I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Phantasmagoria. Developed in France in the late 1700s, they’re a fantastic example of artists striving to use all the technology available to them to create a more effective art experience. Phantasmagoria were theatrical performances, that used fear to harness powerful visceral human reactions, and technology to make the experience as immersive as possible.
Phantasmagoria can be thought of as a sort of evolution on the séance, an earlier form of entertainment in which entertainers would use extremely inventive techniques to create the illusion of communication with ghosts. Séance performers studied optics and invented the image projector, which while an extremely effective tool for creating apparitions and visions, required viewers to face a single screen area rather than sit in a circle as in the traditional séance, and thus the Phantasmagoria show was born.
Performers combined the traditional mechanical innovations of séances with optical inventions, sound effects, smoke, mirrors, psychology — all the resources they had access to in order to enhance the experience of their audience. Not only did technology advance for the sake of art, but art advanced as well. Phantasmagoria performers were some of the first true intermedia artists; breaking down walls between media, to harness every power at their disposal.
My personal approach to art has always been to gain basic familiarity with as many distinct tools and practices as possible, because I believe that while there are a ton of people trying to be the best at any particular tool; creative combinations can be a lot more effective.
I can think of a couple of modern examples fields in which artists are pushing technological and artistic boundaries, and bringing media together for the sake of powerful experiences.
First, at the moment, is the current EDM scene. Having become an enormous cultural force in the last few years, festivals/raves/electronic musicians have vast shitbuckets of capital to throw at things like projection art, light shows, interactivity, and tech to create invigorating concertgoing experiences. Maurice is probably going to go into detail about this in his response, so I’ll move on.
Hollywood, perhaps the most direct successor of the Phantasmagoria, also throws buckets of money at technology. Since the 80s, companies like SGI and Pixar have been pushing the computer graphics envelope, and almost any modern high-budget movie combines 3d graphics, compositing, computer music, physics, etc etc etc to win the hearts and minds of the world, but that’s kinda been done. More exciting was the late 2010s-era surge of ARG experiences created as tie-ins for tv shows. By combining techniuqes of net art, installation, and performance with the already-pretty-technical TV show creation bizness, really exciting things happened. I kinda wish that was still a thing.