{"id":7533,"date":"2019-12-19T06:36:08","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T05:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/articles\/an-experimental-media-archaeological-approach-to-early-twentieth-century-home-cinema\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T07:54:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T06:54:24","slug":"an-experimental-media-archaeological-approach-to-early-twentieth-century-home-cinema","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/articles\/an-experimental-media-archaeological-approach-to-early-twentieth-century-home-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"An Experimental Media Archaeological Approach to Early-Twentieth Century Home Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In this blog post, I present my post-doctoral research within the DEMA project in which I examine the genealogy of home cinema and amateur moviemaking as early-twentieth century practices by means of an experimental media archaeological approach.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the objectives of the FNR-funded research project \u201cDoing Experimental Media Archaeology: Practice and Theory\u201d (DEMA) is to study the potential of hands-on experimentation so as to better understand and experience the materiality of old media technologies and their practices of use. For systematically reflecting on the methodological underpinnings of experimental media archaeology as an alternative and sensorial approach to media historiography, we experiment with both visual and auditory media. Whereas my colleague Aleksander Kolkowski focuses on early sound amplification technologies like compressed-air gramophones, I will focus on visual media technologies like early-twentieth century home cinema and amateur film devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nA genealogy of home cinema<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The term \u201chome cinema\u201d signals a ubiquitous phenomenon in today\u2019s digital media culture. From (binge)watching films and television series on Netflix or via BlueRay video players to the screening and sharing of personal recordings on social media: the practices of making and watching moving images have turned into an increasingly popular and highly accessible form of domestic and family entertainment. From a media historical perspective, the popularity of home cinema can be traced back to the \u201cvideo boom\u201d of the 1980s, when the VCR domesticated as a media technology for users to record home videos, television programs and play rental videos on the television screen. Or to the 1960s and 1970s, when Super 8 film served as a user-friendly medium for the recording and screening of cinema and amateur films at home. Yet, home cinema practices go back even earlier. Already in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, a wide variety of technologies apparatuses emerged which allowed for the recording and projection of moving images at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kinora<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of such technological apparatuses is the Kinora (1896-1914), a motion picture technology specifically designed for home use. Originally invented and patented by Auguste and Louis Lumi\u00e8re in 1896, the Kinora was an adapted version of the Casler\u2019s Mutoscope (1894), which similar to Edison\u2019s Kinetoscope (1889) functioned like an individual viewing machine. Like the Mutoscope, the Kinora viewer made use of a flipbook mechanism in which a series of paper-based unperforated photographs were attached to a wheel. By turning the wheel and looking through the viewer, one could watch the series of photographs in motion. Kinora viewers were manufactured in France (by Gaumont) and in Britain (by the British Mutoscope and Biograph company). Gradually, the Kinora evolved into a popular device for home entertainment. According to Barry Anthony, who reconstructed the history of the Kinora system in his book The Kinora: Motion Pictures for the Home 1896-1914<\/em>, it was even \u201cthe most successful of the \u2018home movie\u2019 machines marketed in Britain before 1912\u201d.Barry Anthony, The Kinora: Motion Pictures for the Home 1896-1914<\/em> (London: Projection Box, 1996), 3. In the 1900s, hundreds of Kinora reels were produced and it was even \u201cpossible to have your own \u2018living pictures\u2019 or \u2018animated photographs\u2019 made on a Kinora reel. Footage was shot at a studio in London and transferred to a Kinora reel\u201d.Jeff Wray, \u201cWorld Day for Audiovisual Heritage 2019,\u201d National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (blog), October 24, 2019, https:\/\/www.nfsa.gov.au\/latest\/world-day-audiovisual-heritage-2019. From 1908 a special Kinora camera was released as well, which allowed families to make Kinora home movies themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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