Tag Archives: magic lantern

The young man at the back of the room

Edward Ottway, an ‘operator’, ‘illuminator’ and ‘optician’

in the trans-imperial spectacles of entertainment and education 1879-1882

I gave this presentation at the Magic Lantern Society’s fiftieth anniversary international convention, held in Birmingham 9-11 October 2026. I illustrated it with some wood engravings made in Sydney around 1880, such as the one below. I even visited his grave at Waverley Cemetery.

Read it here.

‘The Tri-Unial Lantern illuminated with the Oxy-Hydrogen Light, in the Hall of the Balmain School of Arts’, Illustrated Catalogue of Optical lanterns and Transparent Views and the newest forms of Bi-Unial and Tri-Unial Dissolving View Apparatus, by William Mac Donnell, Sydney, 312 George Street, 1882. Author’s collection.

Abstract:

The youngest scion of a prominent family of London opticians, Edward Ottway came to the Australian colonies in 1879 as part of Professor Henry Pepper’s entourage. His job was to manage Pepper’s special Ottway triunial (three lensed) magic lantern, but he left the tour in Sydney to become the colony’s main ‘illuminator’, specialising in triunials. He even rescued one from the burning Victoria Theatre. These machines were as charismatic in Sydney as elsewhere, and in the next few years several more reached the colony through various routes. With Ottway’s skills, they became crucial to the emerging push for worker’s technical education. Unfortunately, he died tragically young, and initially was a suspected suicide. Ottway was not a showperson, he was a technician — the operator ‘at the back of the room’ — yet his relatively obscure life can teach us much about the role of new, spectacular technologies in developing global networks of education and entertainment.

Canberra Glassworks Residency: New Magic Lantern Chromatropes

I have been an artist in residence at the Canberra Glassworks, experimenting with ways of making new magic lantern chromatropes in contemporary glass. Historically, chromatropes – ‘colour turners’ – were magic lantern slides which used a rack-and-pinion to spin two glass discs in opposite directions. As the magic lanternist turned the handle, the carefully chosen colours painted on the glass mixed on the screen to produce additional colours, and the carefully designed patterns algorithmically iterated intricate virtual forms which seemed to pulse off the screen into the audience. They were extremely popular.

Translating this semi-industrial optical technology from the nineteenth century into the material universe of contemporary studio glass is a rewarding challenge, from which I am learning much. Below are three of the more successful results so far. They were made by expert glass blower Rob Schwartz with Gautirya Muralietharan, and cold worked by Halle Warrender. Sebastian Perri was an enormous support.

Three chromatropes made from Bullseye glass canes by Rob Schwartz at Canberra Glassworks, 2026.

Chromatrope Video


For their exhibition The Grand Illusion: 200 Years of Virtual Realities the Teylers Museum of Haarlem, Netherlands, made a mirrored video wall out of my chromatrope and mechanical slide videos. Thank you to — Images: Shosho; Sound: Stijn Hosman; Design: Caspar Conijn; Curation: Laura Egginton and Trienke van der Spek. The exhibition runs until 1 September 2024.