3 November 2020 | Conference Retuning the Screen. Sound Methods and the Aural Dimension of Film & Media History, Gorizia-Udine, IT

Video Presentation:

Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk: The Voice of the Lecturer. Image-Word Relations in Optical Lantern and Early Film Performances

When the new medium of film emerged in the 1890s, it was often seen as an addition to already existing screen practices, as is witnessed by, among others, the change of title of one of the foremost British trade publications in this area. In 1904, The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger became The Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal. The cinematograph, in other words, was considered mostly a variant of the optical lantern, and in numerous cases, projections of slides and films shared the same screen. The mode of address generally was not exclusively a visual one, but also included sounds and, more in particular, speech. The full effect of a projection could only unfold in its actual performance.

The lecturer was a figure that was shared by both forms of screen practice, and we would like to explore to what extent the advent of film projection modified the ways in which lecturers performed. We will focus mainly on non-fictional forms of lecturing, as public lantern projections more often than not used the projected image for other purposes than pure entertainment. We will have a look at various primary sources, from handbooks to journals addressing performers in the field of the projected image. Our contention is that the relation between word and image may have changed when the lecturer passed from still to moving images, also because the affordances of both differ to some extent. With our contribution we would like to address issues relevant for both the position of the lantern and early cinema with regard to listening cultures of the late 19^th and early 20^thcenturies, and the archaeology of the auditory dimension of screen practices.