The Magic Lantern in Australia and the World: An Interdisciplinary Conference

From its development in the colonial period, to its echoes in today’s multimedia spaces, the magic lantern, along with its thousands of photographic and hand-painted slides, has had a pervasive and lasting impact on visual culture. Historians are just discovering its powerful presence in entertainment, education, science, religion, politics, and advertising. Galleries, libraries, archives and museums are uncovering untouched caches of slides in their collections. And artists and performers are rekindling the ‘magic’ of the technology.

The Australian Research Council Discovery Project Heritage in the Limelight: The Magic Lantern in Australia and the World, is organizing this conference in partnership with the National Film and Sound Archive. It will feature keynotes from international researchers, as well as papers and performances from scholars and artists.

We invite 200 word abstracts for papers and performances from colleagues in the GLAM sector, scholars, artists, musicians and performers. The abstracts should respond, even tangentially, to the magic lantern and its associated technologies and practices, in either a historical or contemporary context.

Deadline for abstracts:

30 March, 2018

Contact:

elisa.decourcy@anu.edu.au

Further information:

http://soa.anu.edu.au/heritage-limelight