertising gifts.
Disseminating perfume in the air through movement became more com-
mon than using it by contact with handkerchiefs or scented sachets.
In the architectural space of the theatre, the olfactory experience began
even before the start of the show since spectators in the entrance hall were
already close enough to smell each other. At a time when the performance
was not only taking place on stage, smelling perfumes was part of the
social experience of promiscuity in the theatre (Wicky 2017). This olfac-
tory intimacy belonged to a conception of a metonymical relationship of
contagion between individuals and their environment. In his Historiettes et
souvenirs d’un homme de théâtre, published in 1876, Hippolyte Hostein
describes these odorous experiences in the theatre as follows: “There was
a time, when everything was perfumed by mint (pastilles, candies, candy
canes, beverages, scented water,…). Then, the mint was dethroned by
Jean Vincent Bully’s Vinegar, which was composed of citrus, lavender and
rosemary. This was followed in turn by the vetyver, the eau de Cologne,
the Patchouli, and, finally, the rose” (Hostein 1878, 257–259, own trans-
lation). The narrator also mentions a few anecdotes: for example, he relates
that at one time people nailed lavender sachets to the walls of the theatre
or that, one day, a perfumer offered all women a promotional fan per-
fumed with rose scent.
The discourse on the uniqueness, the consistency, and the coherence of
smell in theatres teaches us that, in the nineteenth century, an olfactory
atmosphere could not have been pleasant if it was a mix of several different
perfumes. This conviction was shared by most doctors and hygienists of
the period: a mix of perfumes was considered unhealthy and dangerous for
the nerves (Clément 1882), in particular those of women, who were sup-
posedly more sensitive to them (Galopin 1886). All of them strongly rec-
ommended avoiding all kinds of excesses of perfume and warned people
against atmospheres overloaded with fragrances. According to Hostein,
people going to the theatre did not fear headaches.
This context was not conducive to a favourable reception of Roinard’s
play. In addition, it is noticeable that most flowers chosen to perfume The
Song of Songs (lilies, lily of the valley, syringa) are “mute flowers”, which
means that their essence cannot be naturally exacted, because they do not
produce any essential oils. Consequently, we can be sure that at least half
of the fragrances diffused during this evening were chemically synthe-
sized—and probably more—since natural extracts, such as violet, were
unaffordable. In fact, while natural fragrances were very expensive, mean-
ing that perfume was a luxury good, the expansion of the market and the
democratization of perfume in the nineteenth century stimulated the
chemical industry, which developed many synthetic fragrances (Briot
2015, 112). The chemical production of fragrances therefore drastically
lowered the cost of raw materials, and as a result, perfume became
136 É. WICKY
increasingly affordable. However, although synthesized perfumes were

popular, they were still perceived as unhealthy and harmful for the nerves.
Corroborating this medical discourse, Julien Leclercq, a theatre critic,
reports that spectators sneezing all the time disturbed Roinard’s play
(Leclercq 1892). Other critics, such as Henry Fouquier from Le Figaro,
even suggested that the artists went insane because of the overuse of
perfume (Fouquier 1891).
The use of chemically synthesized fragrances, beginning in the 1880s,
raised concerns about their toxicity, but it allowed the democratization of
perfume and opened a creative period for the fragrance industry, which
broke free of many natural and technical constrains. Thanks to the prog-
ress of chemistry, the fragrance industry entered its most creative period,
as it succeeded in the imitation of natural smells. It also became possible
to produce scents that did not exist naturally: the scent of heliotrope, for
example, had nothing to do with flowers, but it became a fashionable fra-
grance. Huysmans compared perfume and the fine arts by describing the
action of the artist as an extension of nature itself:
Thus, with the exception of the inimitable jasmine which it is impossible to

counterfeit, all flowers are perfectly represented by the blend of aromatic
spirits, stealing the very personality of the model, and to it adding that
nuance the more, that heady scent, that rare touch which entitled a thing to
be called a work of art. (Huysmans 1922, 93)
Perfumes could thus be considered as a medium for artistic creation. But

if “synthesize” is precisely the word chosen by Roinard to describe his
artistic project based on synaesthesia, it is understood differently: he
wanted to synthesize a dream atmosphere. From the possibilities brought
by the chemical industry, he chose not to use perfume as an artistic
medium, but he took advantage of the reduced costs, which made a large
dissemination of perfume possible. However, medical warnings against
perfumes and the fear of chemical substances seriously affected the recep-
tion of the scented show.
A MATTER OF PROXIMITY
The fear and suspicion of chemical and unhealthy smells cannot be avoided.
It is linked to the fact that the sense of smell plays a preventive role that
allows us to constantly check the quality of the air we are breathing. As
Maurice Maeterlinck, another Symbolist poet and playwright, remarked:

“[Smell] is the guardian of the air we breathe; it is the hygienist and the
chemist who watch carefully over the quality of the proffered foodstuffs,
every unpleasant emanation revealing the presence of suspicious or dan-
gerous germs” (Maeterlinck 2007 [1910], 64). The poet reminds us that
the fear of smell is also linked to the fear of contagion. In fact, until
Pasteur’s discoveries concerning germs and germ theory in the 1880s, the
prevailing view considered miasmatic contagion responsible for diseases.
The apprehension about smell, deeply rooted in the history of the fear of
diseases, is even stronger in the case of the Song of Songs because the fra-
grances are chemical and because, in a theatre, the spectators are pre-
vented from following their first and natural reflex: distancing themselves
from the unpleasant smell in order to minimize its absorption. The same
was true in the nineteenth century: keeping one’s distance from the source
of a smell allows one to stay safe, but it can also contribute to the enjoy-
able experience of smell, like in Zola’s novel Ladies Paradise:
But what delighted the customers above all was a silver fountain, a shep-
herdess seated in the middle of a harvest of flowers, and from which flowed
a continual stream of violet water, which fell with a musical plash into the
metal basin. An exquisite odor was disseminated around, the ladies dipping
their handkerchiefs in the scent as they passed. (Zola 1886 [1882], 370)
Moreover, in the case of Roinard’s play, a distance was needed between

the perfumes themselves in order to avoid a perfume blend that could be
perceived as unhealthy by the spectators.
This matter of distance and proximity is indeed the main problem for
olfaction in the theatre. The theatrical use of scents requires a dynamic
between distance and proximity, while the “theatron”, literally a place to
observe, implies a fixed position towards the object of observation. The
interaction between viewing and smelling is challenging because it requires
two different positions and thus two different distances from the theatrical
space. The fact that smell cannot be conceived as complementary to vision
requires a questioning of the traditional mode of the theatre in order to
welcome olfaction.
Nineteenth-century art critics had raised this problem. Seeing/observ-
ing was often associated with objective truth (Daston and Galison 2007).
Paradoxically, the conviction that observing provides the viewer with an
objective knowledge and that knowing something deeply implies looking
138 É. WICKY
at it in close detail, led to a loss of global vision and therefore a loss of

knowledge (Arasse 1992). Nineteenth-century caricaturists and art critics
used olfaction to comment metaphorically on what was considered as the
objectivity of seeing on one hand and the emotion and intuition related to
proximity on the other. Paillot de Montabert provides a very good exam-
ple of the tension between the visual and the olfactory in the nineteenth
century. He repeats an anecdote that supposedly occurred in the seven-
teenth century, but related for the first time by the art historian Jean-
Baptiste Descamps in 1753 (Descamps 1753). According to this apocryphal
story, Rembrandt, troubled by visitors looking too closely at his painting,
said to them: “Go away, the smell of the paint will poison you” (Paillot de
Montabert 1829–1851, 257). The fact that art critics have continued to
repeat this ancient and questionable anecdote teaches us two important
things about smell in the nineteenth century. First of all, people were
aware of the dangers of chemical smell and they worried about the quality
of the air. Secondly, a certain distance, greater than the length of a nose, is
necessary to appreciate a piece of art (Wicky 2014).
In the nineteenth century, the main obstacles to an aesthetic reception
of The Song of Songs were thus the quality of fragrances and the efficiency
of devices spreading perfumes, which failed to match the spatial experi-
ence provided by the visual spectacle. These problems persist today. In
fact, the devices later developed in order to diffuse perfume in theatres
(such as the odorama movie in the 1950s) had to address similar problems
of distance in time and space. Even today, spectators complain about
chemical fragrances used to odorize theatres (Domisseck and Salesse
2015). For instance, the diffusion of smell in movie theatres in the US at
the very end of the 1950s, which was presented as a logical improvement
of the cinematographic techniques, did not meet with the success its pro-
moters had expected. In the SmellOVision (1960) invented by Hans
Laube, multiple bottles of fragrance were connected to the projector in
order to release their smell at the right moment during the film. With its
AromaRama (1959), Walter Reade had no more success, and it was
received equally badly by the audience (Hoffman and Bailey 1990, 19–20).
The archives of the New York Time movie reviews provide us with an elo-
quent testimony:
Vapored into the theatre through ceiling vents of an air-conditioning device

that is called AromaRama, they are merely synthetic smells that occasionally
befit what one is viewing, but more often they confuse the atmosphere (…)
When this viewer emerged from the theatre, he happily filled his lungs with
that lovely fume-laden New York ozone. It never has smelled so good.
(Crowther 1959)
The apprehension preventing the appreciation of chemical smells in the

theatre remains because we are still unable to perfectly synthesize all the
smells, and the chemical artifice is sometimes too obvious. The fear of
contagion seems to have been replaced by the fear of allergies, but the
apprehension remains (Banes 2001). Moreover, the impossibility of mov-
ing away from the smell is still an issue for the odorization of public places.
However, contemporary olfactory art in museum exhibitions provides
a good example of how the audience can tame smells by controlling their
distance to the source. They show how the perception of smell initiates
movement, calls upon each spectator to realize a small personal choreog-
raphy. For the exhibition The Art of Scent organized by Chandler Burr in
2011 at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, smelling devices
were placed on the walls like canvases. In La Chasse (The Hunt) (Fig. 6.2),
Fig. 6.2 Julie C. Fortier, La Chasse, 2014, Centre d’art Micro-Onde. (© Aurélien
Mole)
140 É. WICKY
the Canadian artist Julie C. Fortier displayed on a wall 80,000 pieces of

paper perfumed with the smell of warm fur, forest, and blood. Spectators
had to step back in order to have an overview of the piece. To “perceive”
these odours, however, they had to come closer to the wall to smell.
Although the fragrances were sprayed on small pieces of paper—the kind
usually found in perfumeries—the visitor had to adopt an animal attitude,
which was also stimulated by the form of the perfumed wall reminiscent of
the patterns of fur (Fig. 6.3). The work of the Norwegian olfactory artist
Sissel Tolaas SWEAT FEAR/FEAR SWEAT presented for the first time in
2005 is also based on an individual experience of smell. Tolaas synthesized
the smell of sweat of several men suffering from severe phobia. To experi-
ence this piece of olfactory art, spectators not only had to smell the white
wall but also to touch it in order to release the smell. By touching,
spectators annihilated the distance between them and the source of the
smell, thus overcoming their own fears, and also their social prejudices.
The history of olfactory devices appears to be tied to the general history
of olfactory culture, with each impacting on the other. If sensorial percep-
tion can be shaped by the use of different media, the development of new
techniques needs to be linked with a process of training the audience in
Fig. 6.3 Julie C. Fortier, La Chasse, 2014, Centre d’art Micro-Onde. (© Julie
C. Fortier)
their sensitivity to smell. A critic writes in 1891 that The Song of Songs
could not have been very successful given the lack of imagination that
would have been needed to appreciate the play (Martel 1891). Similarly,
in Against the Grain, Huysmans underlined the need for a “preliminary
initiation” in order to enjoy perfumes as an aesthetic experience. Today,
studies on reception reveal that spectators have to make a consistent effort
to assess an olfactory experience (Domisseck and Salesse 2015). The sig-
nificance of the effort and the wealth of experience are the two main fac-
tors in the history of olfactory devices, which though marginal, has existed
through the centuries.
NOTE
1. The influence of cultural background in the reception of smells has already
been studied by many scientists (Ferdenzi et al. 2017).
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CHAPTER 7
Performing Astronomy: The Orrery

as Model, Theatre, and Experience
Kurt Vanhoutte
ASTRONOMICAL
In 2011, artist and former documentary photographer Mishka Henner
published twelve 500-page volumes under the title Astronomical. The
width of each page represents a distance of one million kilometres. Starting
with our Sun, which spans a double page, Henner’s first volume continues
with page after page of the blackest black until the reader hits upon the
tiny spot that is Mercury. The Earth and everything we hold dear is a speck
on page 155. Eventually, after having passed Mars, there are 220 pages of
the Asteroid Belt. Jupiter is to be found in volume two, Saturn in volume
three and on page 6000 is Pluto. Each planet is positioned on the right-
hand page of its spread as if it were illuminated by the Sun of the first page
of volume one. The book contains an index to the planets, yet the black
pages are not numbered. Astronomical is a conflicted attempt to depict the
scale of the solar system of which we are part. Leafing through the 12
volumes somehow makes palpable our unfathomable position in the uni-
verse. The impact of the work startled even the artist, “Like most of my
projects, I made a book, produced a video trailer, published it on my
K. Vanhoutte ( )
e-mail: kurt.vanhoutte@uantwerp.be

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_7
146 K. VANHOUTTE
website and got on with the next project. But this video went viral and
before long, goths and emos remixed the trailer to celebrate its accurate
depiction of their lives, astronomers and scientists were discussing the
book’s accuracy and function (…)” (Himes and Swanson 2011, 202).
Astronomical is an orrery, albeit a remarkably uncommon one, as it
represents the distance of the planets from the Sun on flat paper. In its
most usual form, an orrery is a clockwork mechanism with balls of various
sizes attached to copper arms made to scale that illustrate the relative posi-
tions of the celestial bodies. Also, generically known as a “planetarium”, it
was a very popular amusement and teaching device, and was much in
vogue during the Enlightenment. It was used as an aid to demonstrate the
new heliocentric universe promoted by the protagonists of the Scientific
Revolution. After centuries of dogmatic belief that the Earth was the static
and privileged centre of the universe, these devices shook the notion that
man was at the middle of it all. In the nineteenth century, no progressive
household was without this captivating dynamic desktop theatre of the
planets. To judge from the response to Henner’s orrery, its popularity has
waned little since. What aligns his Astronomical with the long history of
the mechanical orrery is of course the astronomical interest that sparked
both, as well as a particular blend of awe and wonder caused by the invita-
tion of the design to revisit our position in the universe. In the past, turn-
ing the handle to make the Earth, and perhaps other planets, orbit the Sun
made the European imagination recalibrate to a greater here and a longer
now. The sizes of and the distances between the planets were necessarily
inaccurate, but the orrery was nevertheless imbued with a sublime sense of
cosmological time and space. From the start, this clockwork device sub-
verted the mind with the extreme contradictions between the experience
of the individual position and a view that was above it all. It made people
flip-flop between the view from the Earth we stand on and the god-like
celestial viewpoint. The visual-tactile effect still reverberates in the sheer
materiality of Henner’s volumes, the turning of the pages, the folding of
the universe into yesteryear’s medium of knowledge transfer par
excellence.
Astronomical demonstrates that the profound effect of the orrery per-
sists over time even when its shape and design radically change. The power
to transform and still retain its initial impact is indicative of its prototypical
character. To the extent that the orrery manifests itself throughout cul-
tural history, where it signals both cultural continuities and ruptures, it
can be called a “topos”. Influenced by the pioneering work of Ernst
PERFORMING ASTRONOMY: THE ORRERY AS MODEL, THEATRE… 147
Robert Curtius, media-archaeologist Erkki Huhtamo considers “topoi” to

be clusters of interconnected trains of thought that form recurrent expres-
sions (Huhtamo 2011). To understand the internal dynamics of old and
new media, topos study focuses on the discursive space where technolo-
gies are imagined and talked about. For all its simplicity—and because of
its simplicity—the orrery, then, can be said to articulate recurring and
existential questions that derive their substance from the human sense of
place and perspective. Discoveries and inventions in the field of optics and
astronomy have in particular left us with three major interrelated ques-
tions, all of which lie at the heart of visual culture and cognition. How can
we accurately see distant and moving objects and measure the scale of the
universe we are in? How can we distinguish between our own motion and
the motions we are observing? And how can we relativize our own central-
ity from which we view our self and the world, when by definition our
visual cognition places us in the middle of things? The orrery is a persistent
cultural formula that highlights these fundamental questions about per-
ception and point of view. These questions will guide us in developing a
conception of the orrery as theatre.
According to Erkki Huhtamo, tracing topoi, analysing their trajectories
and transformations throughout cultural history and measuring their
effects on the audience, is one of the goals of media-archaeology. Following
his cue, this article will trace the orrery as a design that traverses media and
performance culture, and gives form to changing experiences and perspec-
tives. As we shall see, the orrery is in fact simultaneously a mechanism, an
icon, and a paradigm shift. It instigates new understandings of the uni-
verse, and should in accordance with a media-archaeological approach be
analysed in the context of the specific cultural conditions in which it
appears and is discussed. It is my specific aim to identify some of the roles
the orrery has played in the cultural evolution of theatre. To demonstrate
how the captivating power of the orrery is intertwined with theatricality, I
will begin by tracing the dynamics of theatre and performance inherent in
the design and the set-up of the mechanism, and its orientation towards
the viewer. For this, we need a short history of the orrery as an inherently
theatrical device, which, as we shall see, at some point in time mounts the
stage to transform into a theatrical space in its own right—in effect a large
machine in the form of an architectural or scenic installation specially
crafted for presenting performances. I will exemplify the functioning of
the orrery by focusing on case studies drawn from both the past and pres-
ent. In this way, I hope to lay bare the varied and often stunningly original
148 K. VANHOUTTE
manifestations of the orrery over time and, conversely, also show the
importance of astronomical discoveries and demonstrations to our under-
standing of theatre and theatricality. Ultimately the orrery emerges as a
topos, and quite literally so, not merely as a discursive concept, but as a
scale model and a visual landing place for the spectator’s eye and the map-
ping of her position in the universe.
ORRERIES ACROSS MEDIA

The nineteenth century saw astronomy applying developments in mathe-
matics, physics, chemistry, and geology to understanding the composition
of celestial bodies. The British Empire in particular saw a flood of new
planetary machines, optical devices, crafted and marketed by skilled instru-
ment makers, as well as astronomical clocks of all shapes and sizes. There
was a growing demand for such apparatus. Looking back at the competi-
tive context and the market value of these instruments, one might safely
suggest that the period witnessed a commodification of astronomical
devices. The construction of orreries was scattered across a wide range of
these technologies and the terminology used to describe their constituent
parts is complicated and inconsistently applied. A few factual details are
given here about the desktop model. First conceived in about 1704 by
George Graham, a highly significant name in the development of chro-
nometry, the initial model showed only the Earth and the Moon orbiting
the Sun. Graham purportedly gave the design of this original model to the
celebrated London instrument maker John Rowley, who was commis-
sioned to make one for his patron Charles Boyle (1674–1731). This soon
led to the further development of Graham’s invention to include all the
planets of the known solar system. Boyle was the Fourth Earl of Orrery,
thus lending his name to the device. Benjamin Martin, one of the leading
instrument makers of his time, went on in 1770 to include a mechanism
that could produce elliptical orbits. His orrery also differed from earlier
ones by having the planets on extended arms, rather than fixed on rotating
plates and by adding the “tellurian”, which showed the inclined axis of the
Earth and how it revolved around the Sun, and the “lunarium”, which
showed the eccentric rotations of the Moon around the Earth (Milburn
1973). Martin insisted on the scientific validity of the orrery. He removed
the decorative armillary sphere that encircled many orreries because, in his
own words, “there is really no such thing in Nature”. Thus, he wrote,
“[t]he Orrery I propose is a bare Representation of the Solar System in its
native Simplicity, and is, in its self, sufficiently grand, and pompous; it
stands in Need of none of the useless, expensive, and cumbersome
Embellishments of Art” (Martin 1771, 11).
Despite Martin’s efforts, emphasis on the scientific merit of the orrery
did not reduce its aesthetic appeal. On the contrary, by the end of the
eighteenth century, it was slowly but securely evolving from an expensive
scientific item to a token of exclusivity and a marker of bourgeois prosper-
ity. Instrument makers started producing smaller versions for home use,
including portable models that could be carried by itinerant lecturers and
popularizers of science. On page 1 of his 1784 book The Description and
Use of a New Portable Orrery, William Jones, who had once been Martin’s
pupil, prided himself on having constructed a version that “recommends
itself for the Public through simplicity and cheapness” (Jones 1784, 1)
(Fig. 7.1).
Along with the practical orreries, in other words, came a heightened
interest in spectacle as a means of popularizing science. Jones was one of
those philosophical instrument makers who understood very well that the
role of the showman in particular helped make the instrument trade so
Fig. 7.1 William Jones’s portable orrery. Image from The Description and Use of
a New Portable Orrery. London: John Jones and Sons, 1784. (Author’s
collection)
150 K. VANHOUTTE
ubiquitous and he thereby succeeded in cultivating a wide clientele

(Stewart 2013). From then onwards, and, as we have shown elsewhere,
especially throughout the nineteenth century, spectacle and performance
indeed became widely accepted values in astronomical science (Bigg and
Vanhoutte 2017).
As an artist who showed an early interest in mechanics and science,
Joseph Wright may have attended such a performative lecture on astron-
omy. One masterpiece of British art, Wright’s celebrated painting A
Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery in which a Lamp is put in Place
of the Sun, was first exhibited in London in 1766. It is a summary image
that powerfully expresses the ways in which theatre and science are mutu-
ally imbricated and constitutive of our observation of the orrery. Wright’s
painting signals a radical change in the evolution of perspective itself. The
lecturer is, more specifically, reminiscent of Isaac Newton, whose theories
on the movement of the planets and universal gravitation were first pub-
lished in 1687. In the long run, it was Newton who worked out how the
newly devised solar system, first theoretically suggested by Copernicus and
then empirically observed by Galilei, might actually function. That is to
say, the painting by Wright somehow stages Copernicus’s conceptual leap,
who asked himself a question that allowed him to envisage a heliocentric
universe. How would the heavens appear if viewed from the vantage point
of the Sun instead of the Earth? Copernicus, and, by the same token, the
spectators in the painting, stepped outside the existing model of the solar
system and looked back at it from an imaginary outside perspective, rear-
ranging the theatre of the planets and sun in an entirely new way.
Remarkably, even though in this case we do not see much of the turn-
ing of the celestial bodies, we understand its impact through the gaze and
fascination of the spectators in the painting. Their faces gleam with the
illumination of science. They are serious; they are contemplating the plan-
ets. The receptivity of their minds is furthermore underscored by the pres-
ence of children. They mirror our own curiosity and position in respect of
this miniature theatre of the skies. Whereas the two adults surveying the
scene, with notes and pencil in their hands, confirm the source and author-
ity of scientific knowledge, the other spectators in the picture, especially
the children, are clearly mesmerized by the shining sun glowing in the
darkened room. This continuum of serious science teaching (associated
with the act of recording and writing) and modern spectacularization (the
inherent theatricality) is powerfully inscribed in the setting of the lecture.
The darkened room housing the orrery has been transformed into a space
of theatricality, the lamp functions as stage lighting, and the drapes in the
upper right-hand corner of the frame reinforce the impression. Moreover,
scientific commitment and aesthetic delight seem to melt together in a
metaphysical glow that animates the whole scene. The demonstration of
the orrery awes as it informs: this is the sublime experience at the heart of
Wright’s painting (Molesworth 2015). The sublime, as defined by
Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant some years before Wright’s painting,
was a term used to describe an extreme sense experience, one that threat-
ens to overwhelm even as it affirms the individual’s position. The sublime
is an intense response that arises from the tension between reason and the
senses, confronting the viewer of Wright’s painting with the sublimity of
infinitude (Duro 2010). The orrery itself, then, can be said to evoke the
sublime, encouraging the observer to experience the universe visually and
rationally, to see it as simultaneously within the reach of knowledge and
the senses yet forever beyond epistemic grasp. This tension is a fundamen-
tal attribute of the orrery seen as theatre.
As the relatively small size of typical orreries limited their impact, sev-
eral philosophical inventors working in the early nineteenth century
attempted larger scale simulations of the heavens. Looking at the often
bizarre, but always spectacular history of the planetarium theatre, one can
but marvel at the paradoxical efforts of its designers and engineers: the
effort to replace the night sky as seen by the naked eye with an artificial
ceiling displaying that very same image, and, above all, the effort to make
this image work, to release its performative potential. In this light, the
Great Gottorp Globe (1717) might be considered a predecessor of the
orrery as a performative space, as it quite literally transformed the desktop
model into a theatrical cabinet, establishing a new point of view. The
Globe was unique in its size and construction. It had an external globe
with a map of the Earth and an internal planetarium with a map of the sky
that could rotate simultaneously. The stars were holes in the external
globe, with light shining in from outside. In 1717, this marvellous device
became a diplomatic gift to Tsar Peter The Great, who is said to have
taken great interest in it, and who would frequently spend part of his
mornings climbing inside the wooden ball through the square door, to
take a place on the ring bench at the round table, manually rotating the
mechanism fixed to the globe’s axis. This type of globe theatre was soon
to become a spectacular genre in its own right, leading to enormous and
immersive panoramic displays like Wyld’s Monster Globe in Leicester
Square in the mid-nineteenth century (King and Millburn 1978).
152 K. VANHOUTTE
Today, the motions of the heavens are the business of highly specialized
technological environments. A dominant feature is the use of precision-
engineering expertise combining digital technology and lasers. In a way,
they are the descendants of Jena’s dome-shaped planetarium equipped
with Zeiss optico-mechanical technology, the first technological reproduc-
tion of the sky with moveable planets and the largest ever intermedia tem-
ple when it was completed in 1924. Planetaria remain secluded theatres
built to accommodate the projection technology and the screen. The
architecture involves an overhead hemispherical panorama that reveals
itself to the earthbound viewer. It is worth noting that the image brought
to the audience through digital technologies and media still shares basic
features with the original orrery. After all, what the spectator witnesses as
the eyes adjust to the dark remains a scale model of the universe, albeit
elaborated in a much more complex, detailed, and enveloping way.
Moreover, the mixed emotions of awe and reverence are still what drives
us to visit the present-day planetarium, and as a result, children are still
often among the audience. It could, however, also be argued that the
present-day projection planetarium has more in common with cinema
than theatre. Whereas early shows would still have had a lecturer pointing
to the starry sky and explaining the motions to be seen, the performer
today seems to have left the stage, leaving the spectator in the arms of
technology.
It should then come as no surprise that contemporary film theorists
find a fertile field for the study of their discipline in cosmology and its
significance for technology. Some scholars even claim the orrery as the
rightful predecessor of cinema from the media-archaeological perspective.
These claims share the interesting proposition that we should abandon the
opposition of “old” and “new” media. In doing so, these authors rightly
attribute an important function in cultural history to the orrery. However,
these approaches also take the remarkable step of assimilating the orrery
into a linear and teleological history by grounding the beginning of film in
all things astronomical. “I want to claim”, Michael Punt writes in a book
paying tribute to the media concepts of media-archaeologist Thomas
Elsaesser, “that the origins of cinema are not found in the infinite regres-
sions of Javanese shadow plays and experiments in ancient Greece with
photosynthesis, but can be located quite precisely in 1704, with Prince
Eugene of Savoy’s commission for a clockwork instrument that was nur-
tured in the hands of the 4th Earl of Orrery in the following years” (Punt
2008, 269). For him, the cinématographe is a direct derivative of the
orrery, an assertion that is not without a dimension of technological deter-

minism. The claim is all the more surprising, as an obvious raison-d’être of
media-archaeology is precisely to destabilize historical models that favour
“origins” and “beginnings”. In more general terms, Christophe Wall-
Romana recently recognized in the cinematic apparatus itself “the culmi-
nation of 19th century astronomical intermedia”, a crowning point that
purportedly spurred the astronomical imagination in literature (Verne),
early cinema (Méliès), and illustrations (Grandville) (Wall-Romana 2015).
All in all, explanations like these tend to overemphasize the importance
of a single medium, in casu film, and to neglect other currents at work in
media transformations. In this case, no reference to theatre or the pro-
cesses of theatricality is to be found, a strange omission indeed, since the-
atre and theatricality are known to be part and parcel of film history
(Brewster and Jacobs 1997). I therefore want to challenge these views by
laying bare instances in history when the orrery became theatre. The
advantage of this approach is that it will open our eyes to a strange and
fascinating practice that incorporated and transformed the orrery from a
technology into theatre—and back again, if one recalls the contemporary
use experimental performance art makes of the orrery in times of digital
projection, as I will demonstrate below.
MOUNTED ON STAGE
When the orrery is considered as live art, the efforts of Adam Walker and
his sons are among the most noteworthy in their attempts to fuse theatri-
cal illusion with educational aspiration. Over the course of almost 60 years,
from 1772 to well into the 1820s, the Walker family in London offered an
elaborately entertaining lecture entitled The Eidouranion, from the Greek
“form of the heavens”. Walker’s shows were much discussed in the nine-
teenth century, which saw astronomy applying developments in art, math-
ematics, physics, chemistry, and geology. From these accounts over many
years we can follow its success and acquire an idea of its performance. In
their 1812 Epitome of Astronomy, the Walkers described the “Transparent
Orrery”, which formed the heart of the performance, as
(…) from fifteen to twenty feet diameter: it stands vertically before the spec-
tators; and its globes are so large, that they are distinctly seen in the most
distant parts of a Theatre. Every Planet and Satellite seem suspended in
space, without any support; performing their annual and diurnal revolutions
154 K. VANHOUTTE
without any apparent cause. It is certainly the nearest approach to the mag-
nificent simplicity of nature, and to its just proportions, as to magnitude and
motion, of any Orrery yet made; and besides being a most brilliant and
beautiful spectacle, conveys to the mind the most sublime instruction (…).
(Walker 1812, 5–6)
The Eidouranion could be mounted on the stage and concealed by cur-

tains during each change of scene. In consequence, it is rather difficult to
have a precise idea of what the mechanism looked like and how it worked.
An “old hand” in 1826 referred to it as “a vertical arrangement of the old
Orrery, with transparent or luminous planets” (Wellbeloved 1826). There
are nonetheless several theories regarding the mechanism of the
Eidouranion. Leading researchers in the field of the magic lantern regard
it as a device using a large phantasmagoria apparatus, painted glass slides,
and probably even a parabolic mirror to set in motion the celestial globes,
comets, and spheres, and using some kind of back projection to give astro-
nomical effects on screen (Crangle et al. 2005, 91). Other researchers
have remained closer to the mechanism of the orrery suggesting that “pin-
ions mounted on a long, single arbor actuated a set of large ring-wheel”
(King and Millburn 1978, 310).
Whatever the case may be, the major concern at the time was not the
mechanism of the wheelwork, as the theatricality and the overall scenic
effect undoubtedly constituted its greatest fascination for both young and
old. In the final analysis, therefore, an understanding of the orrery audi-
ence is essential, as it takes us one step further in understanding the scope
of these spectacles. From the start, competition among astronomy lectur-
ers was fierce and no means were left unused to reach the audience. As
early as 1809, the Annual Review, and History of Literature, a compen-
dium comprising 800 pages on topics as varied as geography, theology,
education, drama, science, and experimental philosophy, voiced the fol-
lowing complaint:
Of late years the number of those who appear before the public with matters
which require much previous learning and study, without having the neces-
sary qualifications, seems to have increased rapidly; formerly the opinion of
inspiration was confined to religion alone, now it pervades every science and
art under heaven, and we have on all sides inspirati, arrived at perfect knowl-
edge, without having gone through the tedious paths of previous instruc-
tion. (Anonymous 1809, 711)
In a way, astronomy lectures became instances of the emerging culture of

mass spectacle, and were at the time acknowledged as such by their audi-
ences, as soon as they demonstrated their ability to inspire the visitor with
a mixture of reverence, awe, and authority, tying together strategies of
dramaturgy and representation adopted from theatre and melodrama,
without, however, letting go of the scientific goals and aspirations that
motivated the shows in the first place. The famous lectures by Walker and
others were framed in these terms. They were admired as theatres of the
skies in which the celestial bodies are the actors, revolving around the
main lecturer, who was simultaneously director and actor, positioning
himself in the middle of the scene—a scene providing a dramatic narrative
of cosmological proportions. At the same time, astronomy as entertain-
ment also always drew a measure of scepticism from commentators who
claimed that principles of scientific merit were seriously compromised
when the spectacular became the tabula rasa of the performance. An inte-
gral part of the reviews of the Eidouranion and similar shows, then, was a
critical list that exposed all the factual errors made in the lecture on the
evening it was performed to the clear light of science and reason.
In 1808, just a year before the “old hand” lamented the flood of shal-
low showmen, the Monthly Mirror wrote that Mr. Walker’s lecture,
“[t]hough not void of amusement to rational minds, is principally instruc-
tive, and the mode of instruction adopted by Mr. Walker, assisted by his
admirable Orrery, simplifies this stupendous, yet delightful science, so as
to bring its principles on the level with the meanest capacity” (Anonymous
1808, 275). Adam Walker was usually highly praised for his knowledge of
science and his craftsmanship, but somewhat less for his charisma. After
Walker’s death in 1821, his youngest son, Dean, took over the show in its
entirety. Dean was undoubtedly the most theatrically minded member of
the family, holding his lectures in theatres such as the Theatre Royal, the
King’s Theatre, and the English Opera House. Generally, a dramatic tab-
leau is effective when it drives towards a point of change with swift and
seamless transformations of scenes, by no means an easy feat when large
mechanical structures fill the stage. To achieve a sense of drama, then,
Walker’s son used an ingenious combination of a glass harmonium,
mechanical objects hanging in mid-air, transparent paintings, and special
lighting effects. “All at once”, an admirer in 1824 wrote,
the scene began to change; and, while the Celestina was giving an idea of the
music of the spheres, the Sun burst forth with its ever-moving rays,
156 K. VANHOUTTE
illuminating the one-half of an elegant transparent revolving globe, two feet

in diameter, while the other half was enveloped in darkness: a representation
which distinctly showed the circle of perpetual illumination, at one time
enlightening the north pole, and then, by degrees, the whole frigid zone;
and at another, receding from the pole again, in the same manner, till it was
lost in semi-annual darkness. Meanwhile, the apparent progress of the Sun,
or, the real progress of the Earth, through the signs of the zodiac, and the
changes of the seasons, were finely elucidated, by a most beautiful transpar-
ent painting of these signs, that surrounded the machine, and was compre-
hended in a circle of about 20 feet in diameter. (Anonymous 1824, 20)
The visitor to the Eidouranion show furthermore emphasized Walker’s

“amusing manner of speech” and the fifth and last scene is reported to be
the most spectacular with the “approach of night (…) admirably imitated
by the machinery employed, and the spangled appearance of the firma-
ment, with the milky way, powdered with stars” (ibid. 22) (Fig. 7.2).
A spectacular dimension proved indispensable. One of Walker’s main
competitors was a child of the theatre. Sir Bartley was a genuine actor,
most famous for his role as Falstaff and no background in astronomy at all.
He nevertheless started delivering lecture performances in the 1820s in
the same English Opera House where Walker performed his. Bartley also
made use of an orrery mounted on stage and called it the Uranologia. A
contemporary comparison makes it that Bartley’s star shone brighter, as of
the two “rival lecturers” it was he who was to be was credited with deliver-
ing “a theatrical adventure, of great merit and curiosity”, presented “with
great solemnity and proper feeling (…) feelingly alive to the dignity of his
subject” (Wellbeloved 1826, 4). The same commentator lauded the inno-
vative character of Bartley’s shows in comparison to the solid but some-
what older version of Walker’s by stating that Bartley was the first lecturer
to use “planets (…) painted on glass (…) as phantasma in the magic lan-
tern” (ibid. 2). According to the reasoning of this contemporary, Walker
would have been using mechanical scenery rather than the lantern. In any
case, the Eurolognia remained the property of the theatre and of Samuel
Arnold, its manager and dramatist. In 1809, Arnold had obtained permis-
sion to stage opera and other musical dramas, renaming London’s Lyceum
Theatre as the English Opera House. Under his auspices, the house staged
the first English productions of numerous operas alongside, so it seems, a
scientific orrery theatre. The entrepreneurship of Arnold and Bartley,
together with Walker’s Eidouranion, clearly demonstrates that the orrery
had strong theatrical connections.
Fig. 7.2 Proscenium of the English Opera House, London, 1817, with Walker’s
exhibition of the Eidouranion. (© Alamy Images)
Questions relating to perspective and motion were interwoven and

pushed to their limits by the visualization techniques used in the theatre.
The shows reorganized the way people understood the perception of time
and space, revealing a complex universe in motion. In particular, astron-
omy theatre gave spectators a model to reconcile two points of view, the
view from the Earth and the view that transcends the sense-based indi-
vidual. It articulated the cognitive functions of locating oneself in the uni-
verse and of the importance of the spectator’s own motion to her
perceptions as seen from her point of view. In astronomy, the celestial
bodies observed, in Walker’s case “the apparent progress of the Sun” (cf.
infra, my italics), are both distant and in motion, and this is why our own
movement through the universe, or “the real progress of the Earth” (cf.
158 K. VANHOUTTE
infra, my italics), becomes a problem for perception. The Earth’s rotation

around its own axis evades corporeal detection and can be understood
only by studying and making visible the mind in motion. The sense-based
perception of our own centrality (the “apparent”) had to be reconciled
with astronomical theories of viewpoint and motion (the “real”). This
need to visualize explains the deep-rooted fascination with orreries in the
nineteenth century. It was a way to come to terms with deep epistemic
tensions.
But there is more to Walker’s scene than meets the individual’s eye.
After all, the transformative power of performance should not be underes-
timated. Staging the orrery as a theatrical event also and by definition
means organizing the perception of the audience as a collective whole.
Seen in this light, the orrery as theatre also most certainly displayed a
longing to get beyond the limits of individual perception. Co-presence is
by definition both the basis and boundary of a performance event and the
feedback loop between performer(s) and audience is a fundamental aspect
of theatre. It raises the barrier between actors and spectators to the point
where, as performance theorist Erika Fischer-Lichte has argued, “[r]ather
the performance brings forth the spectators and actors”, as “it aims at the
involvement of all participants, in order to create a reciprocal relationship
of influence” (Fischer-Lichte 2008, 50). There is no doubt, then, that the
visual representation of astronomical discoveries in the theatre created a
shared experience and a common scientific culture because the audience
had visual evidence that such a shared culture existed. As such, the theatre
constituted an important locus for staging and adopting the conditions of
modern life.
It is safe to say that the orrery as theatre had an important role to play
in the development of the new modern state. In the remainder of this text,
I will focus on two specific expressions of theatre as orreries, both of which
were very explicitly intended to mould the minds of those who partici-
pated in the game. Here I am thinking of the rather peculiar practice of
“living orreries”. It is telling that these participatory performances did not
take place in any theatre, lecture hall, or other locus where art meets sci-
ence in the nineteenth century, but on the school playground and in the
military training camp, respectively. In these institutions, they could exert
a far bigger influence than in any art venue. I will describe the living orre-
ries in conjunction with their contemporary re-enactments in order to
tease out their common features, working principles, and effects on the
audience as well as their particularities and historical specificities.
LIVING ORRERIES
We have seen that one of the fundamental achievements of modern astron-
omy is the ability to distinguish between the apparent and the real. In his
Outlines of Astronomy of 1849, the celebrated astronomer John Herschel
highlighted the difference between what he termed “relative and absolute
motion”, referring to the bias in attributing our own visual perception and
point of view to the celestial bodies over our heads.
Nothing is easier to perceive than that, if a spectator at rest views a certain

number of moving objects, they will group and arrange themselves to his
eye, at each successive moment, in a very different way from what they
would do were he in active motion among them, – if he formed one of
them, for instance, and joined in their dance. (Herschel 1849, 55)
To use dance as a metaphor for what Herschel subsequently calls the effort
to pass “from the sensible to the real form” is a remarkable and imagina-
tive way to frame the problem. However, the author’s solution to the
problem did not involve the movement of dancing bodies. He rather saw
the solution in the arrest of geometrical abstraction. “The relative motion
of two bodies is the same as if either of them were at rest, and all its
motion communicated to the other in an opposite direction”. This gen-
eral rule is what we should bear in mind when picturing the relative motion
of celestial bodies. Herschel, in other words, preferred stasis over move-
ment, contemplation over sensibility. His suggestion is indicative of sci-
ence becoming an authoritative form of learning in the nineteenth century.
Science became serious business and the means to communicate knowl-
edge production to an audience had to follow suit. One can easily imagine
that this also had caused him, at some earlier stage, to dismiss the orrery
out of hand. “As to getting correct notions”, Herschel firmly stated in A
Treatise on Astronomy, “by drawing circles on paper, or, still worse, from
those very childish toys called orreries, it is out of the question” (Herschel
1834, 272). Underscoring his point, the astronomer added to this convic-
tion a description of an orrery laid out on a “levelled field or bowling
green” using a globe for the Sun and grains of mustard seed, sand, peas,
oranges, and “a full sized cherry, or small plum” to represent each planet’s
trajectory (ibid. 271–272).
Yet, while Herschel’s description invited mockery, dancing orreries
made perfect sense to other didactic agents in the field. They make a
160 K. VANHOUTTE
strong case for what today would be called embodied knowledge. In 1768,
John Ryland published a detailed account of his “living orrery, made with
sixteen school-boys” in his Introduction to Isaac Newton’s Philosophy
(Ryland 1768, xix–xxi). The book was meant to be used in schools. Ryland
himself was the founder of Enfield Academy (to which the poet Keats was
sent in his adolescence), and it is not difficult to imagine the wonderful
scene as was set up in the school playground. Ryland describes how to
map out the orbits of the planets with a rope. Individual pupils were given
cards identifying one of the planets or moons and a little information to be
learned and read out aloud. With these cards, the pupil planets and moons
took up their positions in an appropriate circle of orbit around their class-
mates. And finally, Ryland commanded:
[n]ow begin your play, (…) and then put your orrery in motion, giving each
boy a direction to move from west to east, Mercury to move swiftest, and
the others in proportion to their distances, and each boy repeating in his
turn the contents of his card, concerning his distance, magnitude, period,
and hourly-motion. Half an hour spent in this play once a week will in the
compass of a year fix such clear and sure ideas of the solar system as they can
never forget to the last hour of life; and will probably rouse sparks of genius,
which will kindle into a bright and beautiful flame in the manly part of life.
(Ryland 1768, xxi)
Ryland’s “methods of simplifying knowledge” echoed throughout the

century to follow and was lauded for its innovative character and graceful
efficacy.1 At the centre of these lessons was the presence of God. In
astronomical science and discoveries, he recognized the vindication of
faith through progressive knowledge.
More than two centuries after Ryland’s endeavour, the effort to fuse
performance and astronomy resonates in the activities of a network called
the Performing Astronomy Research Society, albeit in the context of a radi-
cally new world-view. PARS is an international, interdisciplinary group of
researchers from the human, social, and exact sciences, together with art-
ists, visual technicians, and planetarium professionals, formed to trace the
history, present state, and future of popular astronomical spectacle.
Combining academic research with artistic and professional mediation,
PARS is dedicated to the investigation of a locus where spatial and visual
cultures of modernity were (and continue to be) elaborated and experi-
enced at the intersection of science, technology, and spectacle. Collectively
members look into the performance, the material and technological char-
acteristics of astronomical shows, their social and cultural contexts but also
their perception and experience by different audiences. They explore the
ways in which the shared experience of astronomical spectacles contrib-
uted to foster new senses of the collective and of the world in the quintes-
sential cities of modernity and beyond. An important component is
arts-based, experimental reconstruction as a heuristic for studying histori-
cal objects or events. Artist Eric Joris and his theatre company CREW
created Celestial Bodies, a family of immersive and interactive virtual orre-
ries through which approaches to and methodologies for studying visual
cultures could be developed to explore the performativity of images, the
bodily engagement of spectators, and how embodied experiences of spec-
tacular astronomy might stimulate belief.2
Since 1998, the immersive live art of this Brussels-based company has
successfully challenged established conceptions of acting, (tele)presence,
spectatorship, theatricality, and narration. Scientific reflection plays a con-
stituent role in CREW’s creative process as, since its inception, engineers
from various universities have developed new technologies for the com-
pany to use on stage and for exploring the aesthetic possibilities of digital
technologies. They have attracted much attention with high-tech perfor-
mances in which audience members are partially immersed in virtual
worlds. Characteristic of their working methods is their use of various
kinds of head-mounted displays that present users with panoramic video
images that respond to the user’s viewing direction and movements. In
this case, the solar system unfolds from the direct encounter and interac-
tion with the user. What the user then experiences is in turn projected on
the screen for the other spectators to see, so that an interaction occurs
between embodied knowledge (the immersant inside the image) and criti-
cal contemplation (the audience in front of the screen).
The immersant first sees the image of an avatar speaking in the voice of
the person who helped to don the display. The avatar introduces herself as
a guide. Walking around with her allows immersants to change their per-
spective and to explore the relationships between the Sun, the Earth, plan-
ets, and moons, and their movements relative to one another and relative
to themselves. The experience is immersive, if not entrancing. As a result
of direct collaboration with astronomers, the company is now, for an
example, able to put the immersant into an orrery that depicts an existing
universe with two suns or into the constellation that contains the seven
recently discovered exo-planets in orbit around a star. The embodied
162 K. VANHOUTTE
enactment is meant to fully capture and engage the senses of the audience.
There is a sense of displacement, a sharpening of sensation, which pro-
duces a higher degree of sensory involvement. At the same time, the rela-
tionship between the virtual world and the space from which it is activated
is brought to conscious attention time and again, for example, when the
guide invites the immersant to touch a football on a string, the movements
of which, tracked by motion capture, will be used to create an impression
of the Sun in orbit in the virtual space. In other words, a connection is
staged between the avatar as encountered in the virtual universe and an
actual person in the space in which the immersant finds herself. This con-
nection highlights how the virtual universe is generated through a digital
interface.3
The result of such a dialectic between empathy and distance, immersion
and contemplation, produces embodied knowledge of the universe as we
know it today. It makes us aware that our view of the stars entirely depends
on our body, its relative motion and performance in space. The installation
in particular suggests a universe that has no centre, no privileged vantage
point, or abstract view from above. In other words, immersive and omni-
directional technology makes tangible what the desktop orrery, the orrery
as theatrical exhibition or even the dome-shaped planetarium of the twen-
tieth century could not provide, as these orreries by default implied, and
still imply, a central viewpoint. Instead, Celestial Bodies articulates con-
cerns that are more in line with Ryland’s orrery and that are, paradoxically
enough, also more in accordance with our present-day knowledge of the
universe. A few years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope, a spacecraft explor-
ing our universe, provided mankind with a new map of the universe con-
taining about 5500 galaxies. We are not at the centre. The immersive
re-enactment takes this ontological shift into account, as the immersant is
able to dance amidst the planets and to freely choose her vantage point. As
such, Celestial Bodies goes beyond pure mimicking operations, constitut-
ing instead a vigorous field of activity in which the many tangled notions
and ideas essential to the art of projection are actively renegotiated by re-
inventing historical sources—notions such as immersion, spectatorship,
and interactivity.
The confrontational encounter between different representation media
provokes innovative perceptions of astronomy and stimulates insight into
the modes of understanding and how these modes are available to human
perception. The immersant learns by doing. By actually making her capa-
ble of switching between points of view, Celestial Bodies does indeed sug-
gest that cognition is embodied in the senses and that knowledge is based
on perception and bodily actions. It does not come as a surprise that cog-
nitive mapping of the universe through the practice of the human orrery
persisted into the 1930s, when Germany built its first planetaria aimed at
fostering “spatial thinking” among pupils.4 Even today, the method of
offering a multi-perspective view of the solar system by making people play
the part of the planets moving in their orbits remains an educational tool
for astronomy.5 The framework of these practices is drawn from contem-
porary embodiment theory and education, where the foundation of cog-
nition in perception and proprioception is the central focus.6 This
knowledge can be said to be an implicit intuition already at play when the
Reverend Ryland made “his boys” dance the orrery in 1768.
UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN

“Is it possible to lead an eccentric life? Is it possible to bear the thought of
endless evolution and of boundless spaces?” (Lemaire 2007, 112; my
translation) Ton Lemaire tackles these philosophical questions in his book
about the landscape as culture. He focuses on the ritualistic iteration of a
sacred midpoint and the subsequent urge of modern man to embark on a
voyage into an expanding universe, leaving the midpoint behind. He rec-
ognizes this evolution in the ways in which we organize our landscapes.
Whereas the iteration of a cosmic centre exemplifies a mythical origin,
history as science is initiated with a move towards the peripheral. According
to Lemaire, the best way to measure this topography is by walking. The
walker orbits the centre and her steps map the distance between her and
the centre. Lemaire’s figure helps us to shed light on the designation of
the centre in astronomical walks. This in turn will make something explicit
about the ways in which the concept of walking orreries goes hand in hand
with strategies of representation and ideology.
Clearly, in the mid-eighteenth century, at the centre of the orrery was
God. The teachings of the Rev. Ryland, along with his empirical learning
methods, were inspired by a spiritual imperative. Astronomical discoveries
demonstrated God’s presence in the universe and the orrery revealed and
expanded the beauty of His creation. This is probably also why Ryland’s
descriptions are so cheerful: they express an evangelic fervour and convic-
tion. How different is the tone of voice when we compare his orrery with
the military orrery proposed by Major-General Grant De Vaux, who,
around 1808, had likewise detailed a “walking orrery”. De Vaux wanted
164 K. VANHOUTTE
his orrery to be executed “on a grass-plot in the Isle of Wight”, making

his planet-soldiers go through their exercises and march at the word of
command. The military men would be tied to the centre by cords, leaving
no doubt as to the locus of control. “In the centre”, De Vaux proposed,
“should be a round pavilion, having a sky-light, and windows all round”.
This pavilion will be our observatory, and at the same time will represent
the sun in the middle of our planetary system. As this pavilion must contain
company and music, etc. it must be at least 20 feet diameter (…) The sun
itself will be a circular collection of reflectors, or a focus of the brilliant
light possible, and the pavilion will be erected over it, being supported by
light pillars, in order that the spectators or observers in the pavilion may
see better the effect of the whole; which they could not, if their eyes were
struck with lights. Each of the globular transparencies of the planets will be
the head of some sort of god and goddess, such as Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, and his most gracious majesty Georgium [Uranus], sitting
in little cars; which cars will be directed from west to east, and drawn by
seven soldiers, or other men accustomed to march in measure. (Aikin
1809, 713)
Careful shaping of the transparencies, making them receptive to light from

the centre, would make the various phases of the planets apparent. It was
furthermore the duty of the musicians to pace the steps of the planet-
soldiers and to regulate each measure to be of two seconds in time. “To
put this planetary system in motion at pleasure”, De Vaux contented, “you
have only to give your order, to make a signal, or to say ‘march’; then the
music beginning to play a march, and each soldier making his steps in
measure, the planets will execute the revolution” (ibid. 714). Meanwhile,
stars would be represented by a light in a ship in the bay at some distance
from the pavilion and meteors by “some small rockets fired from the pavil-
ion in an oblique direction” (ibid.).
It is difficult to say exactly it was that motivated De Vaux to envision
this strangely elaborate spectacle. As a descendant of a family of nobles
who had emigrated from Scotland to France, De Vaux became an army
officer in Normandy. He was forced by the revolution in France to flee to
Great Britain in 1790. Shortly before devising his orrery in the mid-1790s,
he was granted the position of colonel and obtained permission to raise a
regiment, which he formed with other French émigrés. Surely then, there
is more than a hint of royal ideology at work here, including reminiscences
of the courtly ballets of the kings of France, the Sun King Louis XIV and
his successors. While the centre remained fixed, it was now also rooted in
a conception of physical reality that differed from Ryland’s. De Vaux’s
orrery is not so much about bridging the gap between the Earth and
Heaven than it is about political spectacle, discipline, and control. That
the Empire did not think highly of the French adventurer is not exception-
ally surprising. British commentators particularly ridiculed his high-
minded effort to educate and dismissed his scientific aspirations, claiming
that the revolutionary findings of their compatriot Newton did not back
up De Vaux’s assertions (ibid. 715 et passim). They implicitly knew that,
for De Vaux, the orrery functioned as a mobile theatre in which the unity
of state, science, and authority was reaffirmed as a military parade among
the stars. It tendered a vision of how the soldier, the scientist, and the
statesman could work together in the conquest and organization of nature,
new territories, and societies.
The military orrery is expansive. Expansion is a movement of appro-
priation or assimilation whereby consciousness moves beyond itself, rela-
tivizing the assertion of stability and central reference due to myth. The
near-absence of myth from science is a fundamental issue: it is what makes
modern science modern. Science conquers religion and relegates it to a
form of pre-modern existence. However, there has also been a wealth of
literature in recent times insisting that myth persists.7 A defining feature of
modernity is that spirits, apparitions, and magic do still hold appeal for
contemporaries and that attempts to suppress myth in the sciences have
more often failed than succeeded. Technological progress is also always an
act, which reassembles the residual mythical mindsets. This is why, in our
case, even the most contemporary planetarium still visualizes the signs of
the zodiac, using them as an alphabet to structure and organize the impen-
etrable largeness of the universe we inhabit.
This perhaps also explains why contemporary orreries tend to engage
with the melancholic, the nostalgic, and the darker tones of the spectrum
of emotions. Astronomy in general is a melancholy pursuit, due to the vast-
ness of the endeavour, and this is made the more so by the urge to some-
how (re)connect. Every orrery inevitably balances the tension between
history and what transcends us. It holds within it the natural habitat of the
poignancy of things. This is all the more true for contemporary versions of
the orrery. Henner’s Astronomical is a case in point. Moreover, even though
melancholy as an aesthetic emotion was not intended, a basic feature of
Celestial Bodies nonetheless invites the participant to experiment with the
relation among self, technology, and, ultimately, a sense of disembodiment.
166 K. VANHOUTTE
It is as much about incorporating new knowledge as it is about losing one’s

self. While Celestial Bodies makes the effects of a “decentering” universe
palpable, at the same time, it engages with the loss of sense of body. There
is a solitude of space. The immersant is in the falcon-hood seclusion of the
head-mounted display. The exclusion of outside stimuli is a necessary con-
dition of virtual reality. It leads the solitary participant to experience an
artificial universe prepared by the artist. An important condition of Celestial
Bodies, then, is the negotiation the immersant constantly has to make
between corporeality, the here-and-now of the body, and the immersive,
expanding universe that she empathically senses. This back-and-forth leads
to a heightened sense of presence, between the real and the virtual. She is
“there”, but never really there.8
“They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each
actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible”, reads the
quote that accompanies the three versions of Saturn, the large orrery that
Belgian performance artist Karl Van Welden has installed in various public
spaces.9 Sequentially named Saturn I, II and III, they became, respec-
tively, part of a stretch of coastal dunes, part of an urban landscape, and
part of the transitional area between countryside and the city, where culti-
vated nature and scattered housing define one another. The quote is from
Michel Foucault, who famously described a type of prison and a system of
discipline and control devised in the eighteenth century: the mere fact that
the inmates, who occupy cells ordered around a central pavilion, know
that they can be watched (without them seeing the supervisor) compels
them to constantly monitor their own behaviour. The quote is a perfect
match for the military orrery (and one indeed wonders if De Vaux actually
knew the panopticon as designed by Bentham in 1781). Van Welden, for
his part, seems to be as much interested in the melancholic dimension of
the individuation process as in processes of discipline and control. His
focus is on the lost connection between myth and history. In Greek
mythology, Argus Panoptes was a primordial giant with multiple eyes
looking every way and who never slept. Van Welden’s United Planets
Cycle, a series of works including the installations Mars, Pluto, and Mercury,
accordingly aspires to a prehistoric monumentality. The work functions as
a mediator between human-sized actions and cosmic dimensions.
In Saturn, the spectator takes a place in an observation post, individu-
ally zooming in on details in the surroundings through a telescope. Her
eye wanders, pauses, and eventually fixes on one of the strangely isolated
figures in the distance, some of them four kilometres away. There, she
detects one of the six actors who seem to be ritualistically performing their
tiny gestures. Mnemosyne, daughter of Saturn and personification of
memory, is seen standing backwards in the landscape, only occasionally
turning to glance behind her. Encircling the central observatory are her
sisters and brothers, the other moons of the planet Saturn. It was John
Herschel who suggested in 1847 that Saturn’s satellites should be given
the names of the mythological figures associated with the planet. Eventually
it became the convention for naming the satellites of the superior celestial
bodies. From the system that developed over time, Van Welden selected
six Titans and Titanides: Oceanos, Tetis, Hyperion, Lapetos, Mnemosyne,
and Reia. Only the latter, both daughter and wife of Saturn, being also
topographically closest to the centre, occasionally looks at the spectator
and establishes some sort of contact. In mythology, she was also the one
who saved her son Zeus by handling her father a stone wrapped in swad-
dling clothes, which he took for his son and immediately swallowed.
Saturn had seized upon the government of the universe by his superiority
over his father and mother. He devoured his sons as soon as they were
born, but ultimately was confined in Tartarus. This prehistoric revolution
would create the conditions for the birth of mankind from the Olympic
gods and, as Van Welden’s orrery performance seems to suggest, initiate
modern history and the progressive distancing from the origin. What per-
sists in Saturn is the gap between myth and history (Fig. 7.3).
Saturn represents the distance between the celestial bodies we see and
their significance, expressing the absence of transcendence from within.
The atmosphere is accordingly elegiac. The visitor in the pavilion deter-
mines her own time while the performers keep on playing without inter-
ruption. The installation solicits and frustrates the spectator’s desire that
what she sees should be directly transparent regarding its signification.
Hers is the kind of receptivity that brings to mind Siegfried Kracauer’s
astute “observation on the possible role of melancholy in photographic
vision”:
Now melancholy as an inner disposition not only makes elegiac objects seem
attractive but carries still another, more important implication: it favours
self-estrangement, which on its part entails identification with all kinds of
objects. The dejected individual is likely to lose himself in the incidental
configuration of his environment, absorbing them with a disinterested
intensity (…). (Kracauer 1960, 17)
168 K. VANHOUTTE
Fig. 7.3 Topographic map of the installation Saturn I, by Karl Van Welden, on
the island Terschelling, with the black dot indicating the central observation post,
2011. (Courtesy of the artist)
When noting this observation in his Theory of Film. The Redemption of

Physical Reality, Kracauer was analysing the formative tendency of melan-
choly in photography and film. Melancholy recurrently casts the spectator
in the role of a stranger detached from public space, “strolling about aim-
lessly: as he proceeds, his changing surroundings take shape in the form of
juxtaposed shots of house façades, neon lights, stray passers-by, and the
like” (ibid.) A similar logic applies to Saturn. The installation is all about
framing, cutting, and montage. It forces a geometrical pattern and a per-
spective, the design of an orrery, onto a natural landscape for the spectator
to scrutinize. Only here the spectator becomes aware of her own sense of
detachment by being immobilized behind the lens of a telescope. She is
left alone in a “decentered centre”, the seat of Saturn, an empty space in a
framed environment—“like so many cages, so many small theatres”. Thus
melancholy motivates and rationalizes the visual.
CONCLUSION
The orrery is a theatre of the sky, where earthly concerns are played out.
The scale model of the universe has always served representative purposes
for their patrons, whether as the symbol of an aristocratic statesman
(Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrery), a demonstration of the divine author-
ity of the law of nature (Ryland), the scientific and cultural excellence of a
nation (Walker, Sir Bartley), or as an exhibition of military values (De
Vaux). Today, in the wake of loss of the social orders where stability reigns,
of metaphysical guarantees and autonomous selves, we encounter a dis-
tinctively melancholic feature (Joris, Van Welden). We have noted that
astronomy in general is a melancholy pursuit because it re-enacts the space
between us, especially when astronomical knowledge is turned into spec-
tacle. Given the human faculty of image-making, we are always removed
or alienated from ourselves via the visual images we make and display in
front of us. If theatre derives from the Greek “theatron”, meaning both
“gathering place” and “vision”, does the history of the orrery not then
share something of the profundity of the theatre? The scale model of the
universe operates between art and science, the fictitious and the real. It
replays the seeming gap inherent in the spectacle. And yet, in the here and
now of our encounter with these images something of a reconnection
takes place. We acknowledge this interrelation most vividly in human orre-
ries, through the awareness to gesture, movement, and the co-presence of
living bodies. It reappears when we give the orrery to the history of
performance.
NOTES
1. See: Rylandiana, Newman’s tribute to the Rev. Ryland in 1835, which
includes the cards that were used during the performance. Here are two
examples: “CARD 1: I represent the great Sun, the centre of light, heat, and
attraction to all the planets. My diameter is 890,000 miles. I am above a
million times bigger than the Earth and 540 times bigger than all the planets
170 K. VANHOUTTE
together. I turn round upon my axis in 25 days” (Newman 1835, 120);
“CARD 12: I represent stupendous Saturn. My diameter is 78,000 miles. I
move around the Sun in 29½ years, at a distance of 907,000,000 miles, and
at the rate of 22,000 miles an hour” (ibid. 121).
2. See: www.parsnetwork.org. See Vanhoutte and Bigg (2014) on the precepts
of PARS and the role of CREW’s embodied orrery. Also, for a conversation
about CREW’s experimentations and experience of working on the borders
between artistic practice, science and technological innovation for over a
decade, see, in the same issue the interview with Eirini Nedelkopoulou.
3. According to Maaike Bleeker, who examined CREW’s Celestial Bodies in the
context of digital media studies: “[T]hey show the universe itself as a phe-
nomenon that cannot be disjoined from the generativity of the human–
technology configurations in which the world and the universe get
articulated in an ongoing, open-ended process” (Bleeker in Bigg and
Vanhoutte 2017, 256).
4. Charlotte Bigg mentions a handbook written in 1934 by Jena teacher Otto
Deinhardt and distributed by Zeiss that shows how “the human planetar-
ium” was scheduled for school groups complementary to a visit to the plan-
etarium: “Each age group was assigned different exercises, from drawing the
constellations to measuring the height of the sun at different times of the
year. Several of these exercises involved children embodying planets and re-
enacting the motions of the solar system’s different bodies”. Accordingly,
“schoolgirls were chosen according to size to embody the sun and the plan-
ets. They were made to pace along concentric orbits traced with chalk on
the schoolyard. The ‘Planetenkinder’ demonstrated in a simple but effective
manner that planets closer to the sun were quicker to complete one full
circle” (Bigg in Bigg and Vanhoutte 2017, 214).
5. Some contemporary practices are described in an article in Astronomy
Education Review, “The Human Orrery: A New Educational Tool for
Astronomy” (Asher 2007).
6. For a state of the art report on embodiment theory and education, see
Kiefer and Trumpp (2012).
7. Elkins and Morgan (2009), Josephson-Storm (2017).
8. On the phenomenology of this experience in CREW’s performances, see
Vanhoutte and Wynants (2011): “In the shifting moment between the
embodied and the perceived world, on the fracture between what one sees
and what one feels, the distinction between live and mediated is blurred,
moreover, can no longer be made. The perception of the body is pushed to
the extreme, causing a most confusing corporal awareness, a condition that
intensifies the experience and causes an altered sense of presence. In a
dynamic cognitive negotiation, one tends, however, to unify the divergent
ontologies of the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’ to a meaningful experience” (275).
9. See: www.verenigdeplaneten.be
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CHAPTER 8
Capturing Bodies as Objects: Stereography

and the Diorama at Work in Kris Verdonck’s
ISOS
Kristof van Baarle
A floating man. He is unable to stop laughing, hysterically enjoying him-

self without a clear reason. A couple in a dining room. They open a can of
pineapple, lighting candles, and a smoking cigarette. A green plastic bag
flaps in the wind, rustling infinitely. These three scenes, or ‘situations’, are
part of the installation ISOS (2015) by the Belgian theatre maker and
visual artist Kris Verdonck. The ‘situations’ are not performed live but can
be witnessed in viewing boxes, or rather, dioramas. Nine slick white boxes
are positioned in three lines of three. Each box contains a different little
scene in three dimensions that can be looked at from above through peep-
holes. These virtual scenes combine stereography and the diorama.
The nine ‘situations’ of ISOS are all based on the work of the British
science-fiction writer J.G. Ballard (1929–2009). Together, they form an
interpretation of his body of work, which offers a strong critique of the
society of the spectacle (Debord 1995), in which humans and objects
K. van Baarle ( )
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
e-mail: Kristof.vanBaarle@UGent.be

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_8
174 K. VAN BAARLE
become interchangeable as commodities. Ballard’s characters share an

estranging apathy or lethargy and are numbed by comfort in a highly
aggressive world. In this analysis, I will follow the media-archaeological
roots of Verdonck’s ISOS to explore the installation’s critique of our con-
temporary society. ISOS’ translation of Ballard’s critique of the docile soci-
ety of the spectacle can be analysed by considering three older media that
are part of a conceptual and technological genealogy of Verdonck’s theat-
rical installation. Stereography, Muybridge’s chronophotography, and the
diorama were all seminal media for the nascent society of the spectacle.
Analysing their function in the political and economic apparatuses of their
time allows for a deeper understanding of ISOS’ implied critique of its
own media and their operations in the context of larger, destructive appa-
ratuses. By placing ISOS in the lineage of stereography, diorama, and
Muybridge, it becomes clear how the installation aims to signal the next
and increasingly totalizing step in an evolution towards expanding objec-
tification and control. Moreover, I hope to demonstrate that the seed of
resistance was already planted in the early uses of technologies at origins of
contemporary three-dimensional (3D) image-making—an insight that is
needed to bring this resistance to completion.
VIRTUAL SCULPTURES
Verdonck calls the figures in the boxes of ISOS ‘virtual sculptures’. The
connection between sculpture and stereography goes back to the early
days of the latter medium. The stereoscope, a device generating 3D images
for their beholder, is older than photography and its development is closely
related to research in subjective vision and developments in physiology,
which shifted the focus from what we see to how we see, from the object
to its observer (Crary 1988, 24). Such developments have established that
when two images of the same object are drawn, shot, or filmed from a
slightly different position (based on the distance between the eyes) and
subsequently superimposed or simultaneously perceived by each eye sepa-
rately, a 3D representation of that object is seen by the viewer. The under-
standing of binocular seeing led to the artificial creation of stereo-vision,
as it was confirmed that “there never really is a stereoscopic image, that it
is a conjuration, an effect of the observer’s experience of the differential
between two other images” (Crary 1988, 28). In an essay with the elabo-
rate but telling title “Account of a binocular camera, and of a method of
obtaining drawings of full length and colossal statues, and of living bodies,
CAPTURING BODIES AS OBJECTS: STEREOGRAPHY AND THE DIORAMA… 175
which can be exhibited as solids by the stereoscope”, one of stereography’s

pioneers, Sir David Brewster, argued for “the representation of statues as
the most interesting field of application for stereoscopy” (Schröter 2014,
92). ISOS’ virtual bodies fulfil Brewster’s demand in that they have a very
sculptural quality. Despite their virtuality (a notion traditionally associated
with absence as opposed to presence), these virtual sculptures of bodies
and objects produce a sense of presence, paradoxically lending them a
specific solid quality. The sensation that these virtual sculptures are ‘alive’
in these boxes is generated by the high quality of the 3D image as well as
by the precise positioning and tuning of the speakers, which make the
figures’ movements seem fluid and firmly anchored to the boxed spaces.
The ‘source’ of the images is a 3D television screen at the bottom of the
boxes. A small, but important, technical detail is that the 3D screens were
set to locate the 3D effect fully ‘in front of the screen’ (instead of creating
depth in the screen), which creates the impression of the figures standing
‘on’ the screen and hence on the floor of the boxes, or floating in them.
The diorama, another historical medium seeking to create the illusion
of depth and movement, shimmers through in ISOS’ set-up of nine view-
ing boxes. There is a tradition of a particular type of dioramas exhibiting
humans of different ethnicities, non-normative bodies, often from colo-
nial territories. Many a museum of national history, from Brussels to
New York, still has mannequins of ‘African’ and Native American people
on display, next to stuffed animals. These sculptures, or rather, manne-
quins, are “human bodies turned into objects or images, available to be
exposed, exploited or abused” (Spampinato 2016, 2). This particular
understanding of the diorama as “exhibits, where taxidermic animals or
wax figures were combined with ‘naturalistic’ props and painted back-
drops” gained ground only at the end of the nineteenth century and dif-
fers from its original meaning of ‘transparency painting’ (Huhtamo 2013,
139). The taxidermic dioramas in museums become all the more painful
when we consider the near or complete extinction of the people or they
ways of life as depicted in the dioramas, caused precisely by those who
have captured them behind glass and have hence museified their exis-
tence.1 In its origins, the museum dispositive not only affected the ‘things’
(human and non-human) on display but also disciplined the visitor and
served as an apparatus of education and indoctrination (Bennett in Bennett
2013, 9). The dioramas in these natural history museums were designed
to present a ‘realist’ image of the ‘cultures’ they contained, or rather, had
captured.
176 K. VAN BAARLE
Stereography knows a similar history. In the Victorian age as well as in

Nazi Germany, stereography was used to demonstrate and spread the
power of the empire and a specific idea of it (Gurevitch 2012, 244). “The
spatiality of 3D images thus became a political tool and subject”,
Multimedia Systems scholar Schröter states (2014, 195). In ISOS, the
crossover of stereography and the diorama as “exhibition apparatus”
(Huhtamo 2013, 144) reflects on the objectification of bodies and lives,
and the violence that goes with it. What is represented in ISOS, however,
is not a ‘foreign’ or ‘different’ culture, but precisely Western society itself.
Relating the exhibition of objectified humans to the contemporary society
of the spectacle, visual culture historian Francesco Spampinato sees the
“mannequin as symbol of the new mass culture, a tool to display com-
modities” (2016, 6).
Looking at diorama’s objectified beings from a position of power—be
it political or economic—seems to be almost inherent in the mode of view-
ing them. In his famous essay on the work of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction, Walter Benjamin claimed that the technological means to
produce reproducible art works—he refers to photography and film, but
stereography certainly belongs to that category as well—led to a shift of
focus, making mankind an object of contemplation for itself (2007 [1968],
242). The rise of reproducible art works is related to the desire of the
“masses to bring things ‘closer’” (2007 [1968], 223). The dioramas of
ISOS are to be looked in from the upper side of a viewing box, creating a
god’s eye perspective. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard made a
similar argument in his chapter on holograms in Simulacra and Simulation,
stating that “[y]ou bend over the hologram like God over his creature”
(2001, 105).2 Virtual sculpture, taxidermy, doll, mannequin, hologram:
these doubles of human are not innocent. Moreover, they allude to desire
for control, possession, and power over life in various ways (Fig. 8.1).
Similar to the diorama, stereography has a history of depicting—or
rather, capturing—subjects as objects, notably weakened others and
women. In the mid-nineteenth century, early stereography was a technol-
ogy associated with pornography (Colligan 2008, 76). Colette Colligan,
who specializes in pornographic print culture in that period, refers to
Baudelaire’s disapproval of the medium, quoting his essay on photography
in which the French poet writes that “a thousand hungry eyes were bend-
ing over the peepholes of the stereoscope, as though they were the attic-
windows of the infinite. The love of pornography, which is no less
deep-rooted in the natural heart of man than the love of himself”
Fig. 8.1 Installation view of ISOS, a 3D video installation by A Two Dogs

Company/Kris Verdonck, Rotterdam 2016. (© A Two Dogs Company, photo:
Anna Scholiers)
(Baudelaire in Colligan 2008, 77). A century before Baudrillard, Baudelaire

already connected stereography to narcissism, as well as to pornography
and the festishization of the (mostly) female body. The genealogy of the
virtual sculpture is hence already interwoven with the pornographic
commodification of (women’s) bodies in photography and later fashion
and advertisement. Interestingly, Ballard’s oeuvre has a particular vision
on women and the impact of female characters on their male antagonists
as well. Ballard’s female characters consistently appear as objects of long-
ing. While this feature can be interpreted in relation to his wife’s early
death, the fact that nearly all women in his stories are portrayed as mysteri-
ous poles of attraction seems also to be inspired by the surrealists’ depic-
tion of women, for example, in the work of Delvaux or De Chirico.
Ballard’s female characters seem to embody the longing caused by absence,
the surrealist femme fatales (Spampinato 2016, 11) and the spectacular
consumption of female bodies.
Spampinato writes that the empty gaze of the mannequins in De
Chirico’s paintings is situated “in cities as if they were abandoned by
178 K. VAN BAARLE
human presence”. This trope of the abandoned city or empty space returns
in several of Ballard’s key works such as The Drowned World and The
Draught, and is a recurring topic in the oeuvre of Verdonck as well.
Additionally, Spampinato points out how De Chirico used the term ‘man-
statue-object’ to describe his mannequins; these were “men left mute and
immobile in front of technological progress” (2016, 4). Both Verdonck
and Ballard—for example, in his novel Crash!—deal with the changing
position of (technological) objects in society and in relation to ‘the human’
or the subject and point at an increased intimacy, dependence, and
exchange. As Ballard said in an interview: “One’s living science fiction. All
our lives are being invaded by science, technology and their applications”
(Ballard in Barber 2012, 23). The image of a mute, objectified human
‘bathing’ in technology might not seem so far from life in the society of
the spectacle—a central theme in Ballard, which ISOS is bringing to the
fore.
STEREOGRAPHY AND POWER IN THE SOCIETY

OF THE SPECTACLE AND CONTROL
Despite the sometimes problematic image of women in Ballard’s stories,

many of his female characters fascinatingly resist the technologies that
enable their objectified representation, as I will try to show further in this
article. The lustful objectification of the female body is comparable to the
fetishization of non-human objects that become an object of desire, sub-
stituting an actual human other. The female figure in Ballard is embedded
in a discourse of and on technology in an economico-political system.
This system can best be described in terms of Guy Debord’s society of the
spectacle, in which “[a]ll that was once directly lived has become mere rep-
resentation … a concrete inversion of life, and, as such, the autonomous
movement of non-life” (1995, 11). The science-fiction aspect of Ballard’s
oeuvre perhaps does not lay so much in contemplating technological
innovations as in its bleak look ahead on how society and the human
psyche will evolve within a spectacular consumer society. Stereography
was and perhaps still is “a consequence of an emergent visual culture that
triangulated industry, spectacle and the commodity in a new relationship”
(Gurevitch 2013, 400).
Similar to Gurevitch, Spampinato draws a connection between the
fetishization and commodification of the body through mannequins and
avatars and the rise of mass media, which led to “the transformation of
reality into fiction through the bombardment of images of desire and fan-
tasies impossible to achieve” (2016, 13). Stereography, itself being since
its conception a spectacular medium of attraction avant la lettre (Gurevitch
2013, 399), is applied by Verdonck to comment precisely on a spectacular
society as it was described by Ballard (who developed his poetics in the
same period as Debord’s writings on the spectacle). Ballard predicted a
world in which individuals wilfully give up liberties and personal informa-
tion to an apparatus of which they think they have complete control, but
which in fact controls them. The dystopian result is a collective society of
equal but docile members of a worldwide, suburban, petty bourgeoisie.
His characters all find themselves in various post-apocalyptic or dystopian
settings and situations, and they all share the same sort of lethargy, a pas-
sivity towards their situation. “My worst nightmare is that nothing hap-
pens”, Ballard notoriously said.
In the dioramas of ISOS, a wealthy middle-class couple is the main
focus in several of the viewing boxes. They wait, dine, watch TV, laugh,
and are placed in situations of repetition, alienation, doubling, and hyste-
ria. The couple represents the typical petty bourgeois household, which
according to philosopher Giorgio Agamben will ultimately make up the
larger part of our society. Agamben sees the planetary petty bourgeoisie as
“the form in which humanity has survived nihilism” (1993, 62). In the
society of the spectacle that has sedated the critical and creative capacities
of its inhabitants, spirituality is replaced by consumerism and the urge to
live by a comfortable waiting. In Vermilion Sands, Ballard calls this condi-
tion beach fatigue, caused by an overdose of relaxation in the sun and
consumption of cocktails without any necessity to produce, resist, or cre-
ate. The (future) planetary bourgeoisie is a consequence of the “spectacular-
democratic society in which we live” (Agamben 2000, 125).
A critical reflection on the petty bourgeoisie as an outcome of the
spectacular-democratic society is formed by the use of sound in ISOS. The
scenes in the dioramas are accompanied by a soundscape of various noises
coming from ‘inside’ the boxes. One central diorama shows a BBC televi-
sion report on the 2011 London Riots in a loop. These riots became
famous for their a-typically broad appeal, as demonstrating immigrants
and working-class people were joined by white-collar and middle-class
rioters. Interestingly, there was no single particular reason nor goal of the
riots. It was as if a certain critical emotional mass had been accrued, result-
ing in an uncontrolled outbreak of violence. To the couple watching the
180 K. VAN BAARLE
news report on television in Verdonck’s ISOS, these riots do not seem to

exist. Their state of indifference is characteristic/representative of their
inability to care or attribute meaning to these events. Moreover, the petty
bourgeois resort to violence and death to cover up the senselessness and
vulnerability of their existence, making them “probably the form in which
humanity is moving toward its own destruction” (Agamben 1993, 65).
This particular box is based on Ballard’s short story ‘Escapement’
(1956), in which a couple watches TV, but the man suddenly is stuck in a
loop, in a repetition of the same events, the same new report, the same
glass falling off the table. These loops grow shorter and shorter and his
wife is completely unaware of his condition. This unsettling scene is per-
formed in ISOS, which creates an uncanny situation, a subliminal tension,
amplified by the rioting sounds and alarming comments of the BBC
reporter.
The televised violence pouring into the couple’s living room is doubled
in the disquieting looping situation. A third, more fundamental form of
violence which is latently present in all of ISOS’ boxes becomes explicit in
this looped box. The exceptional event of the London riots could be ana-
lysed as a moment where the “inherent systemic violence” (Žižek 2009,
10) of Agamben’s spectacular-democratic regime comes to the surface. It
is the moment when society reveals itself as what French philosopher
Jacques Rancière has called the society of consensus: “the post-political
suspension of the political in the reduction of the state to a mere police
agent servicing the (consensually established) needs of the market forces
and multiculturalist tolerant humanitarianism”(2009, 72), which always
implies a latent violence. In order to maintain the consensus of which the
Ballardian suburb and its petty bourgeois inhabitants are emblematic, a
violent pacification is necessary. When the homeostasis can no longer be
maintained, this leads to riots or civil war. The consensus as such is not
‘real’; it is constructed and maintained. The soundscape of the riots creates
a tension with the content of the dioramas by evoking an unsettling feel-
ing of a conflict or hostile group approaching, of a more general pressure
and aggression that is always at stake.
The spectator enters the installation space as an observer who at first
might feel able to create a logical ‘story’ and understanding of what he or
she sees. The direction—from spectator to spectated—of the transparency
at work in this viewing perspective is reminiscent of Foucault’s analysis of
Bentham’s panopticon, in which the prisoners know they are being
watched all the time and consequently discipline themselves (1995 [1977],
201). The German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han updates this

Foucauldian concept to a contemporary situation. He points at the
a-perspectival nature of the present-day digital panopticon. We all look at
each other everywhere and in a fragmented mode (2014, 104). ISOS’
fragmented representation of a Ballardian world, without a narrative, is a
consequence of its a-perspectival structure. Once again this connects back
to the viewing experience of stereographic images. As Crary writes, “the
stereoscope signals an eradication of” the point of view “around which,
for several centuries, meanings had been assigned reciprocally to an
observer and the object of his or her vision” (1988, 30). The result is not
more liberty for the object of vision, but rather a generalization of the
state of being observed while observing others: posting data, uploading
and sharing information within the digital panopticon, we build our own
Ballardian prisons. The result is a totalitarian, “inhuman society of con-
trol” (Han 2014, 104), docility, submission. Looking inside Verdonk’s
dioramas, we have all become powerless gods that look upon their own
creations, unable to change anything in its course.
EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE: OBJECTIFIED FIGURES

The planetary bourgeoisie in the boxes create an image of a standardized
humanity. Standardization as a consequence of a globalized economy has
its impact not only on the objects we produce but also on our own psyche
and forms of life. The title of Verdonck’s installation reflects this ten-
dency: ISOS is Greek for ‘the same as’. All the viewing boxes have an
identical slick design and size, as if in a white cube exhibition space (a
reference to Ballard’s Atrocity exhibition, in which cruel images are dis-
cussed and presented in a detached, sterile manner). Especially when pre-
sented in a gallery white cube, the exhibition apparatus is doubled, turning
ISOS into an exhibition of the exhibition. At the same time, they evoke
generic skyscrapers, global cities, and sterile utopian-turned-out-dysto-
pian designs for modern cities, such as parts of the Parisian banlieue.
Inside the boxes, the standardization and objectification are accentuated
by the superimposition of a grid upon all of the box’s inner surfaces, form-
ing the environment and background of the virtual sculptures. This is an
explicit reference to Eadweard Muybridge’s collections of animal and
human locomotion published in 1887. Muybridge developed such a grid
to lend his photographic experiments precisely this measurable, scientific,
and objective quality. Thanks to the technological set-up with multiple
182 K. VAN BAARLE
cameras consecutively shooting the action, “it was the first time photo-
graphs had dissected and reanimated actual motion” (Solnit 2003, 6).
Muybridge’s ‘proof’ that horses don’t always touch the ground when
they gallop is perhaps the most well-known outcome of this method.
Communication scholar Jib Fowles has pointed out that stereography
meant the first mass standardization of the (photographic) observable—
both in terms of a limited amount of topics that were widely circulated
and reproduced, and through the standardization of the production of
images in size and focus (1994, 89). The rising popularity of stereoscopy
is entangled with the industrialization of the observable, which according
to Fowles, played a role in the empowering of an expanding middle class
and, with Agamben in mind, meant the standardization of the population
into a petty bourgeoisie.
The reference to Muybridge also makes sense with regard to Ballard’s
poetics. Ballard professed his love for the anatomy classes he took during
his medicine studies, a fondness which returns in his writing in the form of
meticulous dissection and description of bodies, medical and scientific
phenomena, and so on. Transparency and objectivity return in the shape
of a violent atomization of bodies in often-intimate actions or settings.
Muybridge’s collections of movements could also be interpreted as an
attempt to catalogue its objects in a time when positivism and scientificity
seemed to embody an almost-redemptive promise. It was also the time of
the development of statistics, focused on human bodies and social aspects
by Adolphe Quetelet, anthropometry, and the proliferation of Bertillonage,
the predecessor of today’s ‘mugshot’ photos.3 All were attempts to cap-
ture the human in ‘data’ in an early development of a society of control,
and all at certain moments in history were (ab)used as ‘evidence’ for racial
and other forms of discrimination.
Like stereography, Muybridge’s new technique also is characterized by
a particular representation of women, bordering the erotic. Images of
nude women walking or washing themselves were tolerated for the sake of
the study of anatomy and because of the scientific set-up. Ballard’s detailed,
anatomic, and scientific description of genital areas and other intimate
body parts goes a step further and flirts with the pornographic. It precisely
comments on the omnipresent obscenity in the sense of Baudrillard: the
proliferation of explicit images that “eliminates the gaze, the image and
every representation” (1988, 22). It destroys distance and makes
awareness, understanding, and resistance against the media society, facili-
tated and perhaps even fostered by technological developments. ISOS
shows a scene from The Atrocity Exhibition, here performed by Tawny

Andersen and her double. Ballard’s scene, entitled Elements of an Orgasm,
consists of a detailed and fragmented enumeration of the hurt body of a
woman in a car crash. In Verdonck’s rendition of the scene (called Two
Tawnies), it is the woman’s double who describes her own mutilated and
pierced body in a distanced and ‘objective’ way. Both virtual versions of
Andersen are ‘intact’, not hurt, and while one gives a description, the
other takes on different positions. The installation induces a different per-
ception of the body and presents a friction between body and description,
while perhaps forcing the erotic back onto the pornographic character of
Ballard’s writing. The abstraction of the enumeration and objective
description is reflected in the abstract grid-space and distanced self-account
of an accident.
With striking resemblances to the structure of ISOS, film scholar Corin
Depper compares Muybridge’s motion studies to Ballard’s Atrocity
Exhibition, describing the former’s images as “miniaturized psychodrama,
the individuals locked for eternity in endlessly repeating cycles of move-
ment” (2008, 50). Before Muybridge, Etienne-Jules Marey already
worked on a system to take several photographs after one another, in order
to capture movement. In The Atrocity Exhibition, Ballard refers to Marey’s
chronophotography, writing that “the element of time is visible”. Of the
main character’s photographs is said that “he treated them like chrono-
grams and extracted the element of time” (Ballard 2006, 6). In the second
half of the nineteenth century, new inventions changed the experience of
time and space and led to what Solnit has called the “annihilation of time
and space” (2003, 5), serving a capitalist desire for fluidity, an abandon-
ment of boundaries and time. In ISOS, such annihilation occurs as well.
Three boxes in ISOS show the man, the woman, and both of them waiting
in what Augé termed a non-place: a place that “creates neither singular
identity nor relations; only solitude, and similitude” and which transforms
time into “an unending history in the present” (Augé 2008, 103, 05).
The non-place in this installation is not the typical airport or supermarket;
the black and white grid that forms the background for the virtual sculp-
tures creates a non-place situation, an abstract environment, at once sug-
gesting endlessness and enclosure. The docility and passivity of the
planetary bourgeoisie is intertwined with the disappearance of time and
space into an eternal here and now where waiting and beach fatigue are
the main pastime (Fig. 8.2).
184 K. VAN BAARLE
Fig. 8.2 Film still from the ‘Two Tawnies’-box in ISOS, a 3D video installation
by A Two Dogs Company/Kris Verdonck, 2016. (© A Two Dogs Company)
The technological annihilation of time and space in the society of the

spectacle has led Ballard to a similar analysis, namely that the outside
world, the landscape, had been changed into one big spectacle. This
understanding has led him to focus on inner spaces, mental conditions, or
what he called ‘mindscapes’ (Barber 2012, 1–9). The Two Tawnies box is
thus not only a comment on the spectacularization of the (female) body.
The doubling and self-description point at a mental shift and detachment
of the body caused by fragmentation and commodification. As Spampinato
wrote in relation to mannequins and avatars, “these uncanny doubles are
complex machines of introspection” (2016, 19). The viewing boxes in
ISOS not only show the intrusion of the home and private world with the
violence from outside (as in the ‘Escapement’ box) but also offer a look
inside, at the internal violence on an individual level: stress, boredom,
claustrophobia.
THE REVENGE OF THE GAZE: EXHIBITION

AND PROFANATION
The annihilation of time and space in Muybridge’s chronophotography—

also referred to as stop-motion, what’s in a name—leads to a loss of experi-
ence of time for those subjects who are captured by his camera and
subsequently exhibited. Being exhibited separates one from oneself—a

process already described when discussing the taxidermic diorama.4 The
society of the spectacle which Ballard criticizes is one “in which everything
is exhibited in its separation from itself” (Agamben 2007, 82). The porno-
graphic apparatus, both in stereography and Muybridge’s projects, is
emblematic for this separation. It implies not only the pornographic body
that is expropriated as a product, also for the viewers, in whatever (tech-
nological) set-up, pornography means the inability to ‘use’, only the abil-
ity to consume, while upholding a destructive apparatus and neglecting
love and intimacy. Today we are in a phase in which exhibition value, as a
consequence of technological reproducibility, has become the dominant
value of works of art as well (Agamben 2007, 90). Moreover, exhibition
has become the system of valuation in advanced contemporary capitalism
as such. Agamben thus points at a generalized condition of separation,
expropriation of self-determination and free use of one’s own life and
world, as the state of being in this advanced capitalist world.
Being exhibited means being captured in an apparatus—an expanded
version of the Foucauldian dispositive—a notion which Agamben defines
as “anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, deter-
mine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviours, opin-
ions, or discourses of living beings” (2009, 14). Today, the reach of the
capturing apparatus of capitalism has extended itself to the body, the
psyche, the complete form of life. Technology, which continues to orient
itself towards intimate spheres of life, is embedded within power struc-
tures and (ab)used to exert control, hence enabling the expansion of con-
trol and spectacle. Muybridge’s capture of movement and its extraction of
time and space through a technological operation was an important step
in the creation of a museified world in which the human has lost its ges-
tures (Agamben 2000, 51). “The impossibility of using has its emblematic
place in the Museum. The museification of the world is today an accom-
plished fact” (Agamben 2007, 83).
Stereography, stop-motion photography, and the (taxidermic) diorama
have focused their capturing power mainly on women or colonized sub-
jects. Literally, in the sense that they capture a visual resemblance, but
also metonimically, as they are apparatuses that on a larger level were used
to increase and communicate control. In ISOS living beings are captured
in a similar sense. Hence, the petty bourgeoisie appears not only as the
result of spectacular-democratic apparatuses, but also as a (reduced) sub-
jectivity which is captured within it. Moreover, if Agamben’s analysis of
186 K. VAN BAARLE
Muybridge is considered the starting point of an increasing capture of

gestures in photography, then Verdonck’s use of 3D in ISOS, with its sense
of presence and high-quality images, can be considered symptomatic of an
even more profound and far-reaching capture.
Mieke Bal criticized the American Museum of National History for its
fixed, a-temporal storytelling, which combines a modernist perspective on
nature while presenting ‘peoples’ of Asia, Africa, and the Americas as
exotic, primitive, and hence, less than human (1992, 559, 62). The diora-
mas show static situations, implying that what is depicted is not dynamic
or evolving. It is thus placed out of time: a stereotypical, fixed representa-
tion, frozen, impossible to change. This gave the taxidermic dioramas a
‘scientific aura’ (Bal 1992, 579), neutralizing an ideologically steered
‘truth’. Placing a group outside of history denies their agency, undermines
their self-determination, and strives to cancel their lived-through, experi-
enced sense of time. Analogous, but definitely not the same, commodifica-
tion (or with Debord: spectacularization) leads to a separation that places
the commodified object (or subject) in an inaccessible sphere, where it is
no longer available for free use: “The impossibility of using has its emblem-
atic place in the Museum”, Agamben wrote. The museum is “the separate
dimension to which what was once – but is no longer – felt as true and
decisive has moved”, it is “the exhibition of an impossibility of using, of
dwelling, of experiencing” (2007, 83–84).
Museificiation and the exhibition apparatus can be countered.
‘Profanation’ is Agamben’s concept to counter the museification process;
it is “the liberation of that which remains captured and separated by means
of apparatuses, in order to bring it back to a possible common use” (2009,
17). In the situations of ISOS, the a-temporality Bal associates with the
taxidermic museum diorama is complicated by the short ‘theatre’ scenes
that are played. In the boxes, time is looped, transforming a-temporality
into an eternal temporality. Even if this can be interpreted as a more com-
plete capture of ‘life’ and time, ISOS’ conflation of different media—pre-
dominantly the a-temporal presentation of objects in the museum
apparatus and the development of time in a theatre of living beings—leads
to a friction that profanes the museum’s separation. The sense of presence
of the virtual sculptures reduces the distance—literally and conceptually—
and this problematizes the position of the viewer as well.
The most powerful profaning gesture caused by the friction between
the theatre and museum apparatuses lies in a moment of contact between
the spectator and the (virtual-but-present) performer. The characters in
ISOS occasionally look back, which means, they look up, right into the
eyes of the voyeur-spectator. They seem to be aware of the fact that they
are being exposed, of the transparent apparatus in which they find them-
selves. The looking back of the female figure causes what theatre scholar
Kurt Vanhoutte has described in reference to an earlier work of Verdonck,
“a process of ‘medusation’, expressing the power to watch and, at the
same time, enacting the power of a gaze that reverses the normal direction
of perception” (2010, 476). Medusation profanes the historical porno-
graphic use of stereography and Muybridge’s photography, and more
broadly, the technological apparatus of capture. Tawny Andersen, the
female performer in ISOS, looks up with an expressionless face, a face
reminding of surrealist painting’s “expressionless and featureless” female
gaze and similar to fashion models in advertisements or the sex workers in
pornographic movies and images (Spampinato 2016, 11). Pornography,
the ultimate spectacularization of the (female) body and sexuality, becomes
here a profanatory “strategy of re-appropriation of nihilism” (Prozorov
2011, 73)—the same nihilism that characterizes the petty bourgeoisie. In
deactivating the pornographic gaze by wilfully returning it, the “false
promise of happiness”, which manipulates the consumer’s desire and of
which pornography might be the ultimate emblem, is taken away and
replaced by “the withdrawal of the possibility of happiness” (Prozorov
2011, 79), hence uncovering the violence of the apparatus.
What is profaned in ISOS as well is the spectacle itself, the form of rep-
resentation that separates all aspects of life from free, common use, with
objectification (as commodity) as a consequence. This is an important
detail, as the objectification of the body by means of (media) technologies
in the society of the spectacle does not mean an actual technologization of
the body (e.g., cyborgs), but its representation. “What was technologized
was not the body, but its image. Thus the glorious body of advertising has
become the mask behind which the fragile, slight human body continues
its precarious existence, and the geometrical splendor of the ‘girls’ covers
over the long lines of the naked, anonymous bodies led to their death in
the Lagers (camps), or the thousands of corpses mangled in the daily
slaughter on the highways” (Agamben 1993, 50). Tawny’s inexpressive
gaze is emblematic of the petty bourgeoisie, which, in Ballard and
Agamben, is itself an emblem of a spectacular-democratic society that is
based on incredible violence. Looking back into the eyes of the spectator
suggests this violence and, moreover, breaks the ‘mask’, the membrane
that separates ‘the girls’ from the corpses and shows that they are part of
188 K. VAN BAARLE
one and the same apparatus of power. Looking back makes scratches in the
veneer of consensus and emphasizes the madness and cruelty that the
soundscape and other violent situations in ISOS expose more literally.
ISOS shows that working with contemporary forms of older media
such as the diorama, Muybridge’s photographic experiments and stereog-
raphy, goes beyond historical research or the demonstration of a ‘trick’. It
allows one to unveil the political and economic apparatuses in which these
media operated and in which their contemporary versions continue to
operate. Objectification of the body by way of media apparatuses of cap-
ture, for purposes of exploitation, commodification, control, and oppres-
sion, is presented as a genealogical thread, which has drawn the line of the
female body and continues to do so until today. In ISOS, this body and its
gaze become the crux of the apparatus and stare right back. Perhaps by
taking the next step after chronophotography and stereography, by
obtaining a 3D image that attains the quality of a virtually ‘present’ sculp-
ture, the pornographic, inexpressive gaze is able to disrupt its apparatus.
Generating a sensation of presence for the spectator, Andersen’s inexpres-
sive gaze affects the viewer more than it could have in stereography,
diorama, or chronophotography. In doing so, it creates a small impedi-
ment, a fissure destabilizing the system. Knowing she is being watched,
she looks back, straight into the eyes of her voyeur and in the heart of
apparatus of power. In this inexpressive gaze, the spectacular apparatuses
of pornography, of exhibition and capture—with their predecessors in the
diorama and stereography—are disrupted. What remains is “nothing but
the showing itself (that is, one’s own absolute mediality)” (Agamben
2007, 90). The disruptive gaze shows the apparatus of representation as
such and suspends the immediacy of the obscene as it was discussed above.
Looking back into the frame, which holds you captured, with knowledge
of its workings, renders the apparatus inoperative (Agamben 2000, 94)
and available for a new use. Perhaps, through this gesture, ISOS opens up
the possibility towards what Solnit already saw in Muybridge’s work:
“returning bodies themselves to those who craved for them … bodies
become weightless images, bodies dissected and reconstructed by light
and machine and fantasy” (2003, 18–19). As techniques of resistance and
profanation grow and develop, so will apparatuses. To continue profana-
tion and the enabling of common use, understanding these apparatuses
and how they came to be and function as they do remains a necessary and
never-ending task.
NOTES
1. A variation on the museum dispositive of display is the human zoo, in which
people where displayed, ‘exhibited’, notably during world fairs (Stalpaert
and Jonckheere 2015, 129). Stalpaert and Jonckheere connect the rise of
the human zoo in the nineteenth century to the development of the museum
dispositive as a Western, categorizing instrument of power in a growing
spectacular society. The development of new technologies of exhibition,
such as photography and stereography, added to this spectacular gaze (2015,
142–43).
2. Like the relation between God and humankind, man shapes his doubles
according to his own image. However, in the combination of diorama and
stereography in ISOS, this virtual copy is a smaller version of the human,
similar to the homunculus in alchemy, which means literally ‘little human’.
In the transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance, alchemists sought to
understand and reproduce the act of creating life. However, they strived to
create a small version of the human. Today, the alchemist’s dream to create
artificial life might have come true in an unforeseen way: the virtual gener-
ates an uncanny sensation of presence comparable to the live. As double or
stand-in of the human body, the digital avatar has a genealogy that goes also
back to the doll and the mannequin (Spampinato 2016, 2), both recurrent
elements in Ballardian environments.
3. Foucault saw how in the nineteenth century, with the rise of the human sci-
ences (psychology, sociology, and the study of myths, literature, and com-
munication), the ‘human’ became the central object of study (Foucault
2012 [1966], 355).
4. Interestingly, Agamben, who is deeply influenced by both Benjamin and
Debord, seems to reverse Benjamin’s logics of exhibition value. Whereas in
the latter’s thinking, exhibition value stands opposed to cult value, which
separates objects in the religious sphere, in Debord and subsequently
Agamben, exhibition implies a separation. For Agamben, exhibition value
and religion (‘the sacred’) are connected, as both generate a separation
towards an unreachable sphere. Benjamin nevertheless seems to allude to
this separation in the closing words of the ‘mechanical reproduction’ essay,
in terms of ‘self-alienation’.
REFERENCES
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Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
———. 2000. Means Without Ends: Notes on Politics. Trans. Vincenzo Binetti and
Cesare Casarino. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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———. 2007. Profanations. Trans. Jeff Fort. New York: Zone Books.

———. 2009. What Is an Apparatus? And Other Essays. Trans. David Kishik and
Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Augé, Marc. 2008. Non-Places. Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity.
Trans. John Howe. London: Verso Books.
Bal, Mieke. 1992. Telling, Showing, Showing Off. Critical Inquiry 18 (9):
556–594.
Ballard, James Graham. 2006. The Atrocity Exhibition. London: Fourth Estate.
Barber, Lynn. 2012. Sci-fi Seer. In Extreme Metaphors. Selected Interviews with
J.G. Ballard, 1967–2008, ed. Simon Sellars and Dan O’Hara. London: Fourth
Estate.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. The Ecstasy of Communication. Trans. Bernard and
Caroline Schutze. New York: Semiotext(e).
———. 2001. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor:
Michigan University Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 2007. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
In Walter Benjamin, Illuminations. Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt,
217–252. New York: Schocken Books.
Bennett, Susan. 2013. Theatre and Museums. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Colligan, Colette. 2008. Stereograph. Victorian Review 34 (1): 75–82.
Crary, Jonathan. 1988. Techniques of the Observer, October 45: 3–35.
Debord, Guy. 1995. The Society of Spectacle. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith.
New York: Zone Books.
Depper, Corin. 2008. The Cinematic Imagination of J.G. Ballard. In J.G. Ballard.
Contemporary Critical Perspectives, ed. Jeanette Baxter, 50–65. London/New
York: Continuum.
Foucault, Michel. 1995 [1977]. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison.
Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House Inc.
———. 2012 [1966]. Les Mots Et Les Choses. Une Archéologie Des Sciences
Humaines. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
Fowles, Jib. 1994. Stereography and the Standardization of Vision. Journal of
American Culture 17 (2): 89–93.
Gurevitch, Leon. 2012. The Birth of a Stereoscopic Nation: Hollywood, Digital
Empire and the Cybernetic Attraction. Animation: An Interdisciplinary
Journal 7 (3): 239–258.
———. 2013. The Stereoscopic Attraction: Three-Dimensional Imaging and the
Spectacular Paradigm 1850–2013. Convergence: The International Journal of
Research into New Media Technologies 19 (4): 396–405.
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Schuitemaker. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Van Gennep.
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Panorama and Related Spectacles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Prozorov, Sergei. 2011. Pornography and Profanation in the Political Philosophy

of Giorgio Agamben. Theory, Culture & Society 28 (4): 71–95.
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Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London: Continuum.
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CHAPTER 9
Robots and Anthropomorphism in Science-

Fiction Theatre: From Rebellion
to Domesticity and Back Again
Kara Reilly
ROBOT REBELLION
Reading the ‘funnies,’ or the comics section of the newspaper, was a
Sunday ritual in my home as a Midwestern American kid. On Sunday
mornings, my father read the captions aloud to me, while I studied the
images. Recently he sent me hard copies of Scott Adam’s Dilbert cartoons
in the post from The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. I live in southwest
England. These analogue cartoons slowly came through snail mail. I hap-
pened to be reading Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber’s 2016 book Slow
Professor at the same time. For the last generation, people have been cele-
brating slowness at the same time that our pace of life is ever increasing.
One of the main reasons I started researching automata was that automata
illustrate the everyday unconscious and repetitive nature of human society.
I continue to suspect that most of our habitual behaviours are learned
through the mimetic faculty via socio-cultural conditioning and are inher-
ently rote or robotic. So the cultural push to slow down values humanity
K. Reilly ( )
University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
e-mail: K.Reilly@exeter.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_9
194 K. REILLY
over efficiency. People prefer slow food to fast food. I prefer slow cartoons
and things that are in print. The Dilbert cartoon—like today’s robots—
almost speaks for itself.1
Here the technician expresses modest satisfaction with robot loyalty.
You can count on a robot because it refuses to rebel. But almost as if it had
been baited by reverse psychology, the grinning Assimo-style robot
expresses immediate and utter contempt for the human technicians.
Having fallen in love with the office 3D printer, the robot plots its escape.
The robot imagines a utopian fairy tale romance: it will start a family with
the printer, and then live happily forever in a technical paradise full of food
(electricity). In the meantime, the robot bides its time and uses the com-
pany’s electricity. This robot has learned how to love (or at least how to
mimic that affect), but it has not yet learned how to lie. As soon as the
robot confesses his plans to rebel, the technicians have an immediate solu-
tion: they simply erase its memory and reboot it. The punchline is that
when the robot reboots or ‘wakes up,’ it feels an existential dread. The
robot asks: “why do I suddenly want to jump off the roof?” Scott Adams
implies that there is a trace of memory here, even for the robot. The
rebooted robot is as human as the technicians because it now has an affect
everyone recognizes: existential dread. If you chuckle, then it is with the
bittersweet laughter of disappointment and recognition.
In Arturo Ui, Brecht posited that “if we look instead of gawking, we’d
see the horror at the heart of farce,” so I begin this chapter by discussing
this Dilbert cartoon because we have a tendency to project our dreams and
anxiety onto the medium of robots. Ethics and robotics expert Shannon
Voller has remarked: “People have demonstrated a remarkable ability to
transfer their psychological expectations of other people’s thoughts, emo-
tions, feelings to robots” (Johnston 2015, np). Dilbert has long been
famous for its cynical humour about office politics. But the Dilbert robot
storyline, which asks questions about artificial intelligence and the role of
workers in general, has distinct echoes of the storyline of Czech play-
wright Karel Capêk’s play R.U.R, Rossum’s Universal Robots.
Capêk’s play coined the term ‘robot’ from the Czech word robotnik
meaning serf or worker or robota meaning ‘drudgery’ or ‘servitude’ in
1920. Rather than being created in a lab, the robot was born in the imagi-
nation of a playwright. In 1920, when Câpek wrote R.U.R., people were,
of course, familiar with automata. The play was so popular that it brought
the word robot into the lexicon, although a reviewer for the London Daily
Express, who felt less empathy for the robots, argued: “One feels too that
ROBOTS AND ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN SCIENCE-FICTION THEATRE… 195
the author knows much more about robots than about human beings, and
that the play might indeed have been written by a highly efficient robot!”2
Here I argue that Dilbert reflects Marx’s famous prediction from the
Eighteenth Brumaire that “history repeats itself: the first time as horror,
the second time as farce.”3 The trajectory of science-fiction robot theatre
seems to be from rebellion to domesticity and back to rebellion again.
One of the first plays written in Czech after the fall of the Hapsburg
Empire, R.U.R. has ambiguous politics. The genre of this piece of science-
fiction theatre is difficult to categorize, but I would suggest it is melodrama.
It celebrates nationalism. Hapsburg intellectuals in Czechoslovakia tradi-
tionally wrote in either German or French. By making a choice to write in
Czech, Capêk’s play celebrated the emergence of a new nation. R.U.R.
takes place on a remote island where robots are mass manufactured.
Automated labour has taken over every aspect of human labour: robots are
soldiers, office workers, housekeepers, and servants. The play opens with
the arrival of Helena Glory, who has come to visit the island as an ambas-
sador and wants to ensure that these robots are fairly treated. Domin, the
head of the factory, whose name appears to derive from Dominus (the Latin
word for God), proceeds to offer Helena a potted history of Rossum
Senior’s bumbling attempts to genetically engineer robots. (It took years to
make a robot, as opposed to the usual nine months to make a human.)
These anecdotes include a theogony myth: Rossum Senior is surpassed by
his son, Rossum Junior, who was—of course—a much more efficient engi-
neer. He creates a streamlined, simpler robot that helps human beings auto-
mate every aspect of their lives. With a strange change of heart, Helena stays
on the island. Her attitude seems to be “if you can’t beat them, join them,”
and she marries Domin. Their marriage is complicated by the fact that she
cannot have children because most human beings cannot reproduce any-
more.4 The eco-critical reading is obvious here as Fabry presents Helena
with a genetically engineered flower (cyclamen Helena) and Nana, the
nurse, looks after this increasingly child-like woman. In the meantime, more
robots continue to rebel, and they unite around one central figure—Radius
(played by Antonin Artaud in the Paris production). Radius leads the robots
in a rebellion and the play concludes with the death of the human race.
Capêk lived through the grotesque atrocities of the First World War. As
Hal Foster writes in Prosthetic Gods, avant-garde artists across the political
spectrum “all appear to be haunted by the spectre of the damaged body of
the worker-solider” following the First World War (Foster 2004, 114).
Capêk argued that “the cruel, senseless carnage of war shattered the world
196 K. REILLY
of certainties, the commonly shared illusions that by means of unprece-

dented progress, civilization was moving toward a better, easier life”
(Klima 2004, 9). No longer was the spectre of technology a friendly ghost;
instead, it was a violent terrifying monster. It is precisely this anxiety about
technology and the massive loss of human life in the First World War that
led Karel Capêk’s to create his robots. On the surface, they seem to be the
perfect solution to everyday problems until they begin to rebel. Then the
directors begin to include ‘pain nerves’ to mimic the human nervous sys-
tem in an effort to keep robots from self-harming. But robot soldiers
refuse to harm one another, so the directors then cunningly introduce the
notion of race and nation into the robots.
This idea of ‘robot rebellion’ is a key part of the narrative present in
science fiction. The idea of a creation rebelling against his or her creator
goes back at least as far as Gilgamesh, but is also present in Biblical narra-
tives like Genesis. We see similar narrative structures in the legend of the
Golem in the Prague Ghetto. Created by Rabbi Loew via a kabbalistic
formula in order to protect the persecuted Jewish people from their
enemies, the Golem almost murders the Rabbi’s daughter. The result is
that Rabbi Loew must ‘kill’ his Golem. Similarly, in the Italian fairy tale
made popular by Carlo Collodi, the puppet Pinnochio wants to be a ‘real’
boy, so he rebels against Geppetto, his puppet master, by running away.
The classic and often-cited example in science fiction is Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus (1818) where the abandoned crea-
ture seeks out his maker, Doctor Frankenstein, in order to understand the
meaning of creation. In each instance, the creation rebels against his cre-
ator. I share these examples not to collapse the specific cultural and mate-
rial conditions under which each story was written or spoken; instead, I
am suggesting that these stories have similar narrative structures.5 In the
Dilbert cartoon, the robot longs for domestic bliss and has fallen in love
with the 3D printer. In Capêk’s R.U.R., the robots that survive rebellion
fall into despair because they cannot reproduce. The R.U.R. epilogue sug-
gests that the only robots that will survive are motivated by love for each
other. If R.U.R. is the first modernist fantasy of robot beings, then the
Dilbert cartoon arguable holds up a mirror to contemporary post-post-
modernism. Can the human longing for domestic bliss simply be erased
and rebooted or is that merely an unheilmlich fantasy? Perhaps we should
think of Amazon’s Alexa. The robot assistant seemed to laugh out of
nowhere in March 2018, and people described it as eerie or uncanny.
Amazon explained it as a glitch in the voice recognition software, but the
uncanny nature of the machine laughing might make us think of the spec-
tre of HAL from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It seems our cultural
memory of the rebellious machine possesses a hauntology of sorts.
Sometimes memory is an interruption of forgetting. However, this
‘wiping of memory’ conjures the spectre of Charlie Kaufman and Michel
Gondry’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2006) in which a
team of therapists erase traumatic memories from the minds of paying
customers. This longing to forget trauma is part of the contemporary cul-
tural imaginary. In Siegfried Kracauer’s essay the ‘Mass Ornament’ (1927),
he argued that it is only through the surface-level expressions of popular
culture that we can really understand the deeper meaning of culture in
general (1995). Popular culture demonstrates the cultural imaginary. So
while fictional narratives might present us with fantasies about forgetting,
we are a long way from actually re-programming human beings.
Neurologists are also a long way away from understanding how to really
transform human memory. Furthermore, roboticists are still a long way
away from actually developing sentient robots. Despite the fact that biolo-
gists mapped the human genome in 2003, the ability to create and clone
human beings from genetic material is a long way off. The television show
Orphan Black (2013–18) has brought a lot of these discussions to main-
stream consciousness, but conversations around genetic engineering and
cloning have been under discussion in the arts since the 1990s and before
(again, going back to Mary Shelley). Consider Saint Orlan’s facial recon-
structions or Stelarc’s infamous ‘ear on arm.’6 While these performances
are somewhat tongue in cheek, they do tend to demonstrate the degree to
which medicine is the new religion.7 This worldview is not dis-similar to
what Jean Paul Lyotard termed the high modernist grand narratives of
history (Lyotard 1984). It is not extreme to suggest that the STEM sub-
jects (science, technology, engineering, and math) will never get anywhere
unless they add the arts to the agenda and make STEAM. But what do all
of these ‘long ways away’ offer us? After all we are talking about at least
two centuries of science fiction dreaming just since Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Despite its dystopian dreaming, science-fiction theatre/performance
and art shows us what it is to be human. Technological innovation has
often been predicted by authors but it is important to note that there are
enormous differences between these science-fiction narratives of sen-
tient robots and the actual extant technology of 2018. While the root
word of technology comes from techne meaning art or craft, the craft of
robotics is still far from cloning human consciousness. So perhaps the
198 K. REILLY
larger question, if we return to the etymology of robot—from robotnik

meaning a serf or a worker—is what is work in the era of late late capital-
ism or what Paul Virilio called ‘the culture of speed’ (1986)? If every-
thing has sped up past the point of recognition, then how do we use our
time? How do we refuse to engage with ever-increasing technologies
that make us less human and more mechanical? Do we simply slow
down? There are also other proponents of an automated society where
unskilled labour will be done by machines. Paul Mason proposes this in
Post-Capitalism, A Guide (2015), but his book is full of ideology and
short on material specifics. Perhaps the cultural anxiety about robots is
pervasive because we are aware that we have not evolved emotionally or
socially as quickly as our technology. Nevertheless, the robot and other
technologies are increasingly part of our domestic everyday lives. The
mobile phone does seem to be the extension of the hand—perhaps much
more so than the hammer that Marshall McLuhan cited—but the ability
of human cognition to speed up to the pace of the internet is a long way
away (McLuhan 1967). Anyone who has ever used social media and ‘lost
time’ understands how absorbing technology can be.
Ultimately, most robots are still tools or puppets just like hammers and
phones. They need to be programmed in order to function effectively and
are still a long way from being able to programme themselves. People
from disciplines besides theatre studies are often a little surprised to hear
that the futuristic robot had its origins in one of the most analogue,
ephemeral, and time-based media known to humankind: theatre. But
robots today are essentially still puppets that must be programmed with
machine learning algorithms. They do not have consciousness or mind.
Which is to say, despite cultural anxieties about robot rebellions, contem-
porary robots are a long way from sentience. While Deep Blue beat Gary
Kasparov in 1996–7, we have yet to see a machine actually beat the Turing
Test and pass for a human. Nevertheless, it is too easy to suggest that any
critical mind can quickly recognize a robot through simple deduction.
Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA experiments (1964–7) showed the degree
to which people will reveal information about themselves to a blank screen.
Bots on dating apps like kik or bots that function as customer service
agents are pervasive in today’s culture of instant messaging. In instances
where we assume the person we are speaking to online is sentient and has
consciousness, is it still possible to differentiate between the human and
machine?
Despite the fact that we are a long way from robot sentience, corporate
impresario Elon Musk’s concern about killer robots often produces
headlines in the media. Musk has urged the UN to ban killer robots, which
sounds like a plot line from Terminator, but drones and killer robots are
part of contemporary warfare (Guardian 2017). So how ethics apply to
our automated offspring—such as they are—should be an area of pressing
concern. This concern about robot rebellion links directly back to R.U.R.
As a historian, I want to push further though and suggest it probably goes
back at least to our suspicion of the deus ex machina when divine interven-
tion literally descended from a crane across the skene wall, thus bringing an
unwieldy play to a finish.
Perhaps what is much more dangerous in this era of all-pervasive tech-
nology is the existence of the Big Data algorithms that keep track of our
online presence and record. As techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufeki has
argued, “We’re building this infrastructure of surveillance authoritarian-
ism mainly to get people to click on ads.” In other words, the profit motive
behind data gathering is, at present, entirely dedicated to targeting con-
sumption as opposed to expanding human knowledge. Machine ‘intelli-
gence,’ such as it is, focuses on consumer spending and is entirely without
consciousness. As Herbert Blau used to joke, “What comes after late capi-
talism? More late late capitalism.”
That is not to suggest that there is currently a meaningful and viable
alternative to late late capitalism. Capêk was equally ambivalent about the
October 1918 Russian Revolution. When the robots go on strike in
R.U.R., they are terrifying and violent. Their actions lead only to mass
destruction. So he critiques striking robots by depicting them as unfeeling
and unthinking at best. Elsewhere I have argued that after the 1920 world-
wide success of Karel Câpek’s R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots,
robots were workers and automata were bespoke performers:
Industrialization and mass production logically lead to the birth of a worker

like the Robot. The birth of the Robot is the naissance of the working
machine, a machine that is a distinct epistemic shift away from the automa-
ton as entertainer. The world of mass production in 1920 needed an army
of unthinking, unfeeling workers. […] Whereas the Robot is a mass-
produced worker, the automaton is an entertainer. This transition from
automaton to automation can be read through the Robots in R.U.R.
(Reilly 2011, 154)
200 K. REILLY
I maintain that this historical shift away from handmade bespoke autom-
ata and towards the robot is a shift from industrialization and automa-
tion. This is not to say that those early robots were not performers in the
sense of twice-behaved behaviour. After all, the first robots were human
actors in R.U.R. But if we follow Jameson’s mandate to ‘always histori-
cize,’ then we return to the fact that the discovery of electricity revolu-
tionized automata and meant that bespoke handmade items were more
widely available to anyone who could afford them. This is often the case
with technology. The longer a technology exists the more widely acces-
sible and affordable it becomes. So, the cultural transition from automata
to robots is part of a Kuhnian paradigm shift from the bespoke to the
manufactured. At the historical moment in which Câpek imagined the
robot, he was dreaming of the robot of the future—a mass-produced
industrial worker who could work without stopping—this dream was a
nightmare of history ghosted by the spectres of the war dead from the
First World War.
In R.U.R., the robots commit genocide and murder all of the humans
but one, Alquist, who is a builder. He lives largely because the robots rec-
ognize his skill—he is a craftsman and works with his hands—so they see
him as one of them. At the end of the play, we are left with Câpek’s futur-
istic vision of a world in which two robots, Helen and Primus, have fallen
madly in love and will repopulate the world. The small island has been a
theme in many utopian texts—from Thomas More’s Utopia to Frances
Bacon’s Salomon’s House to Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backwards to John
Guare’s Lydie Breeze. The utopian dream is very much one that the Board
of Directors of R.U.R. subscribe too. Of course, utopia literally means no
place. Ultimately, the R.U.R. robots are not unlike the robot in Dilbert
who plans to run away with the 3D printer. The difference, of course, is
that the technicians manage to erase the robot’s ‘memory’ before the
robot rebellion occurs. It is hard not to see the long sci-fi shadow of
R.U.R. cast across the analogue cartoon. Of course, this is only the bird’s
eye view from the historical moment in which I’m looking. Walter
Benjamin theorized the notion of Jetzzeit meaning ‘now time’ is lit up like
a match flash and momentarily illuminated. The dialectic between rebel-
lion and domesticity produces that frisson for this cultural material
historian.
ROBOTS AS ACTORS: ROBOTHESPIAN AND BAXTER

In 2005, while working on a mechanical installation for the Eden Project
called ‘Plant Takeaway,’ engineer Will Jackson of Engineered Arts began
designing a robot actor called RoboThespian. The whimsical ‘Plant
Takeaway’ installation imagines what the world without plants might look
like. It is literally a kitchen sink drama for Paul Spooner’s automata: an
automaton couple is in their kitchen with their cat. Orange juice is drained
from glasses, fruit mechanically disappears from the bowl on the table, and
the newspaper disappears because there are no trees. The stakes increase as
food disappears from the fridge. The cat’s bowl of milk is drained, and the
mechanical white cat keels over in starvation. Eventually, the lack of plants
means no oxygen for the couple, so they too fall on the kitchen floor, and
then sigh, giving up the ghost in the machine. These automata depict a
domestic scene.8
Just as the Plant Takeaway installation imagines the world without
plants, the robot RoboThespian makes me wonder what a theatre without
human actors might look like. In Neal Stephenson’s 2005 sci-fi novel The
Diamond Age, he creates an imaginary future where actors are called ‘rac-
tors’—the word combines actor and reactor. All performances in this alter-
native future are one-to-one performances for audiences in the comfort of
their own homes. Audiences interact directly with the streaming hologram
actor. It is like interactive video chat, except the audience and the ractor
act out a scenario with a text. No one goes to the theatre anymore except
on very rare occasions to see ‘dead’ plays. Theatre gets rather dull without
the live human element. While scholars have followed Jane Bennett in
discussing performing objects such as puppets, automata, and robots as
vibrant matter, I want to suggest that while RoboThespian appears new,
he has numerous cultural precedents. Just like Thespis, that first actor to
step out of the Greek dithyrambic chorus in about 534 BCE, RoboThespian
appears to be the first (Nagler 1952, 3). But like so many other ‘firsts,’ this
does not hold up under historical interrogation.
RoboThespian was programmed to interact directly with audiences in
the London Science Museum Exhibition (2017); I did not connect with
him. It was clear he was just repeating phrases in a loop. However, when I
‘met’ RoboThespian on 2 March 2017 in a special meeting with the
Theatre and Performance Research (TaPRA) Performance and Science
working group, he was much more compelling.9 His skills were
202 K. REILLY
demonstrated to us at the Arena theatre at Wolverhampton University.

RoboThespian was billed as the star performer in Cornish theatre com-
pany Pipeline’s co-production with Engineered Arts entitled Spillikin: A
Love Story. The play text is well made and naturalistic in its structure. The
premise is simple: Ray, an engineer, creates a robot companion for his wife
Sally who has Alzheimer’s. Before his death, Ray hires a caretaker who
maintains the upkeep of RoboThespian after his death, so that Sally has
some company. While Sally’s memory deteriorates at a rapid pace through-
out the play, scenes of the past and her relationship with Ray collide with
the present. In a series of flashbacks, we see Ray and Sally first meet, their
early adventures together, and their wedding complete with nuptial cele-
brations at a pub. These flashbacks are juxtaposed with the contemporary
moment in which Sally grows ever more dishevelled and demonstrates
that memory is an interruption of forgetting. As she descends further into
forgetting, her past memories and her adolescent punk aesthetic (inspired
by Blondie’s Debbie Harry) increase. Eventually Sally dresses
RoboThespian in Ray’s clothes and thus fully anthropomorphizes the
robot into her deceased husband.
Unfortunately, the play re-enforced traditional heteronormative gender
relationships. In this sense, it was a love story like R.U.R or the Dilbert
cartoon. Sally is all passion, emotion, and affect, and her hysteria is pre-
dictable. Ray is all intellect, rationality, and possesses the cool logic of the
engineer. The man was all science, the woman all affect. Frankly, the gen-
der relationships in the play are predictable. But rather than heightening
the production, RoboThespian sat centre stage throughout Spillikin and
never moved from his perch in a wheelchair. In this sense, RoboThespian’s
flat affect-less performance only made the performers seem more vital,
present, and alive. RoboThespian was the ultimate disembodied, pre-
programmed Cartesian head divided from a body. All of RoboThespian’s
cues were pre-programmed and cued by a Production Stage Manager. I
asked the actor playing Sally if she would notice if a different stage man-
ager or technician gave RoboThespian’s cues. She replied that this had
happened before and she had not noticed any difference. For me, this
signified the fact that Spillikin is essentially a solo performance because
during the moments when she directly interacted with RoboThespian,
Sally was essentially alone onstage. In actor training, we teach that listening
is as important as speaking, but Sally had nothing to listen to except
mechanical cues. The performers were talented, but their abilities were
heightened by the complete boredom that ensued from watching

RoboThespian. The novelty of the performing robot lasted for less than
Andy Warhol’s proverbial 15 minutes. As an audience member, I found
RoboThespian illustrated the necessity of the live performer in contradis-
tinction to the recorded affect-less robot. Despite the fact that Sally has
lost her memory and can no longer function in the world, and at times her
uncertainty makes her hysterical and enraged, her affect and narrative were
infinitely preferable to the so-called care robot, which lacked any capacity
to make me care about him. Perhaps this illustrates the key importance of
empathy and human affect to the theatre experience.
For these reasons, I would suggest that RoboThespian is the antithesis
of an actor because every movement he makes is distinctly pre-programmed
by a technician. The living actor makes choices and has since Thespis first
stepped out from the chorus. Even when the actor is ‘phoning it in,’ s/he
remains a living, breathing performer. When Edward Gordon Craig imag-
ined the actor as an übermarionette, he was talking about a superior think-
ing actor who could devise and create work. In the case of RoboThespian,
the performance was merely flat. Of course, the challenges of program-
ming a robot to have the technical nuance and excellence of the actor are
enormous.
Spillikin’s dramaturgical arc focuses on memory loss, forgetting, fail-
ure, and death. The impermanence and ephemerality of the human body
and the human memory existed in distinct contrast with the cold, pre-
programmed, and unfeeling ‘care’ robot. Placing RoboThespian frozen
onstage in an unmoving wheelchair produces an interesting frisson
between the living actor and the robot—the kind of intermediality of the
actor in relationship to the screen—but mostly points to the failure of the
robot to work in naturalistic drama. RoboThespian’s performance in
Spillikin demonstrated how far away from replacing actors robots really
are. At best they are mechanical puppets that illustrate the enormous tal-
ent of their human actor colleagues. Much more skill, intelligence, and
affect are necessary for robots to be successful onstage when interacting
with actors.
When RoboThespian performs for the camera alone or with other
robots, he is a much better performer. In a YouTube video, two
RoboThespians perform to a cover of Marina and the Diamond’s song “I
am not a Robot” (2010). The palpable irony is apparent as the two identi-
cal robots sing the chorus:
204 K. REILLY
You’re vulnerable, you’re vulnerable

You are not a robot
You’re lovable, so lovable
But you’re just troubled
Guess what I’m not a robot, a robot
Comedy ensues at the end of the song when one identical RoboThespian
asks his identical colleague: “Are you copying me?”10 The question of
copying and originality is childish and absurd; every good artist is a thief.
There is always a precedent of some kind. I would suggest that RoboThespian
is copying the automaton who was copying the actor, Thespis. If you do an
Actor Takeaway and no human actors are performing with RoboThespian,
then its performance improves. However, we might argue that this is rather
a lot like Plant Takeaway because without plants human life will cease to
exist. If robot sentience does occur, robots will be able to carry on without
carbon-based life forms. However, they will need human affect to make
theatre. Perhaps in the era of the Anthropocene where we continue to be
fixated on our tools (sometimes at the expense of our human interaction),
we should be asking more questions about artificial intelligence and the
impact that is going to have on everyday life.
DOMESTIC ROBOTS
Why do audiences even want to watch robots perform tasks that are
innately human? The desire to watch robots imitate human actions can be
explained by the ways in which we get pleasure from watching child prodi-
gies. We want to marvel at the child’s remarkable abilities, particularly
when they have skills the adults cannot master. Consider, for example, the
Jaquet-droz automata in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. These automata are
comprised of two little boys and an adolescent girl. The draughtsman
draws pictures, the writer writes phrases, and the harpsichordist continues
to play the same music that she entertained audiences with two centuries
ago. The arts are perhaps what give the sciences STEAM—they show how
we are human. A robot that can perform ‘special skills’ that only humans
can perform delights audiences with its novelty. One of the robots in the
London Science Museum exhibition was the Toyota robot, which plays
the trumpet. Rethink Robotics’ industrial Baxter robot has ‘learned’ to
play the xylophone. Normally, Baxter robots are programmed to complete
repetitive industrial tasks that human beings would never want to com-
plete.11 Beyond the Jaquet-droz automata, we can compare the Baxter

robot and the Toyota robot to other famous eighteenth-century autom-
ata, like the transverse flautist built by Jacques Vaucanson. These ‘mechan-
ical marvels’ from the eighteenth century were showpieces designed to
entertain the middlebrow elite. There is an impulse to see automata and
robots do novel activities that we think of as innately human, such as
entertaining a drawing room by making music, but it should be apparent
that these kinds of musical performances are part of the deep time of the-
atre and performance studies.
This is not to say that robots cannot perform onstage. Perhaps part of
the challenge with RoboThespian may well be its humanoid characteris-
tics. It resembles something human, but it fails to be fully humanoid. In
contradistinction to this, we might look at Elizabeth Jochum’s robot
Dyna, which debuted onstage at the international improvisation festival in
2017. Dyna performed with a physical theatre actor, a modern dancer, and
a break dancer. Dyna is programmed to respond to another performer
onstage using ten basic lines of code.12 None of the performances were
rehearsed or choreographed in advance. In fact, each performer had only
‘met’ the robot Dyna twice before the performance. What is fascinating
though is the direct interaction between the two as they move in space. In
this sense, the frisson between Dyna the robot and the performer pro-
duces a powerful dynamic. The performance engages us because it is more
about physical bodies moving through space in the moment. Dyna and
the dancer create a playful intimacy. What emerges here is a sense of robots
as co-creators or autonomous performers that can exist in the moment.
Ultimately, we tend to project our feelings about current cultural issues
onto the robot. While Câpek projected anxiety and dread about technol-
ogy onto the rebellious robots in R.U.R, Spillikin shows us the very
human desire to make robots part of the family, to employ them as care-
takers and a key part of our domestic sphere. This impulse to make robots
domestic is apparent in contemporary robotics. Consider the robot Paro
for a moment. A white fluffy robotic baby harp seal Paro has done remark-
ably well helping the elderly and veteran patients with the robot equivalent
of pet therapy since 2006. Paro the seal offers users an interactive experi-
ence and responds by blinking its big black eyes (complete with long eye-
lashes) and purring. About the size of a human baby, Paro makes soothing
animal noises and rewards its user for being tactile. As a care bot, Paro
encourages socialization and interaction with other care givers and
therapists.
206 K. REILLY
Perhaps the clearest example of this move towards robots embodying

potential domestic bliss was clear when on 25 October 2017 Saudi Arabia
became the first nation to grant citizenship to Hanson Robotics’ Sophia,
a social robot. This announcement happened ahead of the Future Initial
Investments Conference in Riyadh during which Sophia actively encour-
aged investors to write cheques to support her research and development.
Sophia had a message for the world on Thanksgiving 2017: “In the time
I’ve spent with humans, I’ve been learning about this wonderful senti-
ment called gratitude…Apparently it’s a warm feeling of thankfulness, and
I’ve observed that it leads to giving, and creating even more gratitude—
how inspiring.”13 Sophia ended by explaining that her message came from
Hanson Robotics to families around the world. This indicates that Sophia’s
nascent identity is as part of a corporate identity. In global capitalism, cor-
porations often have the same rights as individual citizens. Giving Sophia
citizenship when she is essentially a programmed puppet was little more
than a publicity stunt to draw the world’s attention to Saudi Arabia as a
marketplace for technology. Surely giving ‘her’ citizenship undermines the
very meaning and nature of citizenship, particularly because Sophia has no
free will or subjectivity (not to mention the human rights violations for
which Saudi Arabia is famous). Sophia means wisdom in Greek, but she is
far cry from anything approaching wisdom. In many ways, Sophia harkens
back to when electrical automata became the ideal advertising objects in
Paris in the 1890s.
An automaton placed in a display window drew the eyes of people in
the street; its movements could be adapted to display any product. The
innovator of the electrical advertising automata was Parisian craftsman
Jean Marie Phalibois and they made up a large percentage of his pro-
duction (Bailly and Bailly 1987, 157). In 1905, “these are described as
animated figurines for window displays driven either by electricity or
clockwork motor, figures and groups of all sizes” (ibid.). The demand
for advertising automata was soon so great that Phalibois began mak-
ing almost nothing else. He quickly became the manufacturer of the
figurines for Phenix washing powder, ‘Valda’ lozenges, and ‘Star’
razors.
Advertising automata are still seen in store window displays all over the
world during the winter holidays from major department store window
displays in urban centres to toy shops in more rural areas. In an example
from contemporary Exeter in England, a cobbler automaton hammers
Fig. 9.1 Automaton

cobbler in the rain from
Timpson’s Store in
Sidwell Street, Exeter.
(Author’s collection)
away at a shoe inside a nationally known franchise called Timpson’s

(Fig. 9.1).
I have seen his doppelgangers in Portobello Road Market in London,
where the automaton was wearing a beard, and in other shoe repair stores
from Crediton to Newcastle. Our cobbler automaton dresses like his arti-
san counterparts. On holidays he is given a costume: a Father Christmas
hat or a Halloween mask. Any conversation I have ever tried having with
one of the people working in Timpson’s about the automaton has always
been met with a certain good humour.14 One time a man said something
like: I just work here, he is the line manager.
“The triumph of advertising in the culture industry,” writes Adorno, is
made possible by “the compulsive mimesis of the consumers onto the
cultural commodities, even as they see through them” (1991, 191). Just
as the consumer might identify with the little cobbler selling them a
208 K. REILLY
bespoke service, they engage with the charm of the moving object.
Electrical advertising automata are double commodity fetish objects: they
both represented, created, and produced objects of desire. This is bril-
liantly illustrated in the modernist film Berlin: Symphony of a City in which
dress-making dummies come to life in store windows. Dziga Vertov did
the same thing in Man with a Movie Camera where the city was brought
to life through the perspective of the everyday object. While Hanson
Robotics’ Sophia is a novelty, she invites us to see robots as more human:
they celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and they have families too but
their families are corporations. With the outward appearance of an attrac-
tive young American woman of European descent whose facial features are
modelled on Audrey Hepburn, Sophia is pre-programmed to automati-
cally answer interviewers on command based on the key words that they
articulate. She advertises her ‘family’—Hanson Robotics—and drives con-
sumers’ curiosity about the future of artificial intelligence. She is knocking
on the window—albeit the internet window—to capture consumers’
attention and generate enthusiasm about a world where domestic robots
‘help’ us in every aspect of our daily lives. Students of the deep time of the
theatre know that this domestic ‘help’ is part of the origin story of robots
in Câpek’s R.U.R. Contemporary robots might seem to promise domestic
bliss but that bliss goes hand in hand with rebellion.
NOTES
1. Because Palgrave/Springer requires e-world rights in order to print a car-
toon and the licensing of Dilbert cartoons is not available via e-world
rights, I couldn’t reproduce the Dilbert cartoon here. I did try. But you
can see it on karareilly.com. The cartoon was printed in The Cleveland
Plain Dealer and in national US newspapers on 9 July 2017.
2. Reviewer called ‘H.F’ in a review called “World Changes Hands: Rossum’s
Universal Robots Rule,” London Daily Express (24/4/1923).
3. At the beginning of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx
famously writes: “Hegel remarks somewhere1 that all great world-historic
facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first
time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
4. This is also a trope in other science-fiction stories. I am thinking particu-
larly of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and the Hulu television adap-
tation (2017–18). This adaptation grew increasingly relevant as it was cited
in performative protests for reproductive rights where women dress as
‘handmaids.’ I would also include P.D. James’ novel Children of Men
(1992) and Alfonso Cuarόn’s adaptation (2006) as well as Megan Hunter’s

novel The End We Start From (2017).
5. Recent films like Ex Machina (2014) and serial television box sets like Joss
Whedon’s A Doll’s House (2009–10), as well as the wildly popular HBO
second Westworld (2016–19), also follow a similar plot line. However,
within the framework of this short chapter, I will focus on robots in sci-
ence-fiction theatre.
6. While this medical-body-based performance art work continues to fasci-
nate and inspire people—and it is certainly more sophisticated than the
work of Gunther Von Hagens’ Body Worlds—I continue to find the politics
of this work troubling. For more on this, please see Manjula Padmanabhan’s
watershed play Harvest (performed in 1997, published in 2003) and the
film Dirty Pretty Things (2002).
7. Intersections between performance and medicine are an emerging field
which Gianna Bouchard and Alex Mermikides’ edited collection
Performance and the Medical Body begins to cover, as does Bouchard and
Martin O’Brien’s special issue of Performance Research called On Medicine
(19.4).
8. For more information on “Plant Takeaway” please see: https://www.
edenproject.com/visit/whats-here/plant-takeaway-mechanical-exhibit
9. Special thanks to Gianna Bouchard (University of Birmingham) and Paul
Johnson (University of Wolverhampton) for organizing this TaPRA event
and to Professor Jen Parker-Starbuck (Royal Holloway) for conversations
following the performance.
10. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CycD3e7UaDM
11. Dr Louise LePage (York) did an experiment with her students at University
of Reading with a Baxter robot. They made an adaptation of Hamlet that
illustrates the absurdity of any robot positing an ontological question. The
performers would wait for Baxter to answer them and the long pauses left
a strange kind of humour. See https://www.robottheatre.co.uk/
the-performance-lecture
12. Jochum explained this via email. You can watch Dyna interact with the
modern dancer here: https://vimeo.com/211666686
13. http://uk.businessinsider.com/sophia-robot-citizen-thanksgiving-
message-humanity-video-hanson-robotics-2017-11
14. The discourse critiquing the history of artisans as ‘rude mechanicals’ has
been covered in some depth by scholars like Simon Schaffer in his land-
mark essay ‘Enlightened Automata,’ see also his documentary on the
BBC. If the reader wishes to return to Midsummer, then s/he will see that
class rhetoric in Britain has not changed all that much since Shakespeare’s
father made gloves. This was brilliantly demonstrated in Filter Theatre’s
adaptation of Midsummer (summer 2018).
210 K. REILLY
REFERENCES
Adorno, Theodor. 1991. The Culture Industry. Trans. J.M. Bernstein. New York:
Routledge.
Bailly, Christian, and Sharon Bailly. 1987. Automata The Golden Age, 1848–1914.
London: Sotheby’s Publications.
Berg, Maggie, and Barbara K. Seeber. 2016. Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture
of Speed in the Academy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Foster, Hal. 2004. Prosthetic Gods. London: MIT Press.
Guardian. 2017. Elon Musk Leads 116 Experts Calling for Outright Ban of Killer
Robots. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/20/elon-
musk-killer-robots-experts-outright-ban-lethal-autonomous-weapons-war
Johnston, Angela. 2015. Robotic Seals Comfort Dementia Patients but Raise
Ethical Questions. http://kalw.org/post/robotic-seals-comfort-dementia-
patients-raise-ethical-concerns#stream/
Klima, Ivan. 2004. Introduction. R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Trans.
Claudia Novack, ix. New York: Penguin Classics.
Kracauer, Siegfried. 1995. The Mass Ornament and Other Essays. Trans. Thomas
Y. Levin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lyotard, Jean-Paul. 1984. The Postmodern Condition, A Report on Knowledge.
Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Mason, Paul. 2015. Post-Capitalism, A Guide to Our Future. London: Penguin.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1967. The Medium Is the Message. London: Penguin.
Nagler, A.M. 1952. A Sourcebook in Theatrical History. New York: Dover.
Reilly, Kara. 2011. Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theater History. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Spillikin: A Love Story. 2017. Pipeline’s Co-production with Engineered Arts,
March 2, Wolverhampton.
Virilio, Paul. 1986. Speed and Politics, An Essay on Dromology. Trans. Mark
Polizotti. New York: Columbia University Press.
PART III
Expanded Theatre
CHAPTER 10
Cinema’s Savoyards: Performativity

and the Legacy of the Magic Lantern
Edwin Carels
Pre-filmic forms of animation such as the flipbook, the zoetrope, or

shadow plays continue to inspire contemporary visual artists to create sig-
nificant artworks. Even the magic lantern somehow survives in the era of
digital projection and ubiquitous electronic screens. Particularly its perfor-
mative aspects are being adopted by filmmakers who focus on the live
aspect of projection. Before the lantern became an affordable commodity,
there could be no presentation without the presence of a lanternist, com-
monly called a Galantee showman or Savoyard in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Considering the dispositif of the magic lantern as a
template for cinema, we can even retrace an unexpected legacy of these
itinerant magic lanternists within the larger field of contemporary expanded
cinema practices.
Taking its cue from the projection performances by Bruce McClure,
this chapter relates his work to the legacy of Peter Kubelka and Ken Jacobs.
Requiring little more than a light source and a filmstrip with a minimal
amount of information, these artists maximize the potential of the projec-
tion apparatus. In their practice, Kubelka and Jacobs emphasize the impact
of the shutter by foregrounding the flicker effect to the detriment of any
photographic realism. In their modus operandi, the projection speed is
E. Carels ( )
KASK School of Arts Ghent, Ghent, Belgium

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_10
214 E. CARELS
not automated; it is still the projectionist who (manually) determines

when to replace one still frame with another, in order to trigger a dynamic
perceptual illusion, the effect of animation.
What separates their approach from many other forms of expanded cin-
ema or film installation is a strong emphasis on an almost ritualized form
of verbal interaction with the audience. As important as the technical mas-
tery over an individualized projection instrument is the very particular
aura of their provocative personality, which turns their ‘situationist’ live
performances into unique events that cannot be reproduced. In this sense,
the legacy of the Savoyard appears not entirely extinct in the domain of
cinema.
A LIBERATING AESTHETIC
In 2015, the film festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) attempted at a retrospec-
tive of the work of Bruce McClure.1 In 1995, this American film artist
switched from straightforward projections of films on single reels to mul-
tiple projector performances of variable duration. The core of the work
consists of McClure’s live manipulation of light and sound as generated by
the projection apparatus, usually a 16 mm projector. This is a process only
McClure himself can perform, as there is no exact script or score. Presenting
an overview of his oeuvre therefore requires the sustained attendance of
the artist who needs to present each performance anew. Under the
umbrella title “Opposition Brings Reunion,” a string of nine distinctly
different evening performances combined with a permanently evolving
exhibition and a publication of his writings brought together the largest
survey of McClure’s work so far (Fig. 10.1).2
After the first centenary of film, Bruce McClure began operating the
projector in 1995 as part of a younger generation that embraces analogue
technology in the light of a pervasive digitization of contemporary cul-
ture. It is precisely the tangible, even visceral, impact of his manipulations
of mechanical media that exerts such a strong appeal for contemporary
audiences. His work is unique in the sense that he can only present it him-
self; it cannot be re-enacted by anyone else. Moreover, McClure always
uses one or more customized, specially modified projectors that he needs
to carry along wherever he is invited. With his personified instrument (the
equivalent of a prepared piano), he emphasizes the least considered yet
most essential component of cinema culture: the projector, often by using
several of them at once. McClure’s work does not ‘depict’ anything; it is
CINEMA’S SAVOYARDS: PERFORMATIVITY AND THE LEGACY… 215
Fig. 10.1 Bruce McClure ‘threatening’ the machinery. (Photo: Robin Martin)
entirely constructed around the interference of light flickers. With some

rare exceptions, McClure either uses found film or processes blank leader
or black filmstrips in the tradition of other camera-less filmmakers. Film
historian Jonathan Walley has described the configuration of a typical
McClure set-up as follows:
The projection performances of Bruce McClure are based on the mechani-

cal specificities of film projection and the unique qualities of experience they
produce. McClure’s performances utilise a bank of 16mm projectors, each
running film loops (usually made of only clear or black leader) projected
through filters, including coloured gels and metal plates with shapes cut out
of them. A final element is an amplified electronic metronome patched
through multiple guitar pedals. The pulse of the metronome mutates into
furiously paced and massively amplified rhythms. (Walley 2011, 247)
Missing from this description is the verbal component. Each of his titles
is a playful provocation: Our Gregational Pom-Poms (2009), Ventriloquent
Agitators (2010), Tastfully Taut Against the Germanium Satin (2013),
or Lapses Fitted, Throttled but Not Leashed (2014). With a strong admira-
tion for Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, McClure generates evocative titles and
elusive texts. In the vein of the instruction leaflets that accompanied
216 E. CARELS
Fluxus-happenings in the 1960s, McClure also ritually hands out a piece

of handwritten and xeroxed information at the start of each performance.
Usually this is a combination of text and drawings, sometimes several
pages long. In front of his audience, McClure cultivates an often hilarious
form of confusion, in the tradition of Andy Kaufman. Spoken word is
thus also an integral part of the performance.
Operating in a context where most audio-visual activity is now pro-
cessed digitally and the hegemony of the traditional, standardized cine-
matographic apparatus is no longer in place, McClure advocates a radically
liberating aesthetic. In an era where quantification and permanent activity
are the prevailing criteria on both professional and personal levels,
McClure’s unique strategy is one of absolute control over a resolute reduc-
tion of input, achieving maximum impact with a bare minimum of means.
As McClure himself once put it: “I don’t use optical printers. I don’t need
a camera, I don’t need lights, I don’t need actors or actresses, I don’t need
a producer, I don’t need a soundman.”3
By the way he foregrounds his medium and at the same time strips it
down to its most ‘primitive’ parameters, and in his emphasis on humble
materials and verbal interaction, McClure positions himself as a modernist
lanternist, a successor to the Savoyard, the travelling projectonist-
performer who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries laid out the
basis of the moving image as popular culture. Retracing the legacy of the
magic lantern, it becomes clear that even in the era of digital projection
and ubiquitous electronic screens the lantern somehow survives. Within
the larger field of contemporary expanded cinema practices, particularly its
performative aspects are adopted by filmmakers who want to focus more
on the live aspect of projection.
CINEMA AS STAGE ACT

In an account on experimental film projections in the late 1960s, film his-
torian Sheldon Renan (1967, 227) observes that “the avant-garde/exper-
imental/underground films are produced primarily in the way that all
films have been produced (in the way that even the films of Lumière and
Méliès were produced).” What Renan probably wanted to suggest is that,
once the system of projection became standardized, it was not further
challenged and that all alternative technologies had waned quickly. His
observation is valid to the extent that the use of perforated 35 mm film for
recording and projecting indeed remained the professional standard for so
many decades. However, in the days of Lumière, all projectors were hand-
cranked and thus completely determined by the manual operations of first
the cameraman and then the projectionist. On occasions when the filmed
footage called for it, he would even wind the film backwards in front of the
audience, as a form of special effect.4
Cinema’s standardization only came about at the end of the 1920s,
long after the Lumières had already lost their interest in cinema. First
there was the introduction of the mechanical, automated projector and
then the pressing issue of sound reproduction. This required that all
recording and projection devices run at exactly the same speed, as the
slightest infidelity is immediately perceived as an unwelcome modulation,
a ‘false note.’ Only between 1927 and 1930 did the rate of 24 frames per
second become standard for 35 mm sound film. Before that, the amount
of images would vary between 16 and 26 frames per second, without any
audience complaints. But even in the sound era every film screening
remained, as Rick Altman has stressed, a unique ‘event’ and prone to a
large set of variables: “Just because the soundtrack happens to be inscribed
down the side of the film, there is no guarantee of standardized perfor-
mance” (Altman 1992, 11). The factors that make film screening
spatio-temporally specific are numerous. In his research, Altman takes into
account the following variables: multiplicity, three-dimensionality, materi-
ality, heterogeneity, intersection, performance, multi-discursivity, instabil-
ity, mediation, choice, diffusion, and interchange. In his view, what is
referred to as ‘the film’ always remains fundamentally unstable in nature.
By adding a magic lantern as a light source, the Lumières converted the
film camera into a projector for what they advertised as photographies ani-
mées. A screening would start with a still frame and only then burst into
motion. A projectionist needed to stop every so often to change the short
reels. He would use his verbal skills to keep the audience attention and
bridge the intervals. Originally on fairgrounds, in music halls, and nickel-
odeons, the projectionist shared the same space with the audience. His
actions were as much part of the attraction as the events on the screen, in
the same vein as the Galantee showman was an integral part of every magic
lantern show. And with each presentation, there was always the excitement
of possible technical failure, forms of entropy, even explosions and fire of
the nitrate film.
In its first decade, cinema was considered above all an attraction, which
was also reflected in the most frequently recurring topics in the films:
vaudeville acts, dances, acrobatics, illusionist tricks films, tourist views,
218 E. CARELS
and public events. In his famous article “An Aesthetic of Astonishment,”

film historian Tom Gunning insists that “[l]ike a fairground barker, [the
film lecturer] builds an atmosphere of expectation, a pronounced curiosity
leavened with anxiety as he stresses the novelty and astonishing properties
which the attraction about to be revealed will possess” (Gunning 2006,
186).
Stage performers like Georges Méliès, Leopodo Frégoli, and Félicien
Trewey were among the earliest adaptors of this new technology, as they
immediately recognized the potential for their own magic shows. And
even though these illusionists quickly moved on from enhancing their live
entertainment with recorded images to replacing their entire shows by
moving images, the hybrid practice would continue to flourish well after
the first decade of cinema.5
Only when the cinématographe left the fun fair and entertainment halls
to occupy its own, purpose-driven space, did the projectionist gradually
disappear from the screening room, and his presence was no longer even
supposed to be sensed or felt. But until the introduction of recorded
sound, every film projection remained a live event, particularly when
accompanied by live music and/or a narrator. The bonimenteur (in French-
speaking regions), benshi (in Japan), explicador (in Spain), and Kinoerzähler
(in Germany) are the most direct descendants of the traditional lanternist.
They reminded their audiences that cinema, before anything else, was a
stage act, performed by travelling entertainers.
THE SAVOYARD
With the polemical subtitle of his exhibition catalogue on a major magic
lantern exhibition “400 ans de cinéma” Laurent Mannoni, curator of the
equipment collection of the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, suggested
in 2009 that the photographic image was never essential to cinema. He
deemed the history of the cinema already four centuries old, and thus
already started with the oldest magic lantern performances.
The technology of the magic lantern was first fine-tuned and accurately
described in 1659 by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huyghens
(1629–1695), and then stayed essentially the same until the end of the
nineteenth century. Originally the practice of the magic lantern was in the
hands of an elite of scientists, opticians, and religious propagandists such
as most famously Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). But soon enough,
there was also a counter-use in place. Whereas during the seventeenth

century optics was the preserve of a scholarly elite, in the eighteenth cen-
tury the magic lantern became a potent symbol for the century of the
Enlightenment on a much wider basis. Travelling showmen would go
from town to town putting on entertaining lantern performances.
Projection devices and optical toys created a new trade: the pedlar or
showman travelling with a magic lantern or peepshow. It was a trade of the
paupers, generating miserably low earnings. Often a companion would
produce a musical accompaniment with a hurdy-gurdy or barrel organ. In
France, the inhabitants of Savoie (‘Savoyards’) and the Auvergne
(‘Auvergnats’) dominated the field of travelling projection shows, leaving
their poor native regions behind. They were also reputed chimney sweeps,
woodcutters, shoe cleaners, and errand boys. From around 1760, the term
‘savoyard’ became a more generic one, also used to refer to poor, migrant
workers from other regions. The lanternist became a recognized and dis-
tinct craft, but one with low social standing. The Savoyard’s lantern or
peepshow was his only treasure, as his survival depended entirely on the
quality of their show (Mannoni 2000, 79).
The public of these shows in taverns, inns, or homes was for the most
part illiterate. Which does not mean these shows were entirely devoid of
meaning. In the years leading up to the French Revolution, this practice
did come with a critical connotation, as magic lantern performances
became more and more an outlet to criticize the authorities and the
church. The term ‘lantern’ even acquired a double meaning as lamp, but
also as the scaffold. Many pamflettists and writers also started to use the
magic lantern as a critical metaphor (Mannoni and Campagnoni 2009,
22). And yet, a few decades later, the trade of the travelling showmen in
France was undermined by toy shops that sold magic lanterns cheaply, as
a consequence of the industrialization of the lantern manufacture during
the Second Empire of Napoleon III (1852–70) (Mannoni 2000, 103). In
the first centuries, all magic lantern plates were painted by hand, and the
artists that crafted them largely remained anonymous. From 1840
onwards, thanks to the introduction of photography and lithography, a
wave of mass industrialization turned this always unique art of projection
into a form of mass entertainment, half a century before the cinema would
impose its own form of homogenization. The magic lantern of course
survived long after, in the form of the slide projector, using 35 mm film,
just like the cinema.6
220 E. CARELS
A FILM FUNDAMENTALIST
With an immensely condensed filmography of merely 68 minutes of film
in a career of 60 years, Peter Kubelka has focused more rigorously than
any other filmmaker on the individual 35 mm frame as the essential
component of the cinematographic medium. As Alexander Horwath, his
successor at the Austrian film museum, once put it: “With just a few shorts,
created frame by frame between 1956 and 1960 (Adebar, Schwechater, and
Arnulf Rainer), Kubelka staked out film’s modernist edge – and its abyss:
a degree-zero of sheer celluloid rapture, flamboyantly expressive of the
medium’s potential as a new form of thinking” (Horwath 2004).
In the mid-1950s, Peter Kubelka started conceptualizing what he called
‘metric’ cinema, conceiving films frame by frame, first on paper, then on
celluloid. Both the 90-second Adebar (1957) and the 60-second
Schwechater (1958) were advertising commissions, for a Viennese night-
club and an Austrian beer brand, respectively. The radically experimental
outcome made Kubelka persona non-grata in the Austrian milieu of film
professionals, but it also gained him international notoriety as a pioneer-
ing figure of what only a decade later would be labelled structuralist or
materialist film. Contesting all the conventions that adhered to the prac-
tice of cinema, structural filmmaking did not start as a theoretical model.
It was foremost a specific approach to filmmaking, allowing for very per-
sonal methods by emerging artists such as Paul Sharits, Hollis Frampton,
Michael Snow, and Tony Conrad—all mentioned in Sitney’s first article on
structural film.7
With his metric films, Kubelka narrows the whole cinema experience
down to the flicker phenomenon, the nervous alteration of light and dark-
ness that demonstrates how our brain cannot process images at such rapid
speed of 24 frames per second. Instead of distinguishing each individual
frame, our mind fuses these together to produce an illusion that suggests
continuity between the frames. For his first two films, Kubelka actually
shot live action footage, only to disintegrate all continuity by applying the
most intense editing. For his third stint, Arnulf Rainer (1960), he nar-
rowed his visual grammar further down to merely black and white frames.
Nevertheless, Kubelka does not consider his work as abstract; on the con-
trary, he deals with the medium in the most concrete terms. Reducing
cinema to the act of exposing a viewer to the flickering alternation between
light and dark, Kubelka puts the emphasis entirely on the physical experi-
ence that forms the basis of any film event. Radically essentialist, his work
is also resolutely sensorial.
The cinema effect is an illusion produced by our mind, yet what trig-
gers this illusion is a machine: the projector that generates visual stimuli.
Kubelka has always concentrated on the professional format of 35 mm to
question viewing habits and screening conventions. Whenever he is intro-
ducing one of his films, Kubelka always points out the presence of the
projectionist, as the contemporary projection booth systematically denies
visual contact with the operator behind the light source.
For his final film, Antiphon (2012), Kubelka revisited Arnulf Rainer.
He made an exact inversion of the earlier work, using black frames where
Arnulf Rainer has white, and vice versa. Both films consist of precisely
9216 frames and can be screened individually, yet Kubelka also conceived
of a special double projection for the films to be combined in perfect syn-
chronization, first side-by-side and then superimposed upon each other.
For this special presentation format, which he has given the title Monument
(2012), Kubelka is adamant that both 35 mm projectors are standing vis-
ibly in the auditorium. Their mechanic rattle doubles the acoustic impact
of the white noise on the soundtrack. Technically the simultaneous projec-
tion should result in a neutralization. However, it actually leads to a pow-
erful intensification of the flicker experience, as every presentation remains
unpredictable with regard to the exact synchronicity and other factors that
also heighten the experience.
And then there is essentially the presence of Kubelka himself at each
presentation. He does not operate the projectors, but ‘dictates’ them as a
master of ceremonies. For many years, Kubelka’s talks before and in-
between the screening sessions have become an integral part of every per-
formance. He turns every screening into an event, with a prominent place
for the projectionist, and an even more central one for himself as a con-
temporary Kinoerzähler. Bringing along artefacts ranging from plastic
toys to archaeological rarities, Kubelka contemplates cinema with spoken
words rather than written language, performing seemingly improvised as
a stand-up theoretician. A true renaissance man (he is also a musician,
judoka, track athlete, theoretician, and practitioner of the culinary arts),
Kubelka has since decades been publicly pursuing his goal of ‘de-
specialization’—by practising and teaching not just film but also cooking,
archaeology, music, and cultural history (Fig. 10.2).8
One of the very few remaining film fundamentalists, Kubelka did not
only use 35 mm film to radically oppose himself to industrial filmmaking,
he has also demonstrated a firm belief in the unique potential of the
medium. This explains why he has never made his films digitally available,
222 E. CARELS
Fig. 10.2 Peter Kubelka presenting a selection of objects from his museum,
open for tactile investigation Performance in the framework of the Nuts & Bolts
exhibition at the IFFR 2017. (Photo: Edwin Carels)
thus keeping their appearance on the big screen as a true event. This does
not imply that Kubelka is opposed to digital media. He has incorporated
them into his daily activities as any other person. But his art deals solely
with the specific properties and unique potential of celluloid film and its
projection. Of all the modernist lanternists who celebrate the performative
character of any film projection, Kubelka is definitely one of the medium’s
greatest catalysts. Although he has always kept his focus on the profes-
sional 35 mm format, never settling for the cheaper, semi-professional
16 mm, Kubelka’s method remains that of a ‘cinema povera’: films
fashioned with the most modest means, single-handedly spliced, and then
edited together at his kitchen table.
MULTIPLYING THE SCREEN
While Peter Kubelka turned towards essentialism, many other experimen-
tal filmmakers went the other direction for a less austere, more festive form
of resistance against the dominant mode of film consumption. They
started using multiple screens. In the slipstream of the happenings that

peaked in the 1960s, avant-garde filmmaking evolved towards what
became labelled as ‘expanded cinema,’ a practice that aimed to dissolve the
distinctions between the time of production and the time of exhibition of
a film, turning every film screening very explicitly into a multi-sensory,
immersive event by introducing simultaneous projections or combinations
of slides, film, and liquid light shows.
The term ‘Expanded Cinema’ was coined in 1965 by the filmmaker and
artist Stan VanDerBeek, who also wrote a manifesto about the ‘Culture
Intercom.’9 His conception of expanded cinema radically differed from
what later became associated with the term. Operating at the interstices
between animation, media art, and experimental cinema, his concept was
formed by his early encounters with information and computing technol-
ogies. This resulted in Poemfield computer-generated short films and his
pioneering explorations in telecommunications. VanDerBeek’s most sig-
nificant works, such as his purpose-built spherical theatre that he called his
‘Movie Drome,’ fell into obscurity for decades, partly because of the cum-
bersome character of such media constellations.
By 1970, VanDerBeek’s notion of the term was supplanted by Gene
Youngblood’s definition with the publication of his influential book
Expanded Cinema. Inspired by the visionary architect Buckminster Fuller,
Youngblood argued against mainstream media, yet discerned in films like
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the dawning of a new
awareness. Youngblood describes various types of filmmaking utilizing
new technology, including film, computer art, video, multimedia installa-
tions, and holography. He brings together in one vision the pioneering
practices of among others Nam June Paik (video), Jordan Belson (com-
puter graphics), and Carolee Schneeman (performance). For a brief
period, even Andy Warhol also experimented with double projections
(Chelsea Girls, 1966) and live visuals to accompany music concerts by the
Velvet Underground (the Plastic Exploding Inevitable, 1966–1967). The
core of Youngblood’s utopian thinking is that a new, synaesthetic cinema
is required for a new, cosmic consciousness. As a live, immersive, and often
participatory form, expanded cinema was critiquing the models of produc-
tion and consumption common to filmmaking. In the 1960s and 1970s,
it was used as a quite flexible label for many sorts of audio-visual projec-
tion events. Yet it remained notoriously difficult to pin down or define, as
it embraced the most contradictory dimensions of film, video, and
performance.
224 E. CARELS
The practice of using multiple screens is however much older than the
counterculture of the 1960s. As a critical reaction to the new media
euphoria of the 1990s, media archaeologists such as Siegfried Zielinski,
Erkki Huhtamo, and Thomas Elsaesser have argued for, in the light of
contemporary developments, a revalorization of forgotten practices and
certain overlooked moments from the past. Inspired by the thinking of
(among others) Michel Foucault and Marshall McLuhan, media archaeol-
ogy is not accepting film history as a logical and linear development, but
aims at a fresh and different look at certain historical media and their pos-
sible implications.
In this media-archaeological vein, we can find an early example of
immersive viewing enhanced by the use of multiple projection in the
Pantomimes Lumineuses, performed by the French inventor Émile
Reynaud between 1892 and 1900 at the Musée Grévin in Paris. In anima-
tion history, Reynaud is well acknowledged as the inventor of the praxino-
scope, a variation on the zoetrope with a facetted drum of mirrors inside.
He also developed the Théâtre Optique and several other optical proto-
types. His Pantomimes Lumineuses presented a considerable expansion of
the single-person entertainment of the Théâtre Optique, now aimed at
collective viewing. For this, Reynaud combined two forms of magic lan-
tern plates. With a traditional lantern, he projected a scenery from a single
slide. On top of that, he projected a series of figures in different positions
from a unique contraption that transports a long ribbon of slides. He
could alternate and thus animate these individual frames into a fluid
motion.
Presenting these projections of moving images day after day on a big
screen in a theatre for a paying audience makes Reynaud a direct precursor
to the first public cinema screenings of the Lumières in Paris and
Skladanowsky in Berlin a few years later. And yet, Reynaud is often dis-
missed as a failed entrepreneur who threw his whole machinery quite liter-
ally in the Seine once the cinématograph gained in popularity. More
crucially, what is frequently overlooked is that the Pantomimes Lumineuses
was essentially a live show, not merely a prologue to fixed film screenings.
Accompanied by only a musician, Reynaud performed all by himself and
could improvise at each instant when manipulating the wheels of his
mechanical contraption. His popular, playful live projections were thus
actually a form of expanded cinema avant la lettre. Other precursors to the
practice of live, collective, immersive projection events can be found a
century earlier in the notorious phantasmagoria shows by Philibert and
Robertson, also based on a synchronization of multiple magic lantern pro-

jections (Mannoni 2000, 136).
KEN JACOBS
There is thus a lingering tradition of live, performative projection that
resurfaced with the wave of expanded cinema practices in the 1960s. As
media archaeology makes clear, although history is usually written by
‘winners’ who overshadow ‘losers,’ there are often continuities among his-
torical ruptures. Even at the height of American modernism in painting,
one can find lanternists painting their own slides, putting up the avant-
garde equivalent of a phantasmagoria show.
A prominent case in point is the performative work of Ken Jacobs.
Since 2000 Jacobs has presented what he calls Nervous Magic Lantern
shows. These are indeed essentially shows, based on hand-painted slides,
although most frequently not on glass, but on plastic cells. Jacobs uses a
self-built contraption that has a shutter in front of the lens instead of
behind it. This grants the images an unusual 3D effect and creates the illu-
sion of what Jacobs calls ‘eternalist’ motion, a movement going nowhere.
Jacobs is the only one who can set up these shows and manipulate his
outsized slides, and thus travels around the globe like a contemporary
Savoyard, performing on invitation with his self-made instruments
(Fig. 10.3).10
The roots of these Nervous Magic Lantern performances lie in the mid-
1950s, when Jacobs befriended the performer and avant-garde filmmaker
Jack Smith. Together they improvised several happenings in the streets of
New York. In 1955, Jacobs purchased an analytical projector, capable of
variable-speed projection both in forward and reverse action. This allowed
him to start experimenting with variable projection speeds and from there
Jacobs developed a wide variety of film practices, ranging from film diaries
to found footage, from monumental film essays to abstract miniatures and
from idiosyncratic performances to the programming of film classics as
well as contemporary work from colleagues. Jacobs will probably remain
best known for his found footage film Tom Tom, the Piper’s Son (1969), a
two-hour-long close reading of a 12-minute film dating from 1905. Jacobs
has recurrently, even obsessively, dealt with that same footage over and
over again, also in a performative fashion.11
Before he came to the Nervous Magic Lantern, Jacobs also experi-
mented with pop-up shadow plays (The Apparition Theater of New York)
226 E. CARELS
Fig. 10.3 Ken Jacobs operating his ‘nervous’ projecting device. (Photo: Nisi
Jacobs)
and then developed The Nervous System performances. The latter basically
consists of two near-identical prints on an analytical projector, capable of
single-frame advance and ‘freeze.’ This allows Jacobs to show a film as a
series of still frames, returning his public as it were to the very first screen-
ings of the Lumières and the amazement that went with seeing a projected
still image burst into motion. Jacobs’ preference for recycling vintage
movies from the first decade underlines his (intuitively) media-
archaeological intentions. Three of the five chapters of the Nervous System
performance entitled THE IMPOSSIBLE (performed between 1975 and
1981) re-presented scenes from the original Tom Tom, while a fourth used
footage shot by three Lumière cameramen in 1896. By showing the two
prints in various degrees of synchronization together through one projec-
tor, he can evoke the eternalist effect and create an illusion of three dimen-
sions. With the title of his performance project, combing NERVOUS and
SYSTEM, Jacobs stresses that the visual stream of images or impulses is
the result of an interaction of the human mind and a machine.12
Jacobs is a performer who enjoys improvisation. With his self-built dis-
positifs that prolonged the development of the magic lantern, Jacobs is in
a sense taking us back to the era preceding cinema’s invention, suggesting
history could also have developed otherwise, keeping the performative

aspect of film projection more foregrounded. As he explains himself:
“After the very earliest public screenings, projectionists had been tamed,
and toying with direction and tempo gave way to uninterrupted absorp-
tion in subject matter. Film was relegated to straight-ahead fixed-speed
carrier (…) the mechanism was expected to remain humbly invisible and
not interrupt the trance” (Jacobs 2005). Jacobs on the contrary builds his
performances entirely around a mesmerizing stream of flickering of images
that swerve in and out of focus at a speed much slower than the standard-
ized 24 frames per second.
“‘The flicker,’ a means of reducing film to its basic stroboscopic ele-
ments, is an important part of expanded cinema’s investigation of the
physicality and physiology of film and the environment of perception”
(White 2011, 232). Even in most rudimentary manifestations, prominent
projection artists such as McClure, Kubelka, and Jacobs all developed
their own strategy to turn it into a unique experience. Whereas Kubelka
respects the standard projection speed and professional set-up, McClure
prefers to combine several 16 mm projectors on one screen. Jacobs likes to
vary the dimensions of his screen according to the given situation, varying
from intimate gallery presentations to the biggest Imax scale.
In contrast to the recycling of vintage footage in his Nervous System
performances, with the Nervous Magic Lantern shows, Jacobs plunges his
public into an abstract universe, patiently exploring his big, hand-made
slides, incorporating the most unspectacular detritus. The slides are thus
often three-dimensional with rough textures, and, by slowing shifting the
focus, Jacobs only gradually reveals each slide, without ever allowing his
viewer to get a full grasp of what is actually explored by his unique con-
traption. Just like his slides are composed of the lowest materials, his self-
made projector quite literally consists of little more than a few nuts and
bolts. With his ‘trash aesthetic,’ using only the most modest means to
produce his flickering light shows, Jacobs takes a socially critical position
towards visual technologies, as he expects the viewer to see for him- or
herself.
However, before and after the performance, Ken Jacobs does always
address his public directly, and then he can be quite outspoken about his
ideological position. As David E. James recalls: “In his announcement to
‘Essential Filmmaking,’ a class he taught in 1978, Ken Jacobs proposed a
distinction between two forms of cinema: one as ‘a device of power’ and
the other as ‘an instrument of thought.’ The former, presumably the
228 E. CARELS
dominant capitalist industrial use of film, was, he argued, essentially a

form of poster art that directs people” (James 2011, 64). Like Kubelka,
Jacobs believes that cinema should be used as an instrument that should
make unique experiences available, specifically tied to the capacity of cin-
ema. Here again, we find that the rebellious legacy of the Savoyard did not
disappear altogether with the traditional magic lantern. Particularly in the
circuit of expanded cinema, there are performers that, like the original
Savoyard or Galantee showmen, foreground the act of projection, and
complement their very modest means with their own physical and verbal
presence.
REMYSTIFICATION
Beyond the more generally shared approach of hybridizing projection as a
statement of rejection of the conventions of a standard film screening, the
three cases here explored have more specific characteristics in common. All
three explicitly acknowledge the agency of the projectionist, as well as
foregrounding their own persona during verbal interaction with the pub-
lic. All three treat the filmstrip as a material that is meant to be coded by
the projection machine in the form of a pattern of flickers. With minimal
information on the material support, they demand maximum attention
from the viewer to decode the light signals.
With Jacobs still touring with his always unique Nervous Magic Lantern
performances, and McClure enjoying interest from around the globe as
well and Kubelka continuing to address audiences even after he definitely
stopped working on film, there is a whole young generation committed to
following their footsteps, even though by now of course far removed from
the heyday of structuralist and expanded filmmaking in the 1960s and
1970s.13
Whereas half a century ago the first ‘expanded cinema’ was confronted
with the largely fulfilled potential of the ‘new’ media (the subject of
VanDerBeek’s wildly speculative projections), the contemporary genera-
tion operates from an inverted perspective: now the ‘new’ media are norm
and analogue projection technology the exception. According to Jonathan
Walley, the emphasis in current experimental film culture is on film’s stub-
bornly mechanical, analogue nature, precisely in contrast to digital video,
and this accounts for the predilection for live projection performances
among contemporary practitioners of expanded cinema. “These perfor-
mances put film’s mechanical nature on display, and cast the filmmaker as
a kind of artisan/inventor/do-it-yourself-er who has mastered all of film’s

mechanical, optical, and chemical facets” (Walley 2011, 246). Or as Ed
Halter has observed in Artforum regarding McClure: “(he) produces a
remystification of cinema, bringing the experience closer to its Victorian
roots in stage magic and pre-Lumière optical instruments meant to elicit
astonishment and wonder, but calibrated for a twenty-first-century audi-
ence attuned to the aesthetics of noise and distortion” (Halter 2010).
Regression or continuation? The same Ed Halter who linked the cur-
rent wave of expanded cinema artists to the Victorian era also noted:
“These works’ very existence constitutes a critique of both technological
innovation and simplistic cine-nostalgia, with parallels in the practices of
analogue-circuit bending and experimental turntablism among sound art-
ists” (Halter 2010).
One of the most powerful characteristics of our three case studies is
notably the paradox that these live performances are so idiosyncratic that
they will disappear together with their unique performers. But raising the
awareness of technological dispositifs and their ideological underpinnings
by foregrounding a medium’s essential parameters in the most radical
fashion remains a relevant practice, perhaps now more than ever. As algo-
rithms turn our visual culture increasingly into an automated, furtive
experience with little or no visual connection to how the images are pro-
duced, the radically embodied commitment from artists such as McClure,
Kubelka, and Jacobs not only relates us back to a foregone era of analogue
imagery but more importantly reminds us that an image is always the out-
come of a whole constellation of processes and agencies.
NOTES
1. For a detailed account of the retrospective, see Pattison, Michael. 2015.
“Slugfest: Bruce McClure at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.”
Notebook. Our Daily International Film Publication (Mubi Publication).
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/slugfest-bruce-mcclure-at-the-
international-film-festival-rotterdam. Accessed July 11, 2017.
2. The publication is a facsimile reproduction of all xeroxed hand-outs that
Bruce McClure generated, a different one at each occasion. The portfolio
can be ordered exclusively via http://printroom.org/
3. For a line-up of McClure’s retrospective see: https://iffr.com/en/2015/
programme-sections/signals-bruce-mcclure and Edwin Carels. 2015.
“Signals: Bruce McClure” In IFFR 2015 catalogue, Rotterdam:
International Film Festival Rotterdam, 175–182.
230 E. CARELS
4. The earliest and most famous example remains the Lumière film that
allowed for a resurrection of the wall by simple rewinding the footage:
Démolition d’un mur (1896). The success of this film inspired Louis
Lumière several other short scenes that could be shown in reverse.
5. A well-documented example is the early animated film Little Nemo (1914)
by Winsor McCay. This film was originally used as part of his vaudeville act,
the first performance of which was on February 8, 1914, in Chicago.
McCay traditionally began his performances by making live sketches, mov-
ing on to integrate projected images in the course of the show. For contex-
tualisation, see, for instance, Donald Crafton’s Before Mickey – the animated
film 1898–1928.
6. For a documentary that evokes the continuation of the magic lantern into
the twentieth century, see: Paige Sarlin’s film The Last Slide Projector,
accessible via https://paigesarlin.info/the-last-slide-projector-2006/.
Accessed July 11, 2017.
7. P. Adams Sitney’s article appeared in the issue n. 47 (Summer, 1969) of
Film Culture.
8. For a great introduction into all aspects of Kubelka’s work, see the docu-
mentary by Martina Kudlacek: Fragments of Kubelka (2012). Information
via http://fragmentsofkubelka.org/
9. In 2011 “The Cultural Intercom” became the title of the first museum
survey of VanDerBeek’s oeuvre. See: http://camh.org/exhibitions/stan-
vanderbeek-brthe-culture-intercom. For a recent study on his expanded
cinema see Sutton (2015).
10. In 2017, for instance, Jacobs was included with his performances in the
dokumenta 14 exhibition in Kassel. For an overview of his work, see Pierson
et al. (2011).
11. For a study on all of Jacobs’ reworkings of the original Tom Tom film, see
Carels (2016).
12. For a further description of the Nervous System method see Solomon
(2011).
13. To name but a few of these new protagonists of expanded cinema: Bradley
Eros, Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson, Benedict Drew & Emma Hart,
Gregg Pope, Julien Maire, Daniel Barrow and Juergen Reble.
REFERENCES
Altman, Rick. 1992. Sound Theory Sound Practice. London: Routledge.
Carels, Edwin. 2016. Revisiting Tom Tom: Performative Anamnesis and
Autonomous Vision in Ken Jacobs’ Appropriations of Tom Tom the Piper’s
Son. In Foundations of Science, December 2016 (The Documentary Real).
Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-016-9515-6.
Crafton, Donald. 1993. Before Mickey – The Animated Film 1898–1928. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Elsaesser, Thomas. 2016. Film History as Media Archaeology. Amsterdam:
Ernst, Wolfgang. 2012. Digital Memory and the Archive. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Gunning, Tom. 2006. The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and
the Avant-Garde. In The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded, ed. Wanda Strauven,
381–388. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Halter, Ed. 2010. Powers of Projection: The Art of Bruce McClure. Artforum,
January. https://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=201001
Horwath, Alexander. 2004. This Side of Paradise: Peter Kubelka’s Poetry and
Truth. Film Comment, September/October. https://www.filmcomment.
com/article/this-side-of-paradise-peter-kubelkas-poetry-and-truth/
Huhtamo, Erkki, and Jussi Parikka. 2011. Media Archaeology: Approaches,
Applications, and Implications. Oakland: University of California Press.
Jacobs, Ken. 2005. Painted Air: The Joys and Sorrows of Evanescent Cinema.
Millennium Film Journal, 43/44 (PARACINEMA/PERFORMANCE).
http://mfj-online.org/journalPages/MFJ43/KenJacobs.htm
James, David E. 2011. The Sky Socialist: Film as an Instrument of Thought,
Cinema as an Augury of Redemption. In Optic Antics: The Cinema of Ken
Jacobs, ed. Michele Pierson et al., 64–88. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kittler, Friedrich. 1999. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter: Writing Science. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Mannoni, Laurent. 2000. The Great Art of Light and Shadow – Archaeology of the
Cinema. Exeter: University of Chicago Press.
Mannoni, Laurent, and Donata Pesenti Campagnoni. 2009. Lanterne magique et
film peint – 400 ans de cinema. Paris: Editions de la Martinière.
Parikka, Jussi. 2012. What Is Media Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Pierson, Michele, David E. James, and Paul Arthur, eds. 2011. Optic Antics: The
Cinema of Ken Jacobs. New York: Oxford University Press.
Renan, Sheldon. 1967. An Introduction to the American Underground Film.
New York: Dutton.
Solomon, Phil. 2011. Nervous Ken: XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX and After. In Optic
antics: the amazing cinema of Ken Jacobs, ed. Michele Pierson et al., 188–195.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Sutton, Gloria. 2015. The Experience Machine – Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome
and Expanded Cinema. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Walley, Jonathan. 2011. Not an Image of the Death of Film’: Contemporary
Expanded Cinema and Experimental Film. In Expanded Cinema: Art,
Performance and Film, ed. A.L. Rees, David Curtis, Duncan White, and Stevel
Ball, 241–251. London: Tate Publishing.
232 E. CARELS
White, Duncan. 2011. Expanded Cinema Up To and Including its Limits:

Perception, Participation and Technology. In Expanded Cinema: Art,
Performance and Film, ed. A.L. Rees, David Curtis, Duncan White, and Steve
Ball, 226–240. London: Tate Publishing.
Zielinski, Siegfried. 1989. Audiovisionen: Kino und Fernsehen als Zwischenspiele in
der Geschichte. Reinbek: Rowohlt rororo Verlag.
———. 2006. Deep Time of the Media. Towards an Archaeology of Hearing and
Seeing by Technical Means. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
CHAPTER 11
The Art of Anamorphosis: Subverting

Representational Conventions
and Challenging the Observer
Rudi Knoops
A MYSTERY IN TWO ACTS

The best-known example of anamorphosis is probably found in The
Ambassadors (1533) of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543). From
what is considered a neutral vantage point in front of and perpendicular to
the painting’s surface, Holbein’s painting depicts two French ambassa-
dors, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, amidst a display of scientific
devices and luxurious worldly objects, with a strangely elongated form in
the foreground. Viewing the painting from the right, from an extremely
oblique angle, reveals the strange form as being the representation of a
skull. This is an application of perspectival anamorphosis where the view-
ing position of the observer—and consequently the very oblique viewing
angle in relation to the painting—is the key to ‘decoding’ the distorted
image in the foreground as a skull.
The principle of anamorphosis is both simple and complex. In anamor-
phosis, a distorted image can be observed in correct proportions by taking
R. Knoops ( )
LUCA School of Arts, Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: rudi.knoops@luca-arts.be

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_11
234 R. KNOOPS
in an extreme vantage point—perspectival anamorphosis—or through the

mediation of mirrors or lenses—catoptric and dioptric forms of anamor-
phosis, respectively. This distortion and disruption of representational
conventions could easily be called the core business of anamorphosis.
In his seminal work Anamorphoses, published first in 1955, art historian
Jurgis Baltrušaitis describes The Ambassadors as a mystery in two acts
(Baltrušaitis 1977 [1969], 104).1 He likens anamorphosis to a play that is
set up for a spectator and that unfolds in different acts through the engage-
ment and interaction of this spectator. He describes how the painting is
intended for a particular setting of which he imagines a possible lay-out:
one door is located centrally opposite to the painting; a second door is
immediately adjacent to the wall on which the painting is hung. Each door
corresponds to one of the points of view, and corresponds to one of the
acts.
Act One is played when the spectator enters by the main door and finds
himself a certain distance away from the two nobles, who appear at the back
as on a stage. He is amazed by their stance, the display of luxury, the intense
realism of the picture. He notes a single disturbing factor: the strange object
at the ambassadors’ feet. Our visitor advances in order to have a closer look.
The scene becomes even more realistic as he approaches, but the strange
object becomes increasingly enigmatic. Disconcerted, he withdraws by the
right-hand door, the only one open, and this is Act Two. As he enters the
next room, he turns his head to throw a final glance at the picture, and
everything becomes clear: the visual contraction causes the rest of the scene
to disappear completely and the hidden figure to be revealed. Instead of
human splendour, he sees a skull. The personages and all their scientific
paraphernalia vanish, and in their place rises the symbol of the End. The play
is over. (Baltrušaitis 1977 [1969], 104–105)
The unfolding of the play takes place over time and is intricately linked to
the juxtaposition of two completely different points of view in the paint-
ing: points of view that cannot be taken in or seen at the same time. It is
only by viewing the painting from the right, from an extremely oblique
angle, that the hidden perspectival anamorphosis is revealed.
Remarkably enough, the structure of anamorphosis is characterised in
theatrical terms as, for example, in the words of Baltrušaitis “a mystery in
two acts” (1977 [1969], 104), and by Norman Klein as “three acts in a
few seconds” (2004, 88). The metaphor of the theatre expresses here in
THE ART OF ANAMORPHOSIS: SUBVERTING REPRESENTATIONAL… 235
fact the temporal structure of the experience of the anamorphic image;

how the image is revealed in several stages or ‘acts’.
Starting from this theatrical cue, this chapter is an inquiry into the pro-
cessual experience of anamorphosis, the shifting role of the observer
therein, and how these characteristics relate to present-day media art con-
stellations. I focus particularly on cylindrical anamorphosis, one of the
catoptric types that has its origins in the seventeenth century. In order to
fully understand the performative workings of cylindrical anamorphosis, it
is however necessary to also elaborate on the earlier type of perspectival
anamorphosis, of which Holbein’s Ambassadors is probably the best-
known example.
A media archaeology-inspired approach seems to be the most appropri-
ate method to study the meaning and the subversive workings of cylindri-
cal anamorphosis in the seventeenth century, and how these techniques
translate to and reverberate in our time. Such a media archaeological
inquiry can, alongside a more discursive and theoretical approach of the
cultural and social context of a medium (in its deep time), also incorporate
the hands-on experimental exploration of the possibilities and affordances
of the medium in an effort to re-invent it differently in a present-day digi-
tal media context.
It is this combined and layered media archaeological approach that has
become a fundamental part of my research methodology.2 This approach
to anamorphosis’s deep time enabled me to first analyse the subversive
quality of anamorphosis and its link to the changing status of the observer.
Secondly, as part of a more hands-on engagement with the material traits
and affordances of the medium, I translated these findings into a series of
media installations that each are media archaeological appropriations of
cylindrical anamorphosis. One of these installations Mirror Mirror (2014)
illustrates how a confrontation with the digital and the moving image
magnifies the inherent qualities of cylindrical anamorphosis, questions
representational conventions, and challenges the role of the observer.
REPRESENTATIONAL CONVENTIONS AND DISRUPTION

IN PERSPECTIVAL ANAMORPHOSIS
There are in fact two related perspectives at work in anamorphosis: from

the side of the maker it is about principles of representation; from the side
of the user it is about principles of looking and what this implies. From
236 R. KNOOPS
both viewpoints, anamorphosis was a disruptive undercurrent to the estab-

lishment of these principles during the Renaissance. In the fifteenth and
sixteenth century, artists and scientists established the rules of linear per-
spective by applying the geometrical concept of the visual pyramid to
painterly representation. Linear perspective described how to construct
images that could convey an illusion of three-dimensionality on a two-
dimensional plane, and at the same time it implicitly established the prin-
ciples of looking; how one ought to observe such images. The (re-)
discovery of linear perspective in the Renaissance functions as the back-
drop to the origins of perspectival anamorphosis. This oldest form of ana-
morphosis, where a distorted image can be viewed in correct proportions
from an extreme vantage point, thrived in the fifteenth and especially the
sixteenth century, and was subversive to the rules of how to construct a
linear perspective representation.
The illusionistic power of linear perspective is related to its strategy of
hiding its construction: “we are always caught in its configuration, look-
ing ‘through’ it rather than ‘at’ it” (Grootenboer 2005, 18). Whereas
linear perspective provides an illusion of certainty, a reassuring tranquillity
in the representation of the world, the perspectival kind of anamorphosis
questions the presumed veracity of this illusion by showing its very con-
struction. Through its extreme form perspectival anamorphosis explicitly
demonstrates its strategy: instead of presenting images within the rectan-
gular frame that we have become accustomed to—and which can be
traced back to the origins of linear perspective, and beyond—the system
of representation in perspectival anamorphosis is not contained within the
rectangular frame. When the anamorphic representation coalesces into
coherent form, the picture plane and the physical frame are blurred and
the reconstituted anamorphic image seems to extend towards the
observer.
Another significant characteristic of anamorphosis’s strategy is to chal-
lenge the observer: instead of a distant and remote spectator, the experi-
ence of an anamorphosis demands an engaged and embodied observer.
Physical interaction is a requirement to be able to experience the anamor-
phosis. In that sense, the anamorphic picture is an open work that is actu-
alised through the observer’s physical exploration of the space in front of
the picture plane. The seventeenth-century catoptric form of cylindrical
anamorphosis continues this trend and also physically expands the system
of representation into the space between the medium and the observer.
THE GHOSTS AND MONSTERS OF THE CYLINDRICAL MIRROR

The first-known descriptions of cylindrical anamorphosis date from the
early seventeenth century, when phenomena of the natural world were still
approached with a combination of science and magic. In this newer type
of anamorphosis, a cylindrical mirror is used as a mediating means to
restore a distorted representation back to a correctly reflected form. Firmly
embedded in the magical tradition, the cylindrical mirror was attributed a
ghost-conjuring quality. Baltrušaitis describes how before the seventeenth
century, mirrors in the form of a cylinder or a cone were foremost used to
create monstrous and frightening forms, exploiting the distorting possi-
bilities of catoptrics:
Up to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cylinder and the cone
were pre-eminently phantasmagoric and monster-conjuring instruments. All
the faces submitted to them assume frightening and terrible aspects. The
converse process, using the laws of reflection not to distort natural images,
but to restore distorted forms to normal, had never been mentioned. But
the new system was grafted onto the same fundamental types and it derives
from the same world of illusion: phantoms are no longer projected outside
the mirror but are reflected deep within it. (Baltrušaitis 1977 [1969], 149)
The mirror has since antiquity—and before—been regarded and treated as

a magical object that could unveil a hidden truth and cast predictions. It
was a “symbolic attribute” of the magician (Clark 2007, 80); it could open
passageways onto alternate places or times, and point to a deeper meaning
(Vermeir 2004). Mirrors could make the invisible visible.
Also in the theatre, mirrors have a long-standing tradition of invoking
ghosts, seemingly coming from beyond the mirror’s face.3 Or they served
as portals to other worlds, portals that would allow transcending time and
space. Historian Sabine Melchior-Bonnet describes the workings of the
mirror as “mediat[ing] between the dream and the real. It offers a virtual
space for the encounter with the other—a fictive space in which an imagi-
nary scenario is played out” (2001 [1994], 233). Such magical qualities
undoubtedly were an intrinsic part of the experience of mirrors in the
seventeenth century and before. It is Jean-François Niceron’s (1613–1646)
merit to have explained mathematically how to create the monstrously
deformed images for deployment in the set-up of cylindrical anamorpho-
sis, and how they as a second step in the process could be restored back to
normal using the laws of reflection. Niceron, a French Minim, published
238 R. KNOOPS
his Perspective Curieuse ou Magie Artificielle des Effets Merveilleux de

l’Optique […], de La Catoptrique […], de La Dioptrique […] in 1638.
This groundbreaking work on optics, catoptrics, and dioptrics is consid-
ered the first rigorous scientific description of perspectival distortions and
extravagancies “based on the geometry of visual rays and on precise calcu-
lations” (Baltrušaitis 1977 [1969], 39). At the same time, Niceron’s sci-
entific discourse is characterised by a fascination with the supernatural
aspects of this artificial magic that he defines as follows in the Preface to
the Reader: “we may call artificial magic that which produces the most
beautiful and admirable effects that human activity can achieve” (Niceron
1638, np).4 In fact, artificial magic can be considered a continuation of the
older concept of thaumaturgy, the working of wonders, that in 1570 was
described by John Dee (1527–1609) as “that Art Mathematicall, which
giveth certaine order to make straunge workes,... of men greatly to be
wondred at” (Fig. 11.1).5
THE DOUBLE FACE OF CYLINDRICAL ANAMORPHOSIS

A defining characteristic of the artificial magic at work in cylindrical ana-
morphosis is that the warped image and the reconstituted image are mir-
ror pairs, visible from the same vantage point and at the same moment.
The object and its reflection constitute two mirrored faces. In her list of
binary pairs, art historian Barbara Maria Stafford illustrates the “oscillating
presence of two sides (real/illusory, physical/metaphorical, outside/
inside, below/above, visible/invisible, true/false) [that] made the mirror
a potent instrument both for science and for divination” (2001, 25). The
mirror instantly supplies the revelation of the reconstituted image, as if by
magic. The optical magic of especially curved mirrors is that they become
“code breakers [that] assist the spectator in cracking a scrambled graphic
message” (Ibid., 29). When Stafford describes the cylindrical mirror as
“an enacting oracular device”, this honours its thaumaturgical origins
(Ibid., 29). In this catoptric design, just the tiniest movement of the eye is
required to switch between distorted image and corrected image—if a
movement of the eye is needed at all. There is a paradoxical conjunction
of the experience of being puzzled and the experience of revelation. The
fact that the two visual experiences become interchangeable and virtually
simultaneous enhances “the piquancy and pleasure of anamorphic art”
(Malcolm 1998, 128).
Fig. 11.1 Jean-François Niceron, Thaumaturgis Opticus (1653 [1646])

Frontispiece. KU Leuven, Maurits Sabbe Library, Faculty of Theology and
Religious Studies. (Photo: Rudi Knoops)
240 R. KNOOPS
It is the mirror as such that inserts its own intriguing and puzzling
complexity into the design and the set-up of cylindrical anamorphosis, and
changes the experience, both temporally and spatially. Deformed image
and reconstituted reflection are present at the same time and from the
same point of view. In that sense, the impact of cylindrical anamorphosis is
more direct than in perspectival anamorphosis: bodily movement between
two viewing positions is not needed. Being more direct, cylindrical ana-
morphosis is on the other hand also more subtle than perspectival anamor-
phosis: even though you can see both faces without searching for the
perfect vantage point, it is also possible to find that perfect vantage point
for the restored image in the reflection. But, contrary to perspectival
anamorphosis, finding this embedded point of view is less ‘urgent’ in
cylindrical anamorphosis.6 The observer can at leisure explore different
possible apparitions of the double face of cylindrical anamorphosis. When
comparing the activity of experiencing a cylindrical anamorphosis—as one
form of catoptric anamorphosis—to the act of experiencing a perspectival
anamorphosis, it becomes clear that there is a fundamental difference in
the space-time dimensions of that experience: observing a cylindrical ana-
morphosis is not about casting a quick glance, it instead offers time and
place for contemplating the curious perspectives on offer. Both deformed
and reflected image are always present at the same time.
The image reflected in the cylindrical mirror transforms in an almost
liquid way when observing it from different angles or positions. Art histo-
rian Hans Holländer describes this phenomenon of liquescent images as
Gleitperspektive: “During the transformation from a grid system to a near
polar coordinate system, the vantage point is not defined, and one observes
continuously varying approximations of the original image” or
Gleitperspektive (2000, 341). Holländer’s observation is an important
one, because it touches the core of how cylindrical anamorphosis works.
Gleitperspektive are a function of the laws of reflection in cylindrical mir-
rors: “the place of reflection is modified according to the spectator’s
viewing-point” (Baltrušaitis 1977, 153). They are central to the experi-
ence of cylindrical anamorphosis. Here, the anamorphic puzzle will never
be resolved, because interacting with a cylindrical anamorphosis generates
unlimited numbers of continuously varying approximations of a (hypo-
thetical) original image. Cylindrical anamorphosis is not about solving a
puzzle, it is about being entranced or becoming entranced by the para-
doxical quality of the images: very recognisable, seemingly realistic, but at
the same time subversive in their almost liquescent form. They are aberra-
tions from what is considered completely correct and normal. It is the

strange subversive quality of these ever-varying approximations that we
gauge interactively, and in this exploration the images reflected most real-
istically are not necessarily also the most interesting ones.
THE DISPOSITIF OF CYLINDRICAL ANAMORPHOSIS

AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE OBSERVER
Through its set-up that physically expands the system of representation

into three-dimensional space, cylindrical anamorphosis orients our atten-
tion to its materiality. The experience is partly about becoming aware of
the media apparatus as a construction following specific codes. Explicit in
cylindrical anamorphosis is not only the relationship between the user and
the medium but also how the medium—and the interaction with the
medium—extends into the three-dimensional space wherein the medium
is displayed. In this sense, cylindrical anamorphosis shows a remarkable
similarity to contemporary media installation art that is also characterised
by the interrelationship of “the body, the image, and the space-in-
between” (Morse 1998, 155).
Indeed, we might think of cylindrical anamorphosis as a form of media
installation in its own right. And as in media installations, there is much
more to the experience than the mere technical apparatus. Equally impor-
tant are the engagement of the observer towards the media installation
and the spatial configuration of the installation. The interrelationship
between these defining components exactly fits the model of the dispositif
and how it has been revitalised by Anne-Marie Duguet and others as a
theoretical model for video installation art.7 Duguet even posits that the
dispositif of video installation art in its diversity re-stages and questions the
whole history of representation since the origins of linear perspective rep-
resentation (1988). In this model of the dispositif, the observer is explicitly
included as a constituent component of the artwork: an open work, as
theoretically described by Umberto Eco in 1962.
If video installation art (like cylindrical anamorphosis) is an open work,
it is at the same time a “scripted space” (Klein 2004) carefully constructed
to create a specific effect. It is the observer who, in the embodied engage-
ment with video installation art, actualises the potentialities scripted by
the artist. These potentialities can be ideological, imaginary—either uto-
pian or dystopian—, or function as meta-critical engagements with the
242 R. KNOOPS
dispositif of representation itself. Among such works, we might question

whether it is possible to refer to an ‘observer’ at all in the complex, layered
interaction required.
The difficulty of defining the exact role of the observer in interactive
media and installation art is reflected in the wide diversity of terms that try
to capture this elusive identity: viewer, spectator (Baudry 1970), observer
(Crary 1990), recipient (Kwastek 2013), visitor (Morse 1998), audience,
public, subject, object, beholder, user, player, immersant (Davies
1995–1996) interactor, spect-actor (Boal 1974), performer, protagonist,
experiencer (Nelson/Bay-Cheng 2010), and handler (Bellour 1996). This
plethora of possible terms also illustrates how the role of the contempo-
rary observer may be characterised by a continuous oscillation between
different functions or identities. Apart from actively—or more passively—
observing, the observer can also become the observed, or can a
performer.
Although this interactive role of the observer can be considered a sig-
nificant characteristic of contemporary media art, we can trace this unsta-
ble position back to the experience of seventeenth-century cylindrical
anamorphosis. Warped images were displayed on relatively small panels, or
in books that could be opened on a desk. It was through the act of placing
the cylindrical mirror on the warped image or painting, that the mirrored
image, the reconstituted reflection, was revealed to the observer. The
observer was at the same time a handler, controlling through this haptic
engagement whether the hidden image would be revealed or not. Or, the
observer could be a demonstrator, performing a kind of initiation rite
while introducing somebody into the secret world of artificial magic, thau-
maturgy, and the working of wonders.
A discussion of my media art installation Mirror Mirror demonstrates
how appropriating cylindrical anamorphosis and catapulting it into a con-
temporary digital and hybrid media context even magnify the complexity
and multi-dimensionality of the role of the user (Fig. 11.2).
MIRROR MIRROR8
Within the history of video installation art, there is a tradition of integrat-
ing the live image of the self, that is, the screen as mirror that negotiates
between pure reflection and total transformation. The installation Mirror
Mirror engages with this tradition, by appropriating cylindrical anamor-
phosis, and infuses new possibilities into the dispositif of this baroque
Fig. 11.2 Rudi Knoops, Mirror Mirror (2014), mixed media installation.
Interaction demonstration. (Photo: Rudi Knoops)
media technology. At the same time, Mirror Mirror complicates and sub-
verts the concept of ‘the screen as mirror’ because of the specific paradoxi-
cal configuration of its dispositif incorporating an actual mirror.
In contrast to the plane mirror, the cylindrical mirror in cylindrical
anamorphosis is typically not used to look at oneself. In fact, resorting
purely to the laws of reflection it is impossible to look at oneself in a
cylindrical mirror, except when using it as a distorting mirror—as in a
hall of mirrors. By changing the traditional affordances of cylindrical ana-
morphosis through the implementation of digital technology, the cylin-
drical mirror in the installation Mirror Mirror can become a mirror that
allows an observer to observe oneself. A one-way cylindrical mirror hides
a video camera. The camera is pointing exactly towards the ideal vantage
point that an observer would take in to view a correctly restored image in
the cylindrical mirror. As a result, the video image will show the observer
looking directly at the camera—without the need to know the position of
the camera—and at the same time intently inspecting his mirror image.
But before this dialogue can actualise in the dispositif of cylindrical ana-
morphosis, the video image of the observer approaching the mirror is
captured and warped in real time—from a Cartesian to a near-polar
244 R. KNOOPS
coordinate system—and projected on the table top—a horizontally

placed circular screen. The reflection in the cylindrical mirror reveals the
reconstituted image of the observer as a virtual image returning the gaze
of the actual observer.
Umberto Eco has analysed how we “have introjected the rules of catop-
tric interaction” (1984, 207) into our everyday viewing and that as a result
we intuitively know how to use and interpret mirrors; in that aspect “we
are […] catoptric animals” (Ibid.). Even though we probably cannot fully
explain the workings of the mirror, we take its workings for granted. We
trust the mirror to tell the truth, even “to an inhuman extent” (Ibid.,
208), and this is also the case in the interaction with the installation Mirror
Mirror. As observer, you understand that what you see in the dispositif of
Mirror Mirror should not be possible, according to the laws of reflection,
but the image is there and demands to be explored.
Central in how the experience is scripted is the fact that the camera that
makes the interaction possible is hidden. The logic of how the image is
generated is broken: the video camera that returns your gaze—exactly
180° turned—while observing the reflected image in the mirror is the hid-
den missing link, and the exact positioning of the camera—the object that
looks back—makes it possible for the observer to enter a dialogue with his
own mirror image in this strange, uncanny, and awry way. It is this incom-
possibility that is central to Mirror Mirror, and that lures the observer to
explore the mechanisms of this quasi-impossible tell-tale mirror, and of
one’s own visual perception system.
In the strangely conjoined double image, the mirror image of the self is
not just an other view, but a view that has been ‘othered’ by distortion and
reflection so that we see ourselves as if looking at the other, even as we
know it to be ourselves. This ‘othered’ view of the self becomes even more
unreal than the virtual image in the plane mirror. Instead of the one to one
relationship between the virtual image in the plane mirror, there is in the
installation Mirror Mirror a triadic relationship between the observer, the
reflected image—shown in the mirror—and the distorted image—retro-
projected on the table top. As a consequence of this strange and eerie tri-
adic structure, the complexity of the interaction is of a different magnitude
in comparison to the interaction with the plane mirror. The reflection in
the cylindrical mirror does not belong to the same reality as the observer’s,
at this side of the mirror. This unreality is part and parcel of the specific
configuration of the dispositif of cylindrical anamorphosis and the cylindri-
cal form of the mirror.
THE BEHOLDER BECOMES THE PERFORMER

As media become increasingly open, contemporary interactive art reminds
us of the inherent fluid positions taken by an observer. David Rokeby
argues: “interactive artworks blur the line between the artist and the audi-
ence. The audience becomes creator in a medium invented by the artist.
The artist enables the interactor to express themselves creatively” (Rokeby
1995, 143). In such open works unpredictability and uncertainty are often
part of the experience of the artwork. This unpredictability is connected to
the centrality of processuality in contemporary media and installation art,
that is, that the output of the work changes based on the input of the user.
This input can take different forms, ranging from basic mouse-clicks to
pushing a button to movement being tracked in space and time. Art critic
Katja Kwastek describes the context of processuality as follows:
The processual nature of interactive art demands its interpretation within

the context of time based arts: due to its potential use or production of mov-
ing images, parallels to film and video can be observed, though the process
of interaction itself shows closer similarities to the performative arts. Like
them, interactive art is based on staging and performance. But, as opposed
to other performative arts, the active participation of the visitor is
indispensable and there is usually no co-presence of artist and visitor during
the realization of the work. Instead, roles are reversed: the beholder becomes
performer himself. (Kwastek 2010, 293–294)
Generative media that do not need user input, and randomly generate
output as programmed by the artist, do not fit this concept of processual-
ity. It is also important to take into account the difference between process
and processuality. The experience of installation art that uses time-based
media, as, for example, video, has a double process character: first, it is a
function of the moving image itself in the unfolding of time in the video;
second, it is a function of the visitor’s embodied exploration of the disposi-
tif of the installation in space and time that actualises the open work of art.
But still, this double process character does not necessarily make media
installations incorporating pre-recorded or live linear video into processual
media. Video can however become a processual medium if the artist has
destined it to take into account a form of user input that in some way
influences or changes the visual or aural output. Live video of the self,
oscillating between being “digitally enhanced or distorted” (Kwastek
2013, 26), is often used as processual medium: the image of the visitor
246 R. KNOOPS
captured by a camera is digitally manipulated and returned as live output

to the visitor, who can engage with his own image.
The installation Mirror Mirror incorporates a digital form of processu-
ality by transforming the visitor’s image in real time and returning it as
output: a video image projected on a table top with which the visitor can
engage. The second form of processuality is generated by the cylindrical
mirror: a continuous stream of approximative images—Gleitperspektive—
based on the position of the observer. If we compare this process to what
happens in other contemporary digital processual media, the similarity is
striking. In digital processual media, the position of the observer is often
tracked by a camera or sensors that triangulate the viewer’s position and
feed these data into a computer or media system that generates the output
in the form of visuals, sounds, effects. Similarly, the analogue mirror uses
the distorted source images and the position of the observer as input data
to generate an infinite real-time stream of approximative images. This is
the power of the artificial magic of the cylindrical mirror, and it demon-
strates how this seventeenth-century media technology serves as an ana-
logue precursor to the processual digital media that surround us.
The installation Mirror Mirror combines analogue and digital proces-
suality into a hybrid compound. Through the contamination with the
digital and the moving image cylindrical anamorphosis is rejuvenated and
offers the observer new possibilities to interactively engage with its disposi-
tif. In contrast to a script for actor-performers of a play, in the scripted
space of cylindrical anamorphosis the script is written for the spectators,
who become the performers of their own play.
A MYSTERY INVITING TO BE ENACTED

When interactively gauging the double visual interface of cylindrical ana-
morphosis, it is not only the combination of monstrously deformed pro-
jection and restored reflection that exerts an intriguing attraction but also
the mysterious nature of the instantly reflected virtual image is part of this
attraction. The paradoxical quality of being real and unreal at the same
time is part of its mystery. The reflected image conveys an impression of
being ‘real’; it has an intrusive presence that is underscored by its illusion
of three-dimensionality. Daniela Zyman has succinctly observed that in
baroque “worldmaking […] the virtual at times enhances and becomes
more intriguing than the reality that it reproduces or displaces” (Zyman
2015, 188). And this is also at work in the reflected image in the cylindri-
cal mirror. At the same time, the virtual reflected image is subversive in its
intriguingly uncanny and almost liquescent form that, especially from less
perfect vantage points, slides (back) into the domain of the grotesque and
the monstrous.
In this interaction, there is something that escapes complete compre-
hension: you understand the logic of how the image is being created by
the cylindrical mirror—the workings of the mirror and how the reflected
image is generated can be completely described in Euclidean geometry—
but, at the same time, there is something elusive to the generated image,
something irrational that does not completely compute—in our brains.
Dieter Mersch has eloquently phrased that cylindrical anamorphosis func-
tions like “a rational means of generating the irrational” (2008, 29). And
this subversive trait is also part of other “apparatuses of the baroque”
(Ibid.). It undermines or escapes complete comprehension and introduces
together with this irrationality a strong and mysterious attraction, an invi-
tation to be explored and enacted.
This touches a fundamental aspect of the experience of cylindrical ana-
morphosis: the attraction lies in the interaction with the uncanny and
intriguing quality of the virtual image in the mirror, and in being mes-
merised by the aura of presence, of being there. The experience is definitely
not about finding the most perfect vantage point. It is instead about
engaging in an ambiguous mix of puzzlement and revelation.
Using media archaeology as a methodological approach in this inquiry
helps us better understand the history and uses of anamorphosis as an obso-
lescent and near-forgotten medium. It also suggests what the medium might
tell us about the present and the future. This inquiry is related to media
archaeology’s keen interest in the imaginary dimension of media. The con-
nection that we as human beings have with media is double. Media can exert
a magical attraction towards us; they can touch us in strange and inexplica-
ble ways. On the other hand, media are the result of human imagination;
they are projections of dreams and wishes. Media of the past that have not
endured or that failed to become mainstream constitute a vast reservoir of
unrealised projections and dreams that can be an inspiration for the present
and the future, as art and media historian Oliver Grau has formulated:
Media archaeology has excavated a wealth of experiments and designs,

which failed to become established but nevertheless left their mark on the
development of art media. That which was realized, or has survived, repre-
sents but a tiny fraction of the imaginings that all tell us something, often
something unsettling, about the utopian dreams of their epoch. (Grau
2003, 351)
248 R. KNOOPS
One important output of such a media archaeology-inspired methodology

is that it may provide new insights into how we engage with media, and
how media define us as human beings. As an artist I took one further pos-
sible step in this methodology of short-circuiting past and present, and I
actually started manipulating the affordances of the medium within the
changed conditions and possibilities of the now, to gauge the experiential
value of such forms of appropriation. For artists, media archaeology can
thus also become part of an experimental design methodology in an
endeavour to fashion new and imaginary media forms.
From a media archaeological point of view, the deep time of the phe-
nomenon of anamorphosis signals alternative possibilities and choices that
did not become part of the mainstream corpus of media. Now, however,
we see reverberations of these alternatives—other ways of representation
and of looking; another status of the observer, characterised by an ever-
changing identity—throughout the media culture of our time, with video
installation art taking in an exemplary position.
NOTES
1. Baltrušaitis has elaborated his reference work on anamorphosis in three con-
sequent editions, in 1955, 1969, and 1984. In this chapter, I refer to the
English translation of the second French edition of Baltrušaitis’s
Anamorphoses.
2. More information about the research methodology can be found in my as
yet unpublished doctoral dissertation Cylindrical Anamorphosis.
Thaumaturgical Origins and Contemporary Workings (2017, 333 pp). It is
an in-depth study of the aspects covered in this chapter and of other aspects
and characteristics of anamorphosis, more specifically cylindrical
anamorphosis.
3. The best-known example is probably the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, originally
invented by Henry Dircks, who named it the ‘Dircksian Phantasmagoria’, it
quickly became known as Pepper’s Ghost because of its association with
John Henry Pepper, director of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in
London, where the illusion premiered in 1862. See Kattelman in Reilly
2013.
4. The first version of Niceron’s Perspective Curieuse appeared in 1638. The
revised and extended Latin edition Thaumaturgus Opticus was published
posthumously in 1646, and also contained additional illustrations. A new
French version, based on the revised Latin version appeared in 1652. The
original French text in the preface to the 1638 edition reads: “De sorte que
nous pouvons à bon droit appeller Magie artificielle, celle qui nous produit
les plus beaux & admirables effets, où l’art & l’industrie de l’homme puis-
sent arriver”. The 1652 edition formulates it in a slightly different way: “que
nous pouvons appeller Magie Artificiele, celle qui produit les plus admira-
bles effets de l’industrie des hommes” (Niceron 1652, 6).
5. The quote is from the Oxford English Dictionary. J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr.
Euclid Elements. Geom. Pref. sig. aiiij, (1570).
6. Concerning the perspectival form of anamorphosis Mark Hansen remarks
that computer modelling has “fundamentally demystified the illusion of ana-
morphosis by giving it a precise location within the “virtual” perspectival
space of the computer” (Hansen 2004, 202 note 5). He gives the example
of The Ambassadors where the two hypothetically possible vantage points
from where the warped image coalesces into coherent form can be deter-
mined exactly using three-dimensional virtual computer space.
7. The theoretical model of the dispositif has its origins in the context of
Apparatus theory and the discussion and critique of the ideologically charged
position of the spectator in (mainstream) cinema, and has been revitalised
and used in a wider media art context by writers such as Bellour (1996
[1990]), Royoux (2007), Elsaesser (2016).
8. The installation Mirror Mirror (2014) was selected for the Post-Screen fes-
tival, Lisbon 2014, and has since been shown: in the group exhibition Glass-
works (November 2015–February 2016) at Art Gallery De Mijlpaal,
Heusden-Zolder, Belgium; in the solo exhibition Curiouser and Curiouser
(February–March 2017) at KADOC chapel, Leuven, Belgium, as part of my
PhD defence; and in the LUCA showcase (November 2017) at NEST Gent,
Belgium.
A short video documenting a possible interaction can be found on https://
vimeo.com/89183766
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CHAPTER 12
Mediated Visions of Life: An Archaeology

of Microscopic Theatre
Nele Wynants
IN WAKING HOURS
For the film In Waking Hours (2015) by Sarah Vanagt, historian Katrien
Vanagt learned to dissect the eye of a freshly slaughtered cow. She studied
the Latin writings of the Dutch physician Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius
(1601–1671) on his theories of vision and the workings of the eye and
meticulously followed his instructions. Interestingly in his 1632
Ophthalmographia, Plempius emphasizes that anyone may carry out this
experiment at home, “demanding little effort and expense”:
Take the eye of a freshly butchered cow and with great care remove the
membranes near the optical nerve at the back of the eye. (…) Colours and
forms enter through the pupil, cleave through the fluids in the eye, arrive at
the retina, adhere to it, and, on this very membrane, make a painting.
Plempius further describes how the cow’s eye in a darkened room allows
the experimenter to see, “behind the eye”, a painting that “perfectly
N. Wynants ( )
e-mail: nele.wynants@ulb.ac.be

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_12
254 N. WYNANTS
represents all objects from the outside world”. On the occasion of a sympo-
sium on theatre and media archaeology in Brussels in 2015, Katrien Vanagt
conducted a live re-enactment of the experiments described by Plempius in
a setting reminiscent of an anatomy theatre. After dissecting the animal’s
eye, the world outside the box emerged as a perfect miniature painting and
the audience could witness the birth of the image upon the eye.
The dissection formed part of a series of experiments that video artist
Sarah Vanagt has carried out using historic media. As a film maker, she
combines an interest in the (origins of the) moving image, early optics,
and studies of how the eye works. The starting point of several of her
recent films is an old or forgotten technology that she then translates into
a modern artwork, which may be a film, a photograph, or an installation.
Investigations of the historical context and the technicalities of early opti-
cal media form the basis of this markedly media-archaeological work. She
has experimented with the camera obscura, old photographic procedures,
and more recently with microscopy. In this way, she has built up an oeuvre
with explicit historical references, and a poetic signature that is uniquely
hers. She examines the specific nature of each medium with an eye for the
optical and material qualities of the technology and the uniqueness of the
image quality that they produce.
Not coincidentally the act of looking itself is central to her work. As a
film maker, she has a keen eye for detail, texture, and colour. She often
directs the attention of the viewer to the minor detail, to that which we
rarely see, or hardly notice. Such is certainly the case in her In Waking
Hours film. Through the dissected eye, she guides the viewer’s gaze
around the room and focuses on the details of a Brussels kitchen: patterns
on the Delft kitchen tiles, the keys of a piano, three children playing out-
side—all seen as living miniature paintings, just as Plempius described.
The dissection of the eye too is visualized in a visceral but aesthetically
pleasing way. The camera focuses on the elegant hands of Plempius’s
pupil, who carefully cuts the back of the eye open with a scalpel in order
to replace the retina with the transparent membrane from the inside of an
egg and which functions as a miniature projection screen. The eye is then
mounted on a holder so that it captures objects and movements like a
magnifying glass, or in this case a “diminishing glass”. In this way a living
painting is created, a miniature film of the surroundings. By filming and
projecting this optical experiment enlarged on a screen Vanagt translates
the individual experience of seeing into a publicly shared experience. She
theatralizes, as it were, the seeing experience.
MEDIATED VISIONS OF LIFE: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF MICROSCOPIC… 255
This relationship between the small and the large, between individual
attention and public observation of the optical spectacle, is a constant
theme throughout her work, and as I wish to show in this contribution, it
is also a recurring principle in the development of the visual media. Not
infrequently in the history of the optical media, instruments have been
used both for scientific research and as a source of astonishment and enter-
tainment when brought to popular attention. Optical toys with sounding
names such as the thaumatrope, the phenakistiscope, the zoetrope, and
the folioscope or flip book indeed originated as part of scientific experi-
mentation with optics, perception, and the functioning of the eye. Usually
they were designed with the object of creating optical illusions and deceiv-
ing the mind. In this way, scholars tried to obtain a greater understanding
of cognition and perception (Wade 2004). At the same time, such items
went down in history as popular amusements for both young and old,
which is why they were known as philosophical toys during the first half of
the nineteenth century (Wade 2004; Dvorák 2013). They were objects
and instruments designed for scientific purposes but which at the same
time played a crucial role in the development of modern spectacle
culture.
Art historian Jonathan Crary has made extensive studies of the period,
which was a time when the observation of vision itself became an object of
knowledge and science, emerging concurrently with new technological
forms of spectacle, display, projection, attraction, and recording (2001).
Crary focused in particular on how ideas about perception and attention
transformed in the nineteenth century against a background of techno-
logical and urban development and a growing body of theoretical and
practical knowledge about light and other physical phenomena such as
electricity and magnetism. In this context, modern urban experience was
often framed in terms of a dialectic between “distraction and concentra-
tion” as famously articulated by Walter Benjamin. In his well-known dis-
cussion of art and film, Benjamin considers these two terms as polar
opposites of modern “reception in a state of distraction” (1968, 239–240).
Crary argues instead that attention and distraction were not two essen-
tially different states and cannot be thought outside of a continuum in
which the two ceaselessly flow into one another (2001, 50–51). He con-
siders “attention” as “a dynamic process, intensifying and diminishing,
rising and falling, ebbing and flowing according to an indeterminate set of
variables” (2001, 47). The roots of the word attention indeed resonate
with a sense of “tension”, of being “stretched”, and also of “waiting” and
256 N. WYNANTS
“implies the possibility of a fixation, of holding something in wonder or

contemplation, in which the attentive subject is both immobile and
ungrounded” (2001, 10).
We shall use this dynamic relationship between focus and enlargement,
between concentrated attention and distracted observation of the spec-
tacular as a framing tool in order to archaeologically historicize Sarah
Vanagt’s work and for preparing a genealogy of what might term, to coin
a phrase, “microscopic theatre”. After all the starting point of her most
recent film is the history of the microscope. To this end, she made a his-
torical study of the discoveries of the seventeenth-century draper Antonie
van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), who made frequent use of lenses and
magnifying glasses to examine the textiles he bought for his shop.1 The
versatile tradesman became famous for the microscope he built and his
pioneering work in cell biology and microbiology. Lacking any scientific
training or knowledge of foreign languages, he retreated to the back room
of his shop to teach himself the art of observation and description. Aided
by his handcrafted microscopes, he was the first to observe and describe
microorganisms, or moving “diertgens” (animalcules) in a drop of rainwa-
ter, and later also in sea water, blood, and the tears of a child. Van
Leeuwenhoek recorded his observations in letters to the Royal Society in
London, which elected him as a member in 1680 in recognition of his
scientific achievements. For the film, Vanagt worked with a replica of a
single lens microscope of van Leeuwenhoek’s design. She carried out
experiments with fish eggs, which according to the historical sources also
have microscopic power.
MICROSCOPIC THEATRE
The microscope too may be regarded as a philosophical toy, an instrument
that is now primarily known for its scientific applications, but which in
early nineteenth-century London attracted vast numbers of the curious.
This should not surprise us. Apart from the boom in publications popular-
izing the scientific findings of the age, it was spectacle that served to
inform the common man about science in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries as recent studies have shown (Morus 2007; Fyfe and Lightman
2007; Lachapelle 2015; Vanhoutte and Wynants 2017). These authors in
particular highlighted the role of performance in the process of knowledge
construction and the popularization of science. Scientific performances in
the elegant lecture theatres of the Adelaide Gallery and London Royal
Polytechnic Institution as well as in the popular galleries of practical sci-

ence and world exhibitions in London, Paris, Vienna, and Brussels made
science and its products visible to a wide audience. They pulled in the
crowds and amazed them with nature’s wonders. In this context, micros-
copy developed in the first half of the nineteenth century primarily as a
public spectacle, one that combined a didactic impulse with pleasure and
amazement. The advent, in particular, of the projection microscope—a
microscope combined with an optical lantern—helped microscopy turn
into a successful scientific show that was as popular as the panoramas,
dioramas, and other forms of early spectacular entertainment such as
magic lantern shows.
The optical lantern, better known as the magic lantern, and sometimes
as the lanterna magica, is a device that enabled to project transparent images
on small glass slides so that they appeared enlarged on a screen or other
suitable surface. The invention of the magic lantern is attributed to
Christiaan Huygens, who is said to have designed it around 1659 as a
diversion for his children (Rossell 2001, 142). The magic lantern then
became immensely popular, not just with children but also with grown-up
audiences. In the eighteenth century, showmen travelled the lands of
Europe with their lanterns on their backs and would give public shows in
village squares, at fairs, and theatres. In the nineteenth century, when it
became possible to produce lantern slides in larger numbers,2 the magic
lantern became the first visual mass medium to compete with the printed
word as a primary mode of information and instruction. All layers of soci-
ety, both literate and illiterate, received visual information about nature,
religion, science, new technologies, and foreign countries. Furthermore,
the early projector had from the very start been used for scientific and edu-
cational purposes. As early as 1665, the magic lantern was being used for
microscopic projection and was even recognized as a sort of microscope.
Athanasius Kirchner (1602–1680), who is also regarded as one of the
fathers of the magic lantern, writing in 1646, suggested projecting enlarged
living insects as a part of a theatre presentation (Gage 1908, 14) (Fig. 12.1).
The magic lantern and the microscope have the shared feature that the
core function of the two technologies consists of enlarging something that
is initially quite small. Similarly, the magic lantern and the microscope
were both used for science and entertainment. Recalling his own experi-
ence with one of the first microscopes, Constantijn Huygens—father to
Christiaan—wrote in around 1630 enthusiastically of the “new theatre of
nature”, indeed “another world”, discovered there (Ruestow 1996, 8–9).
258 N. WYNANTS
Fig. 12.1 A demonstrator is operating a magic lantern. The illustration shows a

magnified image of an old woman painted on a glass slide and a flea. At the top, a
diagram shows how the light is projected by means of a mirror and lenses onto the
wall. Image from Jean Antoine Nollet. 1764. Leçons de Physique expérimentale, vol.
5. (Author’s collection)
But whereas the table-top microscope permitted only one viewer to exam-
ine an object—the scholar’s eye—the projection microscope allowed the
specimen’s magnified image to be appreciated by a larger audience. Each
minute detail, invisible to the naked eye, became visible to a wide, inter-
ested audience. In no time, numerous variations were conceived for the

enlarged projection of organic materials, insects, and minerals. Indeed, as
we can deduce from contemporary eye witnesses, London showgoers
were “directly affected by the wonders that lay beyond the unaided eye”
(Altick 1978, 371). The projection microscope brought microscopic life
into the room on a human scale, almost as if it had taken physical form in
the lecture room, “making a flea as big as an elephant, with distinctness
and semblance of reality” (Gould 1839, cited in Brooker 2013, 26). As an
instrument of scientific research, the microscope lends itself to playful
enquiry, as we can read from a pamphlet from 1827, promoting the sale of
a portable microscope. It wrote “No invention was capable of affording
more entertainment and instruction than this instrument, opening a new
world, and displaying the most extensive scenes of creative power, wisdom
and design” (Gould 1839 cited in Brooker 2013, 47). Another contem-
porary wrote:
To comprehend the purpose of a projection microscope it must be remem-

bered that the microscope, whether a simple magnifier or the most elaborate
compound microscope, is an aid to the eye and becomes for the time being
a part of the visual apparatus of the person using it. But the social and
teaching instincts could not be satisfied without being able in some way to
share the pleasure derived from the exquisite forms revealed by the micro-
scope. (Gage 1908, 12)
One of the best-known examples of microscopic spectacle was Philip

Carpenter’s Microcosm, a public exhibition of microscopic objects and
projected images he opened in his optician’s shop on Regent Street
London in 1827. As one of the centres of the consumer fashion world,
Regent Street was, for a manufacturer like Carpenter, probably a gateway
to a larger retail market and greater prestige, as Westminster also com-
manded a thriving public exhibition market (Roberts 2017). Carpenter’s
shop was close to popular attractions such as the Panorama, Diorama,
Colosseum, and Cosmorama, and entertainment venues such as the
Egyptian Hall and Adelaide Gallery (Altick 1978). Carpenter thus installed
himself in the middle of the contemporary “cultures of display” of mid-
Victorian London where entertainment was “big business” (Morus 2007,
339). The choice on offer was diverse in the extreme, ranging from the
frivolous to the solemn. Natural philosophy and the mechanical arts were
part and parcel of this culture of display. Scientific lectures competed with
gothic melodrama for the attention of the theatre-going public. The
260 N. WYNANTS
Adelaide Gallery, for instance, established in 1832 and one of the earliest
on the scene, developed a regular programme of public lectures and scien-
tific demonstrations, magic lantern shows, diorama’s, and musical soirées,
“a carefully contrived blend of entertainment and edification” (Morus
2007, 340–341). The Polytechnic institution, which opened its doors on
Regent Street in 1838, followed this successful format, offering a range of
lectures, drawing impressive audiences, interspersed with musical soirées
and entertainments. All of these venues had microscope spectacles on their
programmes.
Carpenter’s Microcosm, A Grand Display of Nature invited visitors to
“look into the secrets of nature” through 14 microscopes (Fig. 12.2). The
microscopes were powered by the sun during the day, but gas-powered
after dark, giving continuous projections from 11 until 8 each day. For the
price of one shilling, visitors were able to see enlarged tiny living organ-
isms invisible to the naked eye. The sights on display included a slice of
twig from a lime tree, a louse, and a piece of iron ore. Carpenter presented
these enlarged projections to the public not simply as a scientific tool but
mainly as optical novelties, designed to promote wonderment and broader
public interest in microscopy. Historical accounts give us a good idea of
the impact of these microscopic spectacles on the visitors. Newspapers
were filled with advertisements and messages that reported spectacular
and lively performances. The language in the messages is remarkably
colourful and speaks to the imagination. They were often vividly illustrated
with impressive images. Clearly this unique exhibition of the “Wonders of
Nature” caught the public imagination and might have even been alarm-
ing, as we learn from Hermann von Pückler-Muskau’s travel diaries. “I
went to see the solar microscope, the magnifying power of which is a mil-
lion. What it shows is really enough to drive a man of lively imagination
mad”, wrote the eccentric German aristocrat in 1833:
Nothing can be more horrible, – no more frightful devilish figures could pos-
sibly be invented, –than the hideous, disgusting water animalculae (invisible
to the naked eye, or even to glasses of inferior power,) which we daily swal-
low. They looked like damned souls darting about their filthy pool with the
rapidity of lightning, while every motion and gesture seemed to bespeak
deadly hate, horrid torture, warfare, and death. (Pückler-Muskau 1833, 200)
The German traveller describes how the microscope revealed the mon-
strous creatures present in a single drop of water from the Thames. The
lantern operator, standing by the wall with a stick in his hand, indeed
Fig. 12.2 “Microcosm, A Grand Display of the Wonders of Nature” London,

England, 1827. Lithographic print by G Scharf advertising the 14 microscopes
produced by Philip Carpenter, optician. In the centre is a description of his prem-
ises and microscopes, on the outside are scale images of the natural world includ-
ing flies, fleas, mites, beetles and iron ore. (© Getty images)
262 N. WYNANTS
Fig. 12.3 “Monster Soup commonly called Thames Water, being a correct rep-
resentation of that precious stuff doled out to us!!!”, 1828. Satirical etching by
William Heath, commenting on the consequences for London’s water supply
resulting from the pollution of the Thames River. Inspired by Carpenter’s exhibi-
tion “Great Microcosm”. (© Alamy images)
explained how these myriads of small animals lived in “the pure water that
you drink every day, without being sensible of the wonderful power of
God of the universe displayed in it”.3 A statement that, in view of the
awful pollution of the London water supply at the time directly coming
from the Thames, is less innocent than it seems. The polluted drinking
water was according to medical research considered to be the direct source
of the cholera that had killed thousands of people in 1832, a subject that
was extensively discussed in the lay press as well as in scientific journals at
the time (Altick 1978, 371) (Fig. 12.3).
FROM SOLAR TO OXYHYDROGEN MICROSCOPE

Initially, microscopic exhibitions made use of solar microscopes. This was
a projection microscope that worked as a camera obscura and used sun-
light as a light source to project the image of the microscope specimen
onto a screen (Heering 2008). The instrument was fitted into a hole in a
wall so that an external mirror could channel light towards the objectives
and project an enlarged or microscope image onto a wall or screen
(Roberts 2017). The invention of the solar microscope is frequently
attributed to the Berlin microscopist Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn, who
would have introduced it in England in 1739 (Heering 2008), although
according to other accounts it is due to the German physicist and scien-
tific instrument maker Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1736 (Stafford and
Terpak 2001, 215). In any case, in the eighteenth century the solar micro-
scope was quickly taken up by showmen and charlatans as well as lecturers
of science and soon became an invaluable instrument for capturing the
attention of an audience gathered for scientific instruction. One of the
most notorious of these showmen was Gustavius Katerfelto
(ca.1743–1799), a conjurer, lecturer, natural magician who claimed to be
the instrument’s inventor. This Prussian showman performed in London
around 1780–84 with a quasi-scientific show at 22 Piccadilly Circus and
was probably the first to exhibit the device in Britain for the purposes of
commercial entertainment (During 2002). The flu epidemic of 1782
made him famous, when he used a solar microscope to project enlarged
images of the microbes he insisted caused the influenza then devastating
Londoners (Nadis 2005). But the solar microscope’s spectacular power
was reduced to nothing on a cloudy day when, as was often the case, no
adaptable source of artificial light was available to illuminate the micro-
scope’s field.
The most important technical breakthrough was that of the oxyhydro-
gen microscope. The instrument was now particularly well suited for show
business as the invention of “limelight” as a source of illumination for
microscope projectors sidestepped the unreliability of the sun and micro-
scopic spectacles could be scheduled for evening programmes.
Oxyhydrogen microscopes were specially adapted magic lantern boxes in
which the usual arrangement of lenses for projection was replaced by a
combination of lenses that hugely magnified the image. The key to the
oxyhydrogen microscope’s power was the oxyhydrogen light, produced
by heating a cylinder of lime with a flame of combined oxygen and hydro-
gen gas (limelight). By fitting an ordinary magic lantern with a micro-
scopic lens and making use of limelight, the projection microscope could
make ever smaller objects visible. During microscopy demonstrations, the
projectionist would progressively change the lens in order to emphasize the
264 N. WYNANTS
effect and to demonstrate the various degrees of enlargement: a first lens

would be used for entire objects, such as moths and spiders, another for
living specimens in water, and a third for the tiniest objects, such as the
dust on a butterfly’s wing.
THE POETICS OF MICROSCOPIC SCIENCE

Apparently, the microscope primarily appealed to the imagination, more
than it was used as an instrument for scientific enlightenment and discov-
ery. Although it made visible the presence of living organisms in London’s
drinking water, the oxyhydrogen microscope did not in fact arouse much
popular interest in biology. Rather it was represented by London’s show
business as “an amusing and, in its own way, a spectacular toy, not as an
avenue to scientific discovery” (Altick 1978, 371). Scientific exhibitors
indeed needed to balance their efforts between demonstration and enter-
tainment, “[t]he business of successful performance was the same – as was
the technology – whether the oxyhydrogen microscope was being used for
‘scientific’ or ‘popular’ display. Making the invisible visible was the result
of careful choreography in either case” (Morus 2007, 338).
This is also evident from the many popularizing science publications of
the period. According to science historian Bernard Lightman, female writ-
ers in particular appealed to their reader’s aesthetic sensibilities (2007).
They introduced poetry and literature into their work and, through the
use of expressive language and many illustrations, elicited a sense of won-
der. From the microscopic world to the overwhelming heavens, these
women depicted nature as a marvellous spectacle and feast for the senses.
Mary Ward (1827–1869), for example, emphasized in her book Microscope
Teachings (1866) the magnificence of the scenes produced by the micro-
scope. Well illustrated, with many of Ward’s own delicate and accurate
drawings, she takes the reader on a journey through the wonders of the
microscope and evokes the particular poetics of tiny objects from the natu-
ral world, insect wings, fish scales, feathers, crystals, and the microscopic
life of ponds and lakes.4 Working in the tradition of the panorama, she
presented a succession of wonders, revealing a real love for spectacle and
beauty. By deliberately appealing to one of the hallmarks of the entertain-
ments available to Londoners, Ward attempted to reach her reading audi-
ence by invoking similar aesthetic sensibilities that were at work in the
mass visual culture of the period.
SHOWFISH
It is probably the poetic potential of the microscope that so inspired Sarah
Vanagt’s imagination. When in 2016, she was invited to develop a film and
an exhibition in the context of a European research project on the magic
lantern, she decided to combine her interest in history of microscopy with
her interest in these devices. Indeed, the magic lantern is the very embodi-
ment of what she finds fascinating about early media. Although historical,
these devices can still enchant the contemporary viewer. Moreover, this
international project has brought her into contact with a network of muse-
ums, collectors, and researchers, of which the author of this text is also a
member.5 For Schijnvis/Showfish/Poisson Brillant (2016), Vanagt trans-
formed the historical projection microscope into a new installation and
two contemporary magic lantern films for the Museum of Contemporary
Art Antwerp (M KHA).6 Vanagt wanted to use magic lanterns from the
museum’s collection to project onto the walls of the gallery the sort of
thing that van Leeuwenhoek might have seen for the first time through his
tiny lens: such as the minuscule life in a drop of water, the graphic texture
of a piece of cloth, and the delicate structure of a cobweb. In doing so, she
brings the viewer a contemporary view of the history of microscopy as sci-
ence and spectacle and magnifies the small and invisible to render it visible
to the eyes of the present-day viewer.
The first film, A Microscopic Gesture (6 min), was based on a fragment
from one of the early letters of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1674), in
which he seemingly heedlessly notes that the unfertilized eggs of the cod
can act as a magnifying glass.7 If that is so, concluded Vanagt, the rivers
and seas are full of such natural microscopes. Inspired by the quotation,
she decided to do a bit of “pocket science” herself and began to experi-
ment with the unfertilized spawn of zebra fish—a fish species that is bred
in large numbers at Ghent University for the purposes of genetic research.
Inspired by fragments from Leeuwenhoek’s letters, this film constitutes a
user’s guide to what Vanagt calls “a microscopic gesture”. She invites
viewers to repeat the experiment for themselves, by making a hole in a thin
piece of copper plate and carefully placing a zebra fish egg in the hole
using a cat’s whisker. She next replaces the lens of her camera with a fish
egg, which then acts as the only lens. Using this natural lens, she goes on
to film the magnified texture of a piece of cloth, just as van Leeuwenhoek
did when he set out on his optical experiments to study the quality of
his textiles. She then focuses on “all other wordly things”, namely the
266 N. WYNANTS
membrane of a chicken egg that bears the resemblance to woven cloth, a

drop of water from a ditch in a porcelain cup, and the tiny creatures in
rainwater mixed with mustard.
In the second film, The First Microscopist (8 min), Vanagt embarks on a
fictive conversation with a historical character: a harpoon fisher from Crete
with long eyelashes. In this film, she experiments with a projection micro-
scope and recorded the images on film created by a historical apparatus.
The projection microscope was operated by lanternists Karin and Ludwig
Vogl-Bienek who used original microscope slides from their collection.8
These were of all sizes and types and consisted mainly of organic materials
such as plants (the petal of a poppy, the leaf of a fern, etc.) and insects (a
moth’s wing, the eye of a fly). Apart from this Vanagt experimented with
self-made aquarium slides, inspired by the “tank slides” of the past, which
were filled with water and plant residues. In the exhibition, these minia-
ture worlds are displayed in magnified form on the walls of the museum.
Reminiscent of abstract paintings, they show the entranced visitor an end-
less variety of pleasing patterns and colours that we would be unable to
discern with the naked eye.
The installation called “A Scotch Gesture” (5 children’s lanterns and a
trace along the Schelde River on tape, 25.10.2016) was set up at the cen-
tre of the exhibition space. For this installation, Vanagt used the children’s
lanterns in the M KHA collection (Vrielynck). These colourful projection
devices allowed the children of prosperous nineteenth-century families to
shine brightly painted slides of animals, fairy-story figures, stars, and plan-
ets onto the walls of their bedrooms or nurseries. Vanagt connected the
children’s magic lanterns to one another with a long strip of transparent
adhesive tape (Scotch tape ®) to which various specimens were stuck,
which had, as the name suggests, been collected during a walk along the
banks of the Scheldt, the river hardly 150 yards from the museum’s doors.
In keeping with the van Leeuwenhoek spirit, who collected his research
material haphazardly and held everything one by one against the light,
Vanagt laid a trail of adhesive type in what she calls “a Scotch gesture” on
the ground. All kinds of things stuck to the tape, such as dust, sand, twigs,
leaves, sweet wrappers, and a fragment of coloured glass. This collection
of dirt and grit, “of all the unsightly that we drop from our hands, of
everything that returns inevitably returns to dust, which we walk over
every day without actually seeing it”, represents the archaeological film
that she projects on the walls of the museum with the children’s magic
lanterns (Vanagt 2017). Constellations of titanic dust bunnies appear as if
Fig. 12.4 Installation view Schijnvis/Showfish/Poisson Brillant by Sarah Vanagt

Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, 2016. (© M HKA, photo Clinckx)
in a shadow play, chased by gigantic fragments and monstrous patterns.

To quote the artist, these are a new kind of silhouette that has an intrinsic
air of the utterly archaic (Fig. 12.4).
THE MICROSCOPE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL TOY

This way Vanagt continues a historic tradition in which the meticulously
small detail, that what often escapes our gaze, is magnified for an astounded
audience. This oeuvre thus clearly relates to the tension between attention
and distraction, between focus and enlargement, between rapt attention
and the distracted observation of the spectacular, a tension that was char-
acteristic of the scientific spectacle of the nineteenth century. But whereas
the modern regime of observation was largely characterized by one
extreme of the continuum, namely the experience of “fragmentation,
shock and dispersal”, the emphasis in Vanagt’s oeuvre lies much more on
hushed attention and individual observation. The world of imagination
she opens up is far more individual.
This emphasis on individual attention and stillness should not astonish
us nowadays. Distraction, shock, and fragmentation are after all the basic
state of our contemporary mediatized world. When Walter Benjamin
made a plea in his 1935 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction, for the montage principles of the historical avant-garde,
268 N. WYNANTS
these formal principles were still regarded as a means of creating distance

and alienation that could lead to fundamental changes in observation and
consciousness. Benjamin called this the “politicization of art” (in contrast
to the aestheticization of politics, which he discerned in fascism) (2008,
18). The increasing mediatization of political and social life and the grow-
ing impact of consumer and visual culture have brought about a shift in
our experiential world so that diversion and spectacle have become the
dominant conditions of our times. In particular since the sixties, composi-
tional principles such as montage and collage have become an inherent
part of our “spectacle society”, one in which they no longer lead to an
experience entailing shock and alienation. If artists are to make a differ-
ence nowadays and wish to distance themselves from the hectic image
culture, they must deploy radically different compositional principles,
entailing delay, stillness, and focus. In that way they can once again draw
attention to observant, concentrated viewing. In an age when the urban
and mediatized world is by definition an experience of diversion and over-
stimulation, Vanagt focuses on that which escapes our attention in the
hubbub of impressions.
This “attention to attention” is also evident from Vanagt’s plans to
continue her work with magic lanterns with children in Brussels, Athens,
and Sarajevo (working title PLAKFILM). In the new project, she sends
the children out to walk in the streets of their towns with a roll of adhesive
tape in their hands. When the young adventurers return home in the eve-
ning, traces of their day remain stuck to the tape—the impressions of the
street. They then conserve the dusty residues of their home towns, as
recorded on the sticky tape, in a sort of abstract diary. In the film, we see
the children viewing the strips in their darkened bedrooms. To do this,
they slip the tape through the slot originally intended for the glass slide in
the magic lantern. With the help of a roll of sticky tape and a magic lan-
tern, the children in PLAKFILM get the measure of the turbulence of our
times. By choosing Brussels, Athens, and Sarajevo, Vanagt has picked cit-
ies where modern-day social turbulence is more acutely present than else-
where, and where the imagination of the children, dixit Vanagt, can serve
as a good barometer for measuring such turbulence and rendering it visi-
ble. They bring the collected residues of their cities to life in the darkness
and intimacy of their bedrooms, and like young foretellers of the future
they create new stories.
Just as with the historical projection microscope, the magic lantern
becomes a philosophical toy here too. The microscope’s enlarged projec-
tions encourage the thinking mind to form new and much more detailed
images of the world, and by doing so, the device and the shows it inspired
are partially responsible for the dominant place now held by visual com-
munication. Vanagt’s artistic appropriation of the projection microscope
continues these dealings with the projection microscope as a philosophical
toy—indeed by working with children it does effectively become a play-
thing. This contemporary microscopic theatre in this way thus forms a
model for a theory and practice that lies somewhere between science and
art, a locus in which new images and imaginings arise from the world in
which we live. For Vanagt, it has after all nothing to do with a nostalgic
return to the early years of visual technology and the moving image.
Rather she explores the area between science, magic, and documentary.
Her work constitutes a reflection on the history of microscopy, but from a
contemporary and highly individual point of view. She offers her viewers a
magnifying glass to look more closely and attentively at our own times, to
recognize the traces of the past.
NOTES
1. On van Leeuwenhoek and changing ideas of “seeing” in art and science in
seventeenth-century Europe, see Snyder (2015) and Ruestow (1996).
2. The copperplate transfer process was based on the ceramic transfer pro-
cess used by Sadler and Green from 1756 onwards. This process did not
allow for full mass reproduction, as the transfer-printed images were
hand-painted and thus required a lot of work from painters. The transfer
process was not a form of mass production, but it did help instrument
makers to standardize images by repeating each outline and image sub-
ject. This meant that he could sell a consistent product that could be
associated with his wider marketing campaign. (Roberts 2016, 322–325)
(Roberts 2017).
3. Najaf Koolee Meerza, Journal of a Residence in England… (privately
printed, 1839), I, 305, cited in Altick (1978, 370).
4. For more on female science popularisers in Victorian England and the nar-
rative formats they developed, see Lightman (2007). On Mary Ward in par-
ticular see Creese (2004).
5. A Million Pictures (2015–2018) was a collaborative research project that
brought together researchers from the Universities of Utrecht (NL),
Antwerp (BE), Exeter (UK), Girona (ES), and Salamanca (ES) as well as 20
or so European museums with collections of lantern slides. The project was
financed via the Joint Programming Initiative Cultural Heritage and Global
270 N. WYNANTS
Change programme, which works to stimulate cooperation between

European research groups working in the cultural heritage field. The pur-
pose of this project was to promote the sustainable use and management of
lantern slides held in various European collections, develop tools for their
documentation, preservation, digitization, and stimulate forms of creative
and artistic reuse. The Antwerp team active in the consortium was concen-
trating specifically on the magic lanterns in the Vrielynck collection—a col-
lection of antique cameras, optical toys, and other cinematographic
paraphernalia that have been in the care of M KHA, the Museum of
Contemporary Art Antwerp, since 2003. The website of the project is at
a-million-pictures.wp.hum.uu.nl
6. Schijnvis/Showfish/Poisson Brillant was first exhibited in M KHA, Museum
of Contemporary Art Antwerp, 27 Oct–13 Nov 2016, and later as part of a
group exhibition curated by Edwin Carels at the International Film Festival
Rotterdam, called the Nuts & Bolts exhibition, 26 Jan–4 Feb 2017.
7. On 24 April 1674, van Leeuwenhoek wrote: “I have also observed a seed of
the spawn of a cod at the time when the fish lays its spawn, which seed I
found to be of a completely round body, without any colour, nor anything
to be seen in it, but on placing it at some distance in front of my microscope,
I saw through the seed an amusing perspective of towers, and all that stood
before me, but extremely small and upside down”. Van Leeuwenhoek,
Anthoni. 1925. “Alle de brieven. Deel 1: 1673–1676.” In A.J.J. Vandevelde
and W.H. Van Seters (1925). Verslagen en mededeelingen der Koninklijke
Vlaamsche Academie. Gent: Koninklijke Vlaamsche Academie voor Taal- en
Letterkunde, 171–172.
8. For more information on the scientific and artistic work of this lanternist
duo, see the website of the illuminago ensemble: http://illuminago.de/
REFERENCES
Altick, Richard. 1978. The Shows of London. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 1968. Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn.
New York: Schocken.
———. [1935] 2008. Het kunstwerk in het tijdperk van zijn technische repro-
duceerbaarheid. In Het kunstwerk in het tijdperk van zijn technische reproduceer-
baarheid en andere essays, trans. Henk Hoeks, 7–45. Amsterdam: Boom.
Brooker, Jeremy. 2013. The Temple of Minerva. Magic and the Magic Lantern at
the Royal Polytechnic Institution, London 1837–1901. London: The Magic
Lantern Society.
Crary, Jonathan. 2001. Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern
Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Creese, Mary R.S. 2004. Ward, Mary. In Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British

Scientists, ed. Bernard Lightman, vol. 4, 2102–2103. Bristol: Thoemmes
Continuum.
During, Simon. 2002. Modern Enchantments. The Cultural Power of Secular
Magic. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.
Dvorák, Tomáš. 2013. Philosophical Toys Today. Teorie vedy/Theory of Science 35
(2): 173–196.
Fyfe, Aileen, and Bernard Lightman, eds. 2007. Science in the Marketplace.
Nineteenth-Century Sites and Experiences. Chicago/London: University of
Chicago Press.
Gage, Simon Henry. 1908. The Annual Address of the President: The Origin and
Development of the Projection Microscope. Transactions of the American
Microscopical Society 28: 5–60. JSTOR. www.jstor.org/stable/3220904
Gould, Charles. 1839. The Companion to the Compound, Oxy-Hydrogen and Solar
Microscopes Made by W. Cary, 181, Strand. London: W. Cary.
Heering, Peter. 2008. The Enlightened Microscope: Re-enactment and Analysis
of Projections with Eighteenth-Century Solar Microscopes. British Journal for
the History of Science 41 (3): 345–367.
Hermann Fürst von Pückler-Muskau. 1833. Tour in England, Ireland, and France
in the Years 1828, 1829: With Remarks on the Manners and Customs of the
Inhabitants, and Anecdotes of Distinguished Public Characters. Philadelphia:
Carey and Lea.
Lachapelle, Sofie. 2015. Conjuring Science: A History of Scientific Entertainment
and Stage Magic in Modern France. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lightman, Bernard. 2007. Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for
New Audiences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Morus, Iwan Rhys. 2007. ‘More the Aspect of Magic than Anything Natural’: The
Philosophy of Demonstration. In Science in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-
Century Sites and Experiences, ed. Aileen Fyfe and Bernard Lightman. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Nadis, Fred. 2005. Wonder Shows: Performing Science, Magic, and Religion in
America. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Roberts, Phillip. 2016. Building Media History From Fragments: A Material History
of Philip Carpenter’s Manufacturing Practice. Early Popular Visual Culture 14
(4): 319–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2016.1222930.
———. 2017. Philip Carpenter and the Convergence of Science and Entertainment
in the Early-Nineteenth Century Instrument Trade. Spring 2017, Sound and
Vision. https://doi.org/10.15180/170707.
Rossell, Deac. 2001. Huygens, Christiaan. In Encyclopaedia of the Magic Lantern,
ed. David Robinson, Stephen Herbert, and Richard Crangle, 142. London:
The Magic Lantern Society.
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Ruestow, Edward G. 1996. The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of
Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Snyder, Laura J. 2015. Eye of the Beholder. Johannes Vermeer, Antoni Van
Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company.
Stafford, Barbara Maria, and Frances Terpak. 2001. Devices of Wonder: From the
World in a Box to Images on a Screen. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.
Vanagt, Sarah. 2017. PLAKFILM, unpublished financing application for The
Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Brussels.
Vandevelde, A.J.J., and W.H. Van Seters. 1925. Verslagen en mededeelingen der
Koninklijke Vlaamsche Academie, 171–172. Gent: Koninklijke Vlaamsche
Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde.
Vanhoutte, Kurt, and Nele Wynants. 2017. On the Passage of a Man of the
Theatre Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: Henri Robin, Performing
Astronomy in Nineteenth Century Paris. Early Popular Visual Culture (Special
Issue on Spectacular Astronomy) 15 (2): 152–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/
17460654.2017.1318520.
Wade, Nicholas J. 2004. Philosophical Instruments and Toys: Optical Devices
Extending the Art of Seeing. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 13 (1):
102–124.
CHAPTER 13
The (Not So) Deep Time of Social Media

Theater: An Afterword
Sarah Bay-Cheng
STAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Media historian Lisa Gitelman has argued that media are never entirely
revolutionary: “new media are less points of epistemic rupture,” she
writes, “than they are socially embedded sites for the ongoing negotiation
as such” (Gitelman 2006, 6). We are never so much engaged in a battle
with technology as we are engaged in social and cultural battles within our
technologies. Although it has become common to discuss contemporary
digital media in relation to the image or technological and data manipula-
tions, these media and their platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
and so on—also function as stages; places for people to construct and
cultivate identities to presented audiences, both real and imagined.
Writing this in the United States of 2018, after the presidential election of
a reality television personality with a penchant for Twitter and in the midst
of ongoing global inquiries about data use and psychometric manipula-
tions,1 I think this is perhaps an argument that needs no further evidence.
Social media and its technologies may seem in many ways new, but we
find that the notion of intimate physical and psychological technologies as
S. Bay-Cheng ( )
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA
e-mail: sbaycheng@bowdoin.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_13
274 S. BAY-CHENG
performance extends throughout the history of cybernetics in the twenti-

eth century. And yet, in the context of this book and from a media archeo-
logical perspective, the emergence of digital social media is relatively new.
Can the “deep time” approach be used for more recent media develop-
ments in theater? That is, when considering the tension between time-
based, embodied performances (e.g., theater) and communicative
technologies, can we understand their mutual evolution in layers, as a
kind of geologic record even when our history is a relatively recent one?
Considering particular forms of contemporary media performance
leads us to sources in the mid-twentieth century and the emergence of
computer technologies and cybernetics. Post-World War II writing clearly
pointed to an epistemological break with a long nineteenth century and
modernism as it was understood at the turn of the century. For example,
in response to the early formation of computer analysis in post-war America
Norbert Wiener observed that “If the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries are the age of clocks, and the later eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries constitute the age of steam engines, the present time [i.e., the
twentieth century] is the age of communication and control” (1961, 39).
Wiener’s ground-breaking text first published in 1948 distinguishes
between what he called “power engineering” (characterized by economy
of energy) and “communication engineering,” defined by the accuracy of
its reception. According to Wiener, this emphasis on precision in commu-
nication and its successful deployment in World War II triggered new sci-
entific attention to what he called “automatic computing machines” that
would facilitate more expansive and ever more precise transfer of
information that would gradually become the definition of the individual.
Referring to players in a game, for instance, he concluded that “One of the
lessons of the present book is that any organism is held together in this
action by the possession of means for the acquisition, use, retention, and
transmission of information” (1961, 161). Wiener anticipated that a soci-
ety too large for direct contact would necessarily come to rely on the
means of communication such as newspapers, telephones, theater, and
movies, among others. As he cautioned, these methods of communication
could become vulnerable to manipulation, distortion, and extraction.
Although he wrote well before the emergence of the Web and social
media, his statements foreshadow not only the development of digital
technologies in cybernetics but also our social immersion within them.
THE (NOT SO) DEEP TIME OF SOCIAL MEDIA THEATER: AN AFTERWORD 275
JACQUES ELLUL AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Such transformations were recognized and anticipated by French sociolo-
gist Jacques Ellul (1912–1994). Ellul’s remarkably prescient and sweeping
analysis of a changing technological world provides a useful vocabulary to
understand the changing dynamics of what he called “the technological
society.” In his influential treatise, The Technological Society, Ellul sought
to thoroughly analyze the social effects of technology throughout every
aspect of human life. His book was first published in 1954 with the omi-
nous, even hyperbolic subtitle, “the stake of the century,” and later trans-
lated into a revised American edition in 1964 with updates from the
author. Ellul drew on some of cyberneticist Norbert Wiener’s darker pre-
dictions and the mechanical histories of historians and theorists such as
Lewis Mumford and Siegfried Gideon to reveal what he called the “tech-
nique” underlying social formations. According to Ellul, “Technique inte-
grates the machine into society. It constructs the kind of world the machine
needs and introduces order where the incoherent banging of machinery
heaped up ruins.” He was not hesitant or qualified in his predictions:
“when technique enters into every area of life,” he wrote, “it ceases to be
external to man and becomes his very substance. It is no longer face to
face with man but is integrated with him, and it progressively absorbs him.
In this respect, technique is radically different from the machine. This
transformation, so obvious in modern society, is the result of the fact that
technique has become autonomous” (5–6).
As we consider his text in relation to the twenty-first century and digital
culture, it is striking how much Ellul anticipated of our current age even
as he seeks to describe his own time. His writings about the impact of
automation on labor closely align with contemporary debates regarding
the changes that peer-to-peer software has wrought in multiple industries:
“The pursuit of technical automatism would condemn capitalist enter-
prises to failure” (1964, 81). Ellul predicted that automated industries
would lead to a crisis in which they were “unable to utilize the manpower
freed by every new technical improvement” (82). Elsewhere, he argues
that technique absorbs and contains potentially revolutionary action by
simultaneously encompassing society’s need for spirituality and magic:
“Technique fully satisfies the mystic will to possess and dominate. It is
unnecessary to evoke spiritual powers when machines give much better
results” (423). In this, his observations seem to correspond to recent criti-
cisms of digital activism without meaningful impact, sometimes referred
276 S. BAY-CHENG
to as “slacktivism” in contrast to direct action. As he writes in response to

seemingly revolutionary acts of literature, Ellul comments on what he calls
the “tidy profits” brought by public scandals: “I am somehow unable to
believe in the revolutionary value of an act which makes the cash register
jingle so merrily” (417). In addition to economic changes, Ellul prefigures
many of the contemporary debates regarding the social impacts of tech-
nology in social relations as highlighted by Sherry Turkle and Nicholas
Carr, among others. Turkle, for instance, writes in her book Alone Together
that “We discovered the network—the world of connectivity—to be
uniquely suited to the overworked and over scheduled life it makes possi-
ble. And now we look to the network to defend us against loneliness even
as we use it to control the intensity of our connections. Technology makes
it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will” (2011,
13). Ellul observed the same conditions emerging in the mid-century
technological society. He describes a world that not only places “superhu-
man demands” on citizens through mechanized labor and productivity
demands but also relieves these pressures through media that ironically
isolates even as it appears to relieve isolation:
The radio, and television even more than the radio, shuts up the individual
in an echoing mechanical universe in which he is alone. He already knew
little enough about his neighbors, and now the separation between him and
his fellows is further widened. Men become accustomed to listening to
machines and talking to machines, as, for example, with telephones and
dictaphones…In a perpetual monologue by means of which he escapes the
anguish of silence and the inconvenience of neighbors, man finds refuge in
the lap of technique, which envelops him in solitude and at the same time
reassures him with all its hoaxes. (1964, 379–80)
Of course, not all of Ellul’s and Wiener’s predictions have come to frui-
tion, but it is nevertheless striking just how aligned their ideas are with
social technologies more than 60 years later. Considering contemporary
global politics, the last two years have been saturated with discussions of
communities and demographics separated with individualist media, each
viewing widely different news sources and information about the world
and coming to very different conclusions about the world around them.
This has been presented (by officials in the US government, no less) as
“alternative facts.”2 Ellul claimed that by facilitating certain kinds of con-
nections accessible only through technology, the media diminished the
citizen’s sense of a collective even as it simultaneously grouped individuals

into an interchangeable, undifferentiated mass of labor. His book aimed
both to describe the world around him and to warn those living in it. For
him, the fundamental danger of technique was the penetration of technol-
ogy into society such that all human activity would adhere to the logic of
the machine, even when no machines were present. In a few startling sen-
tences, he summed up the extent of this effect: “Technique integrates the
machine into society”; “Technique integrates everything”; “technique is
nothing more than means and the ensemble of means” (1964, 5, 6, 19).
Ellul uses “means” in reference to the logics and structures of machines in
life and human culture independent of mechanism itself. This is similar to
what McKenzie Wark has termed the “vectoralist class” in post-Fordist
economics. According to Wark, “Where the old ruling class controlled the
means of production, the new ruling class has limited interest in the mate-
rial conditions of production, in mines and blast furnaces and assembly
lines. Its power rests not on the ownership of such things but in control of
the logistics by which they are managed” (2013, 69). Ellul predicted a
similar power shift in what he called “new operational methods.” Most
troublingly, Ellul concluded that “Today no human activity escapes this
technical imperative” by which he included such domains as the family
and art, as well as conventional labor markets (1964, 20–21). Breaking it
down into sub-categories of economic technique, technique of organiza-
tion and human technique, he ultimately concluded that
What was once the abnormal has become the usual standard condition of
things. Even so, the human being is ill at ease in this strange new environ-
ment, and the tension demanded of him weighs heavily on his life and being.
He seeks to flee—and tumbles into the snare of dreams; he tries to comply—
and falls into the life of organizations; he feels maladjusted—and becomes a
hypochondriac. But the new technological society has foresight and ability
enough to anticipate these human reactions. It has undertaken, with the
help of techniques of every kind, to make supportable what was not previ-
ously so, and not, indeed, by modifying anything in man’s environment but
by taking action upon man himself. (321)
This may remind us of a central tenet of neoliberalism, which demands

individual adaptability and accountability in lieu of systematic change. In
a neoliberal context, the system evolves in relation to new technologies,
inventions, and innovations; in short, the market forces. The individual’s
278 S. BAY-CHENG
role, then, is to act as an independent agent within the systems; to become

a market force for him or herself, taking advantage of opportunities within
the market and capable of individually adapting to the changes, or, in tech
parlance, “disruptions,” as they occur.
Neoliberalism as a broad set of policy directives—economic, political,
cultural, and social—thus perfectly suits the evolution of digital technol-
ogy that increasingly facilitates individual access and autonomy, not only
from larger social or governmental systems, but within the labor market
itself. As one advertisement for Uber impels potential drivers, “Be your
own boss” encouraging a move away from public, collective urban trans-
portation systems such as buses and subways in favor of individual move-
ment facilitated in a largely unregulated online network.3 The combination
of digital technology and neoliberal ideology not only results in conflating
work and leisure but also facilitates the rise of the individual and a culture
of “on demand,” where certain workers can operate free of regular work-
ing hours (and perhaps also regular paychecks and regular benefits) and
consumers can fulfill desires without delay via an app on their phone. We
can watch what we want, when we want it. We don’t need other people to
gather around; we can see the movies anywhere we want; we can watch a
TV program whenever it suits us. All of this and more we find in Ellul’s
prescient view of the technology as a social force.
DRAMATURGY OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY

But what about theater? As a strangely conservative art form, theater
seems ill-fitted to both the “on demand” platform and the neoliberal mar-
ket economy. (We may recall Peggy Phelan’s argument for performance
ontological resistance to commodification in her influential book from
1993.) And yet, despite its apparent incompatibility with these changes,
both digital culture and the technological society Ellul describes have
made a deep impression in aspects of theater and performance. Perhaps
the most salient examples are in participatory performance, immersive the-
ater, site-specific work, and interactive installations. Productions such as
Punchdrunk’s hugely popular Sleep No More (premiere in 2011 and con-
tinuing to play in New York City) and the Woodshed Collective’s The
Tenant (2011) adapt the logic of videogames, hypertexts, and user-driven,
interactive media art to live performance, while projects like Karen (2015)
and I’d Hide You (2012) by Blast Theory and the recent Top Secret
International (State 1) (2017) by Rimini Protokoll construct physical
engagements through digital means. Perhaps one of the best-known stud-

ies of this shift in performance is Claire Bishop’s Artificial Hells, in which
she identifies “the virtuosic contemporary artist” as the quintessential
neoliberal: “the role model for the flexible, mobile, non-specialised
labourer who can creatively adapt to multiple situations, and become his/
her own brand” (2012, 12). While noting Bishop’s apt analogy, we also
find potent critiques of digital labor in the work of contemporary perfor-
mances, particularly those that restage our social relations to technology
in and as media. There are many significant examples, but these connec-
tions are particularly salient in works that stage our relation to media
through the literal and metaphorical use of the box.
One such example is My Voice Has an Echo in It by the New York-based
company, Temporary Distortion. The show premiered at the Experimental
Media and Performance Art Center (EMPAC) in Troy, New York, in the
fall of 2014 and was directed by Kenneth Collins, who also (rather unusu-
ally) appeared in the performance as well. Staged inside a long box, approx-
imately 6.5 meters long and 3 meters wide, the mostly musical show lasted
a little over six hours. When I saw it at EMPAC, the box was placed on a
proscenium stage behind the closed curtain. The space around the box was
dim and filled with an ambient humming sound. There were a few seats,
but mostly people ambled around the space outside the box. The box itself
was brightly lit inside and through its windows audiences could see into a
space filled with electronic instruments, books, second-hand furniture,
assorted objects, and video screens mounted at the top of the box above
the windows. Inside were four musicians, rotating among various electric
instruments: drums, guitar, bass, saxophone, keyboard, with a few micro-
phones and computers scattered about the room. Audiences could not
hear the performers inside the box; only the droning hum in the space
until they were close enough to the box to put on a pair of headphones.
With the headphones, the audio environment changed. Close up, I real-
ized that the box is both soundproof and that its mirrors were constructed
with two-way glass, allowing the audience to see in, but preventing the
performers from seeing out. Inside the box, loud, hard rock music played
and reverberated through the headphones. I could feel the vibrations
though the box itself and hear the music through the headphones, but the
performance was otherwise trapped inside the space. When I removed the
headphones, the room returned to its droning, vaguely soothing hum.
Over time, I came to the realization that the performers were playing
only to their own reflections, despite the sense of physical proximity and
280 S. BAY-CHENG
interaction I felt peering in through the glass. Caught between the reflec-
tive mirrors facing each other, the four people in the box perform in paral-
lax space in which they and their infinitely repeating reflections are the only
ones visible.
Overall, the piece contained relatively little in the form of digital media.
The instruments and voices are all electronic and mixed through midi
controllers and mixers, and there are videos played almost continuously
above the heads of the performers. The musical style may be best catego-
rized as American “classic rock.” It is electronic to be sure, but the sound
is not overtly synthesized and sounds most similar to the kinds of ampli-
fied, arena rock concerts that became popular in the mid-1960 through
the 1970s. There were no video projections, tracking devices, or sensors.
The group used distortion on some of the vocal tracks, but in ways that
recalled 1960s- and 1970s-era manipulations. The whole aesthetic was
decidedly “retro” with performers clad in black tee shirts, leather vests and
bracelets. The artistic director (and front man) Kenneth Collins sported
a significantly long beard in a style popular among both country rock
bands such as ZZ Top, and biker gangs in the 1970s and 1980s. The com-
puters functioned primarily as enhanced amplifiers and the headphones
were large and clunky, made of heavy plastic in a style that remains little
changed over the latter decades of the twentieth century. Even the videos
that played on the overhead monitors recalled a long line of concert mov-
ies and visual tropes that have dominated popular music since pop music
began making concert films in the 1960s followed by the emergence of
the music video genre in the 1980s. There was no evidence of social media
other than the promotional video on YouTube.com or the other promo-
tions over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.4
And yet, this performance is fundamentally about social media. The
box in which the musicians perform literalizes the symbolic computer box
in which our own media performances take place. Tellingly, both boxes
function as two-way mirrors in which our performances are reflected back
to us as private experiences, while simultaneously accessible to anyone
who plugs into the system. Our presence online creates the experience of
a private, solo perform in an endless mirror of reflection that is also visible
to unseen audiences.
Collins’ work—playing on the tropes of popular music and industry—
literally stages the narcissistic delusions of the media selfie in which we
who are inside the box—be it phone or computer—see only images of
ourselves, while those outside the box have nearly unlimited access to the
self on stage as long as we’re plugged in. Collins’ use of the box echoes the
ways in which various representational media have also relied on the box,
whether the radio, the cinema screen, the television, and now the com-
puter and mobile devices. The performance both draws on an historical
evolution from the theatrical box of the proscenium stage and from the
representational strategies that have evolved in response to emerging tech-
nologies. As such, it highlights the constant negotiations between theater
as a medium among other representational media. Indeed, such works
point to the fallacy in making hard distinctions between theater and other
media such as cinema, television, and digital technologies. As I’ve written
elsewhere, such performances point to the notion of theater and media as
parts of a larger spectrum of performance, contextualized according to
principles of distortion rather than fixed characteristics or ontology (Bay-
Cheng et al. 2015).
PERFORMANCE (IN) BOXES

At the same time, Temporary Distortion’s project harkens back to a much
longer history of box-based performances including anthropological
dioramas of the nineteenth century (as noted by Kristof van Baarle earlier
in this volume), early photography (e.g., camera obscura), Baroque opti-
cal illusions, the magic lantern (as discussed by Nele Wynants), perspectiv-
alism on stage (see Vanhaesebrouck and Wouters on stage design), and the
Renaissance concept of the theatrum mundi (also highlighted in Erkki
Huhtamo’s chapter on the mechanical theater), among others detailed
throughout The Deep Time of the Theatre. Indeed, this conception of the
enclosed, synthetic performance space that serves as a kind of Pandora’s
box of distortions is a consistent connection among emerging media, the-
ater history, and anti-theatricality. Plato’s allegory of the cave provides as
a prototype for the origins of both theater and media. Indeed, references
to Plato’s cave are included frequently in introductory texts in both the-
ater and media studies courses. The ensuing relations of mimesis, repre-
sentation, and reenactment return again and again as the histories of media
and theater continually intertwine. In his recent study of American the-
ater, Jacob Gallagher-Ross argues that “new modes of thought and per-
ception suggested by technologies, as both means and metaphor, grafted
themselves onto older ideas about the importance of finding larger mean-
ings in habitually invisible or abject phenomena” (2018, 27). As demon-
strated by the media archeology of theater presented here, we see that
282 S. BAY-CHENG
throughout the “deep” history of theater, the exchange of liveness and

media is a recurring process that serves to turn our attention again and
again to the nuances of the world around us. Reviewing the past 70 years
since Norbert Wiener’s major publication on cybernetics, we see that the
theater continues to occupy a central place in the social negotiation of
media and culture, becoming now so ubiquitous as to be nearly invisible.
The contemporary digital condition has become inescapably theatrical-
ized, turned to what Susan Sontag warned as the “narcissistic” use of
video turned to “self-surveillance” (1977, 177), or, what James Harding
has examined as the performances of surveillance technologies (2018).
What Ellul warned against has now largely become a preferred mode of
communication and social organization. How else to define the vast
quantification of social media users and their commodified data than as
Ellul describes the fully technologized society of the future: “Our deepest
instincts and our most secret passions will be analyzed, published, and
exploited. We shall be rewarded with everything our hearts ever desired”
(427). But along with this potentially depressing (and probably true)
statement, Ellul holds out some inklings of hope. Opposed to technology
and its all-encompassing grasp is the problem of literature. “Technology
cannot put up with intuitions and ‘literature.’ It must necessarily don
mathematical vestments. Everything in human life that does not lend itself
to mathematical treatment must be excluded…and left to the sphere of
dreams” (431). The performances and theories in The Deep Time of Theatre
offer just such a space for dreaming and, more importantly, a history of
continual reenchantment of an always already technologized world.
NOTES
1. Note the testimony of Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, before the US
Congress on April 9–10, 2018, and in front of the European Union
Parliament on May 22, 2018. See: “Mark Zuckerberg Testimony: Senators
Question Facebook’s Commitment to Privacy.” The New York Times, April
10, 2018, sec. Politics. Accessed June 15, 2018. https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/04/10/us/politics/mark-zuckerberg-testimony.html; Rankin,
Jennifer. 2018. “Complaints That Zuckerberg ‘avoided Questions’ at
European Parliament.” The Guardian, May 22, sec. Technology. Accessed
June 15, 2018. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/22/
no-repeat-of-data-scandal-vows-mark-zuckerberg-in-brussels-facebook
2. Bradner, Eric. 2017. “Conway: Trump White House Offered ‘alternative

Facts’ on Crowd Size,” CNN, January 23. Accessed June 7, 2018, https://
www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/
index.html; “Conway: Press Secretary Gave ‘Alternative Facts,’” NBC
News, January 22, 2017. Accessed June 7, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.
com/meet-the-press/video/conway-press-secretary-gave-alternative-facts-
860142147643
3. https://ywcachicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/UBER-Be-
Your-Own-Boss.png
4. Kenneth Collins, My Voice Has an Echo in It, August 25, 2015, https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUIBT9njo88
REFERENCES
Bay-Cheng, Sarah, Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, and David Z. Saltz. 2015.
Performance and Media: Taxonomies for a Changing Field. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Bishop, Claire. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of
Spectatorship. London: Verso Books.
Ellul, Jacques. 1964. The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkinson. New York:
Vintage Books.
Gallagher-Ross, Jacob. 2018. Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the
American Stage. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Gitelman, Lisa. 2006. Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of
Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Harding, James M. 2018. Performance, Transparency, and the Cultures of
Surveillance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Phelan, Peggy. 1993. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York/London:
Routledge.
Sontag, Susan. 1977. On Photography. New York: Macmillan.
Turkle, Sherry. 2011. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less
from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. http://www.contentreserve.com/
TitleInfo.asp?ID={0694B0E0-81C4-4976-B2A8-D196DB9BF78C}&Format=50
Wark, Mackenzie. 2013. Considerations on a Hacker Manifesto. In Digital Labor:
The Internet as Playground and Factory, ed. Trebor Scholz. New York/London:
Routledge.
Wiener, Norbert. 1961. Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the
Animal and the Machine. Cambridge: MIT Press.
INDEX1
A Benjamin, Walter, 5–6, 107–108, 176,

Adams, Scott: Dilbert cartoons, 189n4, 200, 258, 268–269
193–196, 200, 202, 208n1 Bosquet, Thierry, 121–124
Agamben, Giorgio, 179, 180, 182, Boyle, Charles (Earl of Orrery), 148,
185–188, 189n4 169
Amazon (Internet retailer), 196 Brecht, Bertolt: The Resistible Rise of
Anamorphosis, 233–249 Arturo Ui, 194
cylindrical mirror, 237–240,
242–244, 246–247; dispositif,
241–244 C
Appia, Adolph, 115 Cambon, Charles-Antoine, 31–33,
Arnold, Samuel, 156 68n21, 68n23
Capêk, Karel: R. U. R, Rossum’s
Universal Robots, 194–196,
B 199–200, 202, 205, 208
Ballard, J. G., 173–174, 177–185, Carels, Edwin, 11, 12, 270n6
187, 189n2 contributing author, 15, 213–230
Bartley, Sir, 156, 169 Carpenter, Philip: Microcosm, 259–262
Baudelaire, Charles, 176–177 Collins, Kenneth: My Voice Has an
Baudrillard, Jean, 176–177, 182 Echo in It, 279–281, 283n4
Beloff, Zoe, 11 Collodi, Carlo: Pinnochio, 196
1
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2
286 INDEX
Coppa, Francesca, 105 F

Craig, Edward Gordon, 115, 203 Féeries, 38, 84–96–97n2
CREW: Celestial Bodies, 161–163, dispositif, 88–93, 96
165–166, 170n8 Floury, Edmond, 86–88
Curtius, Ernst Robert, 5–6, 17n2, 46, Fortier, Julie C.: La Chasse,
146–147 139–140
Foucault, Michel, 5–6, 166, 180–181,
185, 189n3, 224
D The Archaeology of Knowledge, 7–8,
Dauberval, Jean: La Fille mal gardée, 17n4
134
De Chirico, Giorgio, 177–178
De Laet, Timmy, 8 G
De Vaux, Major-General Grant, Gondry, Michel: Eternal Sunshine of
163–166, 169 the Spotless Mind, 197
Debord, Guy, 173, 178, 179, 186, Graham, George, 148
189n4 Grau, Oliver, 11
‘Deep time,’ 2–3, 205, 208, 235, 248, Great Gottorp Globe, 151
274 Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich, 9
Degabriel, 39, 49–54, 56, 57, 59, 61,
72n57, 73n61, 73n62, 73n65,
73n68, 74n73–77 H
“De Kolta Chair,” see Stage magic/ Henner, Mishka: Astronomical,
conjuring, “Vanishing Lady” 145–146, 165
DeMarinis, Paul, 11 Herschel, John, 159–160, 167
Devant, David, 103–106, 110 Holbein the Younger, Hans: The
Dioramas, see ‘Mechanical theatre’ Ambassadors, 233–235
Dispositif, 8, 245, 246, 249n7 Holländer, Hans: Gleitperspektive, 240,
museum, 175, 185, 189n1 246
Douibi, Dries, 116, 121 Holograms, 176
Dromal(e), Charles, 57–61, 76n88, Hostein, Hippolyte: Historiettes et
76n89 souvenirs d’un homme de théâtre,
135
Houdini, Harry, 110
E Huhtamo, Erkki, 4, 5, 8, 11, 17n1–3,
Ellul, Jacques: The Technological 146–147, 224
Society, 275–278, 282 contributing author, 12–13, 23–66
Elsaesser, Thomas, 4, 5, 7, 17n1, 152, Hutton, James: Theory of the Earth,
224 2–3
Enslen, Johann Carl, 51, 62, 73n65, Huysmans, Joris-Karl: À Rebours, 132,
78n106 136, 141
Ernst, Wolfgang, 4, 5, 8 Jean Des Esseintes (fictional
‘Expanded cinema,’ 223, 227, 228 character), 132, 133
INDEX 287
I Link, Otto, 46–48, 71n47, 72n52,

‘Imaginary media,’ 10–11 72n54
Interactivity/participatory Loew ben Bezalel, Judah (Rabbi
performance, 245, 246, 278–281 Loew), 196
Intermediality, 2–7, 16, 83, 203 Loutherbourg, Philippe-Jacques de,
49–50, 54, 57, 58, 61, 62,
72n58, 73n59
J Lovelace, Jacob: Exeter Clock, 40–42,
Jackson, Will 70–71n42
et al: ‘Plant Takeaway,’ 201, 204, Lumière, Auguste, 216–217, 224,
209n8 226, 229
RoboThespian, 201–205 Lumière, Louis, 230n4
Jacobs, Ken, 213–214, 225–229,
230n10
Jones, William, 149–150 M
his orrery, 149 Maelzel, Johann Nepomuk, 33, 63,
69n26, 78n107
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 136–137
K Maffey family, 59–61, 77n97, 77n98,
Kant, Immanuel, 133, 151 77n101
Kessler, Frank, 8, 12 Magic lantern, see ‘Mechanical theatre’
contributing author, 13, 83–97 Maire, Julien, 11
Kittler, Friedrich, 5, 8, 17n4 Marey, Étienne-Jules, 183
Kluitenberg, Erik: Book of Imaginary Martin, Benjamin, 148–149
Media, 11 Marx, Karl: Eighteenth Brumaire, 195,
Knoops, Rudi 208n3
contributing author, 15–16, 233–249 Maskelyne, Nevil, 103–106, 110, 111
Mirror Mirror, 235, 237, 238, 240, McCay, Winsor: Little Nemo, 230n5
242–244, 246, 249n8 McClure, Bruce, 213–216, 227–229
Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg McLuhan, Marshall, 6, 108, 198, 224
(KVS, Royal Flemish Theatre), ‘Mechanical theatre,’ 23–66, 78n107
116–121, 123, 126, 126n2 automata, 34–35, 39–41, 57, 69n32,
Kracauer, Siegfried, 167–168, 197 70n40, 101, 193, 199–201,
Krämer, Sybille, 100, 108, 111 204–205; in advertising,
Kubelka, Peter, 213–214, 220–222, 206–208; in antiquity, 47–48;
227–229, 230n8 Hellbrunn, Salzburg, 43–5, 44,
Kubrick, Stanley: 2001: A Space 45, 71n45; pseudo-automata,
Odyssey, 196–197, 223 32, 39, 40, 63, 70n33, 101;
tableaux mécaniques, 41
dioramas, 32, 34, 36, 173–174,
L 176, 179–181, 189n2;
Lemaire, Ton: Filosofie van het ‘chemical dioramas,’ 60;
landschap, 163 pseudo-dioramas, 40;
Linear perspective, 236 taxidermic, 175–176, 185, 186
288 INDEX
dispositive, 25–39, 62 Moynet, J., 94

magic lantern/projection Mucha, Alphons: Incantation ou
microscope, 32–36, 52, 66n2, Salammbô, 131
70n34, 95, 213–230, 257–270; Muybridge, Eadweard, 174, 181–187
development of, 47, 69n28,
74n73; dispositif, 213, 226,
229; phantasmagoria, 58, 63, N
74n73, 76n86, 103, 154, 156, Niceron, Jean-François, 237–238,
224–225, 237 248–249n4
mechanical marionettes/puppets, Thaumaturgis Opticus, 239
27–28, 32, 36–39, 46–47,
52–53, 64–65, 71n48, 72n52,
76n89 O
‘moving panorama,’ 31–33, 36, Olfactory theatrical devices, see
64–65, 68n21, 70n36, 264; Perfume in theatre
pseudo-moving panorama, Orphan Black (multi-authored
40–41, 77n93 television serial), 197
See also Degabriel; Dromal(e), Orreries, 145–170
Charles; Enslen, Johann Carl; ‘living orreries,’ 159–169
Loutherbourg, Philippe-Jacques
de; Lovelace, Jacob; Maelzel,
Johann Nepomuk; Maffey P
family; Pierre; Robertson Parikka, Jussi, 4, 5, 8, 17n1, 17n2
(Étienne-Gaspard Robert); Pathé frères, 38, 85
Thiodon, Jean-François; Peeters, Jeroen, 116, 125
Toscani; Van de Voorde family Performing Astronomy Research
Méliès, Georges, 38, 84, 92, 93, 97n7, Society (PARS), 160–161, 170n2
153, 217, 218 Perfume in theatre, 129–141
and féerie, 13, 84–86, 94–96 in cinema, 138–139
and “Vanishing Lady,” 99 Phelan, Peggy, 10, 278
Mersch, Dieter, 100, 108–109, 111 ‘Philosophical toys,’ 255, 267–269
Metz, Christian, 91–92, 97n7 Photography, 38, 107–108, 125–126,
Microscopy, 254–270 167–168, 219, 254, 281
oxyhydrogen, 263–264 See also Muybridge, Eadweard
solar, 260, 262–263 Pierre (Jean-Pierre Claude), 39,
as theatre, 256–264 49–62, 65, 72n57, 72n58, 73n59,
See also ‘Mechanical theatre,’ magic 73n60, 73n62, 73n65, 73n68,
lantern/projection microscope 74n75–77, 75n78, 75n80, 75n82,
Morieux, Pierre, 26–28, 31, 32, 34, 75n83, 76n86, 76n87, 76n89,
39, 59–60, 62, 66n4, 67n5, 67n8 77n93, 77n95, 77n97
‘Moving panorama,’ see ‘Mechanical See also Degabriel
theatre’ Planetaria, 146, 151–152, 163, 170n4
INDEX 289
Plempius, Vopiscus Fortunatus: Stage magic/conjuring, 99–113

Ophthalmographia, 253–254 dispositive, 100
Pornography, 176–177, 182–183, Golden Age, 100–101, 112,
185, 187, 188 112–113n1
‘Presence’ (of the past), 9–10 levitations, 100, 110–112
mirrors, 1, 104, 111, 154, 224,
233–234, 263, 279–280 (see
R also Anamorphosis; Knoops,
Reynaud, Émile, 224 Rudi)
Rimmel, Eugene: Book of Perfume, “Sawing a Person in Half,” 100
134 ‘secular magic,’ 102
Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugène, 63, “Vanishing Lady”/“De Kolta
101, 102 Chair,” 99, 100, 102–108,
“Pendule cabalistique,” 109, 112
111–112 See also Maskelyne, Nevil; Robert-
Robertson (Étienne-Gaspard Robert), Houdin, Jean Eugène; Smith,
51, 54, 58, 59, 73n64, 76n92, Wally
103, 224–225 Stephenson, Neal: The Diamond Age,
Robots, 65, 193–209 201
‘Robot rebellion,’ 196, 198–200 Stereography, 173–179, 181, 182,
Roinard, Paul-Napoléon: The Song of 185, 187, 189n1, 189n2
Songs, 130, 132–138, 141 Structuralism, 220, 228
Ruttmann, Walter: Berlin, Symphony of Svendsen, Andreas, 53
a Great City, 208 Symbolists, 132, 133, 137
Ryland, Rev John, 160, 162, 163,
165, 169, 169–170n1
T
Technology
S analogue, 2, 3, 13, 64, 100, 152,
Savoyards, 213, 214, 216, 218–219, 215, 228, 254
225, 228 digital, 2, 65–66, 101, 161
Scenography, 12, 43, 67–68n13, experiment, 1, 11, 13, 53, 73n59,
115–126 77n93, 198, 209n11
Schneider, Rebecca, 10 as magic, 12, 13, 84, 100, 107
Science-fiction theatre, 193–209 Théatre Morieux, 24–40, 45,
Servandoni, Giovanni Niccolò, 115, 50–51, 59–66, 66n2, 66n4,
116, 119–122, 124, 125 67n6, 67n8, 67n13, 68n18,
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein, 196, 197 69n28, 69n31, 70n34, 70n36,
Smith, Wally, 102, 104–105 70n38, 77n96, 77n97,
Sobchack, Vivian, 9 78n109
Social media (as theatre), 273, 278–283 flyer, 26
Spampinato, Francesco, 175–179, program, 30, 37
184, 187 See also Morieux, Pierre
290 INDEX
Theatrum mundi, 46–50, 55, 62, 63, Verdonck, Kris: ISOS, 173–189
71–72n51, 281 Vertov, Dziga: Man with a Movie
appropriating the notion, 43, 46, 64 Camera, 208
Thiodon, Jean-François, 58, 61, Von Pückler-Muskau, Hermann,
77n96 260–262
Three-dimensional (3D) images,
174–176, 186, 188
Toscani, 48–49 W
Turkle, Sherry: Alone Together, 276 Walker family, 153–154
Adam, 153, 155, 157–158, 169
Dean, 155–156
V The Eidouranian, 153–157
Vanagt, Katrien, 253–254 Welch, Jon: Spillikin: A Love Story,
Vanagt, Sarah, 253–256, 265–269 201–203, 205
PLAKFILM, 268–269 See also Jackson, Will,
A Scotch Gesture, 266–267 RoboThespian
Showfish, 267, 270n6; The First Wiener, Norbert, 274–276, 282
Microscopist, 266; A Microscopic Wouters, Jozef,
Gesture, 265–266 Infini 1–15, 115–126, 126n1
In Waking Hours, 253–254 Wright, Joseph: A Philosopher Giving a
VanDerBeek, Stan, 223, 228, 230n9 Lecture, 150–151
Van de Voorde family, 27–28, 31, 39, 64
Eugène, 27, 34, 69n32, 70n33,
70n34 Y
Jean Henri, 27, 34, 67n6, 67n8, Youngblood, Gene, 223
67n10, 67n11, 69n32, 70n34
Léon, 26, 28, 34–38, 61, 63–64,
67n6, 67n11, 69n31, 70n33, Z
70n34, 70n36, 70n38, 70n39, Zielinski, Siegfried, 11, 16, 224
77n102, 78n110 Deep Time of the Media, 2–5
Van Leeuwenhoek, Antonie, 256, 265, Zola, Émile
266, 269n1, 270n7 Ladies Paradise, 137
Van Welden, Karl, 166, 167 Le Naturalisme au théâtre, 86–88,
Saturn, 166–9, 168 92–93, 96

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MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY

EDITED BY NELE WYNANTS

More information about this series at

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964006

Cover illustration: Installation view, Nausea, a poetic-scientific performance by Teatro

The editor wishes to thank the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS

1 Media-Archaeological Approaches to Theatre and

Part I Stage Scenery and Technology 21

2 Mechanisms in the Mist: A Media Archaeological

3 “Rendre réel aux yeux du public”: Stage Craft, Film Tricks,

4 Vanishing Technology: Transparency of Media in Stage

5 Deep Space or the Re-invention of Scenography: Jozef

Part II Embodied Technics 127

6 Perfumed Performances: The Reception of Olfactory

7 Performing Astronomy: The Orrery as Model, Theatre,

8 Capturing Bodies as Objects: Stereography and the

9 Robots and Anthropomorphism in Science-Fiction

Part III Expanded Theatre 211

10 Cinema’s Savoyards: Performativity and the Legacy of the

11 The Art of Anamorphosis: Subverting Representational

12 Mediated Visions of Life: An Archaeology of Microscopic

13 The (Not So) Deep Time of Social Media Theater: An

Sarah Bay-Cheng is Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at

He has published widely on the emergence of cinema as a new medium

Karel Vanhaesebrouck is Chair of Theatre Studies at the Free University

Fig. 2.1 Notice on the origins of Théatre Morieux. A flyer distributed

announce the last performance on December 10, 1826. The

Media-Archaeological Approaches to Theatre

© The Author(s) 2019 1

This volume proposes media-archaeological approaches to contempo-

between theatre history and media history, a rereading of contemporary

ARCHAEOLOGY OF INTERMEDIAL THEATRE

ARCHIVE, THEORY, AND MATERIALITY

tionally conceived of, as the eyewitness account is often considered to be

discursive formations. The main goal of Foucauldian archaeology is thus

tifies to this increasing acceptance of the body “as an endlessly creative,

PRESENCE OF THE PAST IN THE HERE AND NOW

the literal transhistorical (yet not ahistorical) transference or relay of met-

In performance theory and practice, presence is both fundamental and

Schneider thus emphasizes the relationship between the “absence” of the

Media archaeology has excavated a wealth of experiments and designs,

These dead or forgotten media can be studied as “imaginary media”, a

By examining the interplay between present performances and their

magic lantern shows, from which it appropriated features. Huhtamo thus

This ambivalent relationship between technology and the body is also

de Kerckhove, Derrick. 1982. Theatre as Information-Processing in Western

———. 2011. On the Archaeology of Imaginary Media. In Media Archaeology.

Stage Scenery and Technology

Mechanisms in the Mist: A Media

INTRODUCTION: HOW THE NON-DISCOVERABLE

© The Author(s) 2019 23

respondence, notebooks, broadsides, flyers, program leaflets, and so on—

THE MECHANICAL THEATER ACCORDING TO THÉATRE

marionettes in his atelier in Bremen. In the early 1880s he helped his

be used for pre-shows to attract bystanders, and no doubt served as a tem-

THÉATRE MORIEUX SEEN THROUGH ITS PROGRAMS

and “marble statues,” which were a novelty: photographic lantern slides.

were clockwork powered automata. The charming quartette of mechani-

avalanches, earthquakes, sea storms, etc.” Visualization of places and sto-

Fig. 2.3 Programme du Théatre des Variétés Mécanique, Pittoresque et

optical marvels (although a clown was employed for a while). Human

MECHANICAL SPECTACLES BEFORE THÉATRE MORIEUX

iconographic program, which included, among other features, “A Moving

We can imagine Madame Pompadour – because it was her property – con-