Technical phantasmagorias: the phantom-effect of moving images

Abstract

It will be through its technical dimension that phantasmagoria will assume itself as a modern concept, (re)emerging at the beginning of the twentieth century, enunciated, for example by Walter Benjamin, as an altered perception. Not through spectral appearances, as in the late eighteenth-century shows of Étienne-Gaspard Robertson, but rather by exalting the magical dimension of new modern technological media.

In a detailed analysis of Robertson's shows, we will see that, in addition to being one of the earliest cinematic immersive spectacles, he was also able to masterfully articulate the potentialities of fantastical illusionism; by taking advantage of the performativity of the image movement and the dispersive choreography of the projections, in which illusion would be a proclaimed antidote to superstition.

Phantasmagoria, which essentially is linked to the act of seeing, does not seek to dissipate the illusion. In fact we can say that it lives from its celebration. It does not present itself as a particular apparatus, but rather is based on a criticism of the subjective visual mechanisms that complement an image produced by the technique.

Therefore, we will try to demonstrate that moving images are by nature phantasmagorias themselves, since, in addition to their apprehension being a result from an optical illusion, they are also a particular form that it is received by its uncanny nature, like ephemeral inhabitants materialized by the light, that present themselves always as phantom-effect of moving images.