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Image, Light and the Passage to the Semi-Material Object

The intention of this research was to reinstate Le Prince in the discussion of early cinema not as a disputed pioneer or a person of mystery but as symptomatic of a certain way of thinking about the world and consequently contributes to the contextual specificity for cinema to have been innovated in the1890s. By incorporating some aspects of John Logie Baird’s work into the historical narrative it opens up the important question about what cinema and television were (and possibly are) for. In this it contributes to the anthropology of cinema that is possibly one of the most important turns as far as interdisciplinary approaches to media is concerned.

The chapter returns to primary sources including patents and contemporary accounts in secondary literature. The intellectual stance of the chapter is informed by early cinema studies, technology studies, and the history of science studies. Bringing these three strands of research as they are currently developed concerning the cusp of the twentieth century draws on scholarship in three quite distinct bodies of knowledge. This work is addressed, synthesized and interpreted in the chapter to draw from it a common platform from which to propose an alternative imperative in cinema and television history to realism. The chapter is a consequence of and reflected in a number of papers delivered over three years, draft articles and collegiate exchanges.