Tag Archives: Magic Lantern Show

‘The Light of the World’

Magic lantern slide projection

At the conclusion of the Australian National University, School of Art and Design, Art History and Art Theory seminar, ‘Led By The Beam’, where Dr Keren Hammerschlag, Dr Georgia Pike-Rowney and myself discussed the extraordinary phenomenon of Holman Hunt’s famous pre-raphaelite painting The Light of the World, Anita Pollard and myself projected ten original magic lantern slides of the painting, each one hand-coloured slightly differently. As the images of the painting dissolved one into the other the audience heard Charles Gounod’s sacred song ‘Nazareth’. This had been sung to the magic lantern projection of the painting by the celebrity singer George Snazelle during his tour to Australia in the 1889. We used a Newton and Co. biunnial magic lantern from the same period.

Documentation of the six minute projection is now on Youtube.

Now online: ‘When it’s Moonlight on the Prairie’ and other songs and chromatropes

A magic lantern show  with Crank Williams and Patsy Decline for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, 26 August 2023. The magic lantern slides: six mechanical chromatropes c. 1880s – 1890s; The Lights of London Town, York & Son, 1892; Won’t You Buy My Pretty Flowers, Bamforth & Co., 1897; The Gin Fiend, c. 1885; When It’s Moonlight on the Prairie, c. 1910; ‘Goodnight’ mechanical  chromatrope, c. c. 1880s – 1890s.

Crank Williams and Patsy Decline in performance with the magic lantern.

Powerhouse Late Magic Lantern Show online

A magic lantern show devised by Martyn Jolly with musician Charles Martin and artist Anna Madeleine Raupach to respond to the Powerhouse drawing exhibition ‘A Line A Web A World’, performed at Powerhouse Late, Ultimo, Sydney, 3 August 2023. We used a Newton & Co. biunial lantern, c. 1896; vintage hand coloured, painted, and mechanical magic lantern slides c. 1880s — 1900s; and contemporary inkjet slides from the Anna Madeleine Raupach works ‘Signal to Noise’ and ‘Light Echoes/Standard Stars’, 2023. Charles used field recording, digital synthesisers and touch pad instruments.