XR AND MAGIC LANTERN SHOWS: A MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY STUDY BETWEEN IMAGES, PERFORMANCE, AND NEW MEDIA.

Today's development of XR, particularly accentuated on a commercial level by the growing investor interest in an admittedly not very new technology (Lanier 2019), sees at its core the meeting of algorithmic (Eugeni 2021) images-environments, and gestural (Grespi 2019) and performative bodies, in a highly original and also innovative, technoscientific, expression. In order to investigate through a media archaeology approach such a particular relationship between these elements, an attempt will be made to approach a specific case study, namely that of the magic lantern performances of the 19th century in Central European fairgrounds. Such performances, indeed, produced projected images through particularly innovative forms for the time, through shows between the theatrical and the cinematic, in which the performers' bodies played a central role (Wynants 2020). Often, moreover, through such performances, the fairground became a place for experimentation and communication of science, and/or the latest development of new media and technologies. Through research on specific sources, a comparison of the suggested elements will be proposed in order to underline a wider look at the current production of immersive images, to also reevaluate their current social and techno-aesthetic function (Simondon 1992, Montani 2014).