Magic Lantern Shows and Early Screen Practice in Colonial Taiwan

What is, and where was, cinema? How might media archaeological inquiries of cinema be unpacked in a colonial context in East Asia? This talk explores early screen practice through the magic lantern shows in colonial Taiwan. Taiwan’s magic lantern show (gentō-kai 幻燈会) is a crucial yet insufficiently discussed event of seeing that provokes issues of optical modernity, images of colonial edification, and the projection of empires. On the surface, the magic lantern show seems to be an extension of the colonial power; yet, the process of its projection and mediation also reveals the disintegrated temporality between the colony and the imperial screen.

Laura Jo-Han Wen is a postdoctoral teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. Working on cinema and media culture in colonial Taiwan and related East Asian regions, she is especially interested in issues at the convergence of early cinema, colonial modernity, identity politics in media, and transnational popular culture.