“Projecting Knowledge” will study the use of the magic lantern in science communication in the Netherlands, 1880-1940, and thereby elucidate the role of this important visual medium in the transmission and dissemination of knowledge. Adding “showing” to “telling”, the lantern allowed to share visual information with an entire auditorium and to present scientific information in challenging ways never seen before. It transformed both teaching and public lecturing comparable to the changes brought about by computer programmes such as PowerPoint. Three subprojects will, respectively, analyse the scope of public illustrated lectures aimed at the general audience, the didactic use of projected images in academic teaching, and the background of individual lecturers and scientists who were active in the field of public engagement with the help of the lantern. The synthesis will provide a comprehensive history of the lantern’s role in science communication and dissemination from 1880, when the lantern became a mass medium, to the beginning of the Second World War. The goal of the projectis to analyse the didactic affordances of the lantern, the science communication strategies that it made possible, and the public image of science that resulted from this.
The project will draw upon the wealth of hitherto little explored collections of lantern slides in Dutch universities, libraries, archives and museums, allowing a study based on primary source material. It will collaborate with several institutions to help them investigate this cultural heritage and make it accessible for the benefit of scholars as well as the general public.

• dr. Jamilla Notebaard
• Dulce Da Rocha Gonçalves
• dr. Nico de Klerk

Dit project zal de eerste geschiedenis schrijven van de toverlantaarn als massamedium in Belgie. Het zal bijgevolg een essentiele bijdrage leveren aan zowel de culturele geschiedenis van het land als de internationale geschiedenis van media. Het wil de vele functies herontdekken die performances met lichtbeelden vervulden in de Belgische publieke ruimte en het onderzoek toespitsen op de overdracht en onderhandeling van kennis, normen en waarden door verschillende sociale groepen. Wetenschappers en entertainers, leraars en priesters, politieke bewegingen en organisaties: ze hebben allemaal ingezet op geprojecteerde visuele narratieven om een publiek van niet zelden duizend mensen te informeren, te entertainen, op te voeden en te mobiliseren. Alle lagen van de maatschappij - geletterd en ongeletterd – verwierven visuele informatie over de natuur, religie, wetenschap, nieuwe technologieën en vreemde landen.

Het consortium van B-Magic zal de cruciale rol onderzoeken die de toverlantaarn speelde in de Belgische maatschappij sinds de onafhankelijkheid van het land (1830) tot het gebruik ervan omstreeks 1940 terugliep. Met dit doel voor ogen stelt het een interdisciplinair team samen van onderzoekers uit theaterwetenschap, cinema en media studies, stadsgeschiedenis, geshiedenis van wetenschap en kennis, communicatiewetenschap, semiotiek en narratologie. B-Magic zal de eerste omvattende studie produceren van de rol van de toverlantaarn als nationaal massamedium.1

• dr. Klaas de Zwaan

The magic lantern was the most important visual entertainment and means of instruction across nineteenth-century Europe. However, despite its pervasiveness across multiple scientific, educational and popular contexts, magic lantern slides remain under-researched. Although many libraries and museums across Europe hold tens of thousands of lantern slides in their collections, a lack of standards for documentation and preservation limits the impact of existing initiatives, hinders the recognition of the object’s heritage value and potential exploitation.
A Million Pictures addresses the sustainable preservation of this massive, untapped heritage resource. A Million Pictures promotes sustainable use and management of lantern slides by:

• Creating Knowledge about lantern slides through researching the contexts in which they were used.
• Exploring the needs of stakeholders for access and re-use.
• Providing innovative examples for creative re-use.
• Examining ways for people to enhance their knowledge about lantern slides and so connect to their shared European history of learning.
• Develop and implement standard working procedures on a European level for documentation, preservation and digitization.

This projects caters to the Strategic Research Agenda themes 'Creating Knowledge' and 'Connecting people with heritage.' The interdisciplinary, transnational research team will therefore generate and disseminate knowledge concerning lantern slides as a pan-European aspect of cultural heritage. Across four case studies, the project investigates the use of lantern slides in disseminating knowledge about European countries; in the practices of learned societies and educational institutions; in popular venues (theatres, opera houses, museums and observatories); and will also investigate methods for classifying the repertoire of these shows.
Expected outcomes:

• Production of standardized vocabulary and working procedures across national and disciplinary research traditions.
• Generation of sustainable documentation and access to digital copies of lantern slides and research results via virtual documentation centre.
• Creation of protection-through-use projects (Apps, Animations, Reenactments) to transfer outcomes to individuals and organizations outside the immediate research community (creative industry, journalism, art)

• prof. dr. Joost Raessens

• Prof. Dr. Ed Tan
• Miruna Doicaru
• Katalin Balint

This project will analyse the emerging mass-medial production and dissemination of popular imagery and representations in the late 19th and early 20th century, looking specifically at cinematographic images of the Nation and its Other. Two case studies will investigate, on the one hand, trans-nationally circulating popular images of the Netherlands of Dutch and foreign origins, and on the other hand representations of the Asian Other circulating in the Netherlands, in particular in the light of the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese War, and with regard to the countries’ colonies in Asia. The goal of the project is to contribute to our understanding of the emergence of a modern globalized mediasphere, and the cultural dynamics modern visual media have engendered, by looking at the formative phase of modern popular mass-media imagery.