PhD: BUELENS-TERRYN Margo (UA) | Supervisor: VANDAMME Ilja (UA) | Co-supervisors: VANHOUTTE Kurt (UA) & JONGEPIER Iason (UA)

The magic lantern was part of the modernizing landscapes of cultural consumption in nineteenth-century Belgian cities. Initially a trans-border cultural commodity with mass appeal, the lantern became rapidly appropriated and adopted for a wide range of uses and performance contexts. However, nobody has yet researched the local contexts in which lanternists performed. This PhD project will put the rise of the lantern as the first visual mass medium in Belgium in its historical spatial context by looking at 1) spaces of exhibition, 2) organization and distribution and 3) consumption. The PhD will investigate the urban screening facilities and their role in mediating socio-cultural exchange in modernizing cities. The lantern-related infrastructure of Brussels (capital), Antwerp (trade) and Charleroi (industry) will be mapped using GIS. Comparable to the approach used by Klenotic, GIS technology is used as a research tool to reveal the social, cultural and economic contexts that were connected to magic lantern performances, how they compared between the three cities, and how the contexts changed over time.

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