Projecting the world: The mediated geography of the projection lantern in Belgium c.1900-c.1920

This article studies the virtual world(s) that Belgian audiences encountered through the multimodal mass medium of the projection lantern in the early twentieth century. In contrast to previous work, we move from studying the visual representation of a single place in a small number of projection slides to examining the virtual world(s) that the lantern medium enabled. To achieve this overview, we produce and analyze a database of announcements and reviews of 5673 unique lectures lantern lectures published in Antwerp and Brussels newspapers in three sample periods (1902–1904, 1914–1918, and 1922–1924). Oscillating between distant reading the database and close reading individual announcements, we chart the virtual world(s) of this multimodal mass medium in Belgium: the parts of the globe that became visible – be it in a positive or negative projection light – and the parts that remained underexposed. We show that in this virtual world, the Belgian colony of Congo was relatively close, while it was almost impossible to visit South America. While previous research has underlined the representation of far-away and exotic places, our research demonstrates that audiences most prominently used the projection lantern to take trips in their own country. By analyzing the virtual geography on multiple scales —continents, countries, and cities— we show how Belgian audiences experienced the world through the lens of a particular medium, uncovering the complex interplay between technology, media, and geographical imagination.