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Leuchte Der Kultur« - Imperialism, Imaginary Travel and the Skladanowsky Welt-Theater 2006

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Leuchte Der Kultur« - Imperialism, Imaginary Travel and the Skladanowsky Welt-Theater 2006 Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Janelle Blankenship »Leuchte der Kultur« - Imperialism, Imaginary Travel and the Skladanowsky Welt-Theater 2006 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16033 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Sammelbandbeitrag / collection article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Blankenship, Janelle: »Leuchte der Kultur« - Imperialism, Imaginary Travel and the Skladanowsky Welt-Theater. In: Frank Kessler, Sabine Lenk, Martin Loiperdinger (Hg.): Quellen und Perspektiven / Sources and Perspectives. Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern 2006 (KINtop. Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films 14/15), S. 36– 51. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16033. Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Creative Commons - This document is made available under a creative commons - Namensnennung - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0/ Attribution - Share Alike 4.0/ License. For more information see: Lizenz zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ finden Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ KIUST.&LL•SALONGEN. PROGRAM: Löl'd.agen den 8 Augustt 1896. hpellmüt&rt: Re!T OJm. DAtrBI. ·10. 2.ac, •• JIS,1 :I. • 1:· lntAga-Mal'llCI} ....................... , .............. ·crnu~" 2. Onverture till ,Mnritana, .. ........................ \\"11.lliwe. 1:! The 5 Sisters W:interburn, 1);.rn~arti:-;.li-r. ., lle ftuomrpn], 111l,1hl.:1 liladi:1torrrPa l., 1 ROSARIO & RAFAEL. 1i. BrödermanaJr.a. Opera.kvartetton. • Pro.r. 1\11:C>R.J:EU.:X:. • 1.-,. fr:un•t,illnu,~ ,if el,·Lln•l-1 W JAttoJXJ.ill.nt.nsa.r.._ "~''" Dr fritbiof Nan11111 Nordpol.ditcl. f<inud.linc1bllder. 1 ld 1 ti. rLUh 1UlAU"""1-I Bumoriatit• f:lt,•. l" lc. ! E:C5A.MrCnsAWAR& \ ~Vnil-lf i, ro Kristall-Salongen, Stockholm, advertisement (BAN 143 5/r 12) JANELLE BLANKENSHIP » Leuchte der Kultur« - lmperialism, Imaginary Travel and the Skladanowsky Welt-Theater In his unfinished Passagen-Werk, Walter Benjamin writes that Daguerre's dio­ rama gradually effaced or replaced magic lantern projection in the 19'h cen­ tury.' This seems to be a false, rather hasty assumption; in reality, dissolving views - the final stage of magic lantern projection, using the sciopticon, bi­ unial, or even tri-unial lantern - flourished alongside the Kaiserpanorama and early cinema at the previous turn-of-the-century, often preceding or follow­ ing the presentation of ,living pictures<. Nowhere is this balancing act better documented than in the eclectic variety the.ater programs or broadsides weil preserved in the German Federal Archives, above all in the records that pertain to the showmen Max and Emil Skladanowsky, who first exhibited their spec­ tacle of circus attraction moving pictures in Berlin in 1895. Of course, it was not cinema, but the Nebelbilder lantern career of Carl Skladanowsky & Sons which was the real family business.2 Even after their debut with their Bioscop dual projector, Max and Emil Skladanowsky still included the magic lantern within their variety theater number as a successful stock act. This double billing, living pictures and magic lantern, is enumerated in a program for the Kristall-Salongen Variety Theater Tivoli (Stockholm), dated August 8, 1896.J Nine months after their Wintergartenprogramm debut of cir­ cus act cinema in Berlin, the popularity of the Bioscop dual projector is already waning. As the novelty of the Bioscop fades, Max and Emil Skladanowsky fall back on their familiar repertoire of Nebelbilder. In act one of the Tivoli program the brothers appear with their dual projector and loop films or »liv­ ing pictures«: dancers, wresders, the »boxing kangaroo«, etc. The art nouveau program page, like the stage, · is resplendent with an overwhelming number of visual curiosities, a flood of advertisements for whisky, clothing, and pho­ tography. Arrows scribbled in pencil on the archival program highlight for a discerning eye the important sensation of the Bioscop. Yet it is precisely what is hidden or not >pointed out< to the researcher that is of greatest importance. In act I 5 of the variety theater program the brothers reappear under Swedish alias as »Professor Morieux« to present another electric attraction, a dissolv­ ing view presentation of chromatropes, comic slides, and a spectacular current event, Dr. Nansen's expedition to the North Pole: »Framställning af elektriska [ ... ] Dr. Frithjof Nansens Nordpolsfärd. Förvandlingsbilder.« 4 The Tivoli 37 program thus documents not only the importance of invention or novelty to the cinema of attractions; it also attests to the momentary decline of film in the face of the forceful persistence of older lantern themes, showmanship guises and magical >tricknologies<. lt is all too easy to read media history as a strict linear evolution of old and new, agame of substitution and Aufhebung. But a closer analysis of the Tivoli program highlights the uneven temporality of ear­ ly cinema, with its competing stages of attraction. Should we see the dissolving view practice of C. Skladanowsky & Sons only as a curious techno-predeces­ sor to the even more curious projector of the Bioscop, that dark machine of 1895 that suddenly set free the specters of the 19'h century, paving the way for a new entertainment industry and a new mode of perception? Questioning the teleology that places the Skladanowsky dual projector as the logical outcome or revision of the magic lantern, let us reverse the terms, viewing the dissolv­ ing view program of C. Skladanowsky & Sons not as >pre-cinema<, but as ,late magic<, as a perfected visual display that at the height of its powers made peo­ ple think, dream and look.S Through the magical enlarging lens, spectators of the Skladanowsky Welt­ Theater or Original-Riesen-Welt-Tableaux6 could catch glimpses of new colo­ nial dominions, solar eclipses (»Die Sonnenfinsternis am 19. August 1887«), the heavens (»Bilder aus der Sternenwelt«), the cartography of America and the new world, China, India, the King's Castles (» Königs-Phantasien, Prachtschlößer König Ludwigs II. von Bayern«), Dutch windmills, the Eisen­ bahn, ornithocopter, or hot air balloon. In Prague, the imperial travels of bis royal highness Franz Ferdinand were also thrown up on the screen.7 Fantastic travels and the newest scientific marvels and technological wonders, such as the X-ray or the Eiffel tower display at the 1889 World's Fair, were catalogued alongside other sensational »media events«.8 The broadsides for the first Nebelbildervorstellung in the Berlin Flora in November, 1879 already claimed that the Skladanowsky »Welt-Diophra­ ma« [sie] boasted »the greatest sightseeing of the earth from the north to the south.«9 An act highlighting »out-standing German men and women in past and present« was also part of this lantern exhibition. In 18 82, a patriotic tone was again set for the world theater, with a final act entitled »Deutschlands Ruhmeshalle«. '0 Anticipating the Kaiser's Kintop, the magic lantern of C. Skla­ danowsky & Sons over time became more actively involved in documenting world affairs and projecting images of the monumental glory of the German Empire, presenting the public with sensational programs on »Weiland Kaiser Wilhelm I in Berlin«, »Weiland Kaiser Friedrich III von Deutschland« (1889), and »Berlin während der Kaiserillumination«." The importance of Tagespolitik to the geo-political »worlding« (Gayatri Spivak) of the Skladanowsky dissolving view lantern repertoire is indeed wor­ thy of closer analysis, as this dissolving view theater aspired to uphold and advertise the tenants of late 19'h century imperial modernity. lt is all the more important to shed light on the connections between nationalism and show­ manship, since the creation of a Skladanowsky archive by Max Skladanowsky himself was part and parcel of National-Socialist film historiography and politics. For example, on the thirty-year >anniversary< of the German Win­ tergartenprogramm, the Skladanowsky 1895 living pictures were screened alongside Leni Riefenstahl's TRIUMPH DES WILLENS, in German cities such as Stuttgart." To date, researchers have remained remarkably silent on the project of commemorating the 1895 Wintergartenprogramm during the Third Reich. In this context, the phrase »Skladanowsky travels« also receives new meaning. Max Skladanowsky's touring archival presentations in the 1930s included not only earlier lantern slides but also an anti-Semitic parody of the Wandering ]ew, one of his Projektion für Alle! flip-books.' 1 lt seems fitting, then, to shift our attention away from the inventor's argument (Skladanowsky vs. Messter) and instead focus on the cultural and political implications of what it means to archive, specifically what it means to insert Germany into an image archive as Welt-Theater. During the Spanish-American War early cinematic apparatuses battling for economic dominance in the United States were transformed, almost overnight, into » War-Graphs« what scholars of >pre-cinema< and early cinema have ter­ med »signifying war machines«.' 4 Yet already in the 1890s in US magic lantern projection there were presentations that filled a similar function: »Our New Possessions: The Philippines, The Ladrones, Hawaii and Puerto Rico«, and »Free Cuba«. In concluding his study The Emergence of Cinema: The Ame­ rican Screen to 1907, Charles Musser gives us pause to reflect on the imperial fantasies of power that resonated with audiences in the darkened hall of the theater: [During the Spanish-American
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