An Intermedial Cabinet of Obscurities: Media-Archaeological Excavations in Performance
Jakub Kłeczek
jakub.kleczek@umk.plNicolaus Copernicus University (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9499-1567
Abstract
This article frames the essay-cluster Theatre, Media, and the Archaeology of Spectacle as an “intermedial cabinet of obscurities” and argues that media archaeology, paired with intermedial performance studies, enables theatre history to be rewritten as relational micro-histories rather than as a single developmental line. Drawing on Huhtamo’s genealogy of cultural topoi, Zielinski’s variantology, and Elsaesser’s fragments as epistemological probes, this text shows how the journal has long hosted archaeological gestures: studies of fireworks, moving panoramas, mechanical theatres, paper theatres, puppetry, and Raszewski’s reading of early peep-show boxes via Furttenbach. Methodologically, the article combines close readings of these interventions with an account of perceptual dispositives informed by Crary’s claim that vision is historically organized through shifting assemblages.
Supporting Agencies
Disclosure Statement
Keywords:
media archaeology, intermediality, performance studiesReferences
Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990.
Google Scholar
Duda, Artur. Performans na żywo: Jako medium i obiekt mediatyzacji. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2011.
Google Scholar
Elsaesser, Thomas. Film History as Media Archaeology: Tracking Digital Cinema. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016. doi:10.1515/9789048529964.
Google Scholar
Furttenbach, Joseph. O budowie teatrów. Translated and edited by Zbigniew Raszewski. 2nd ed. Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2009.
Google Scholar
Huhtamo, Erkki. “Media Studies as an ‘Archaeology’: Elements of Genealogy.” Early Popular Visual Culture 18, no. 4 (2020): 340–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2021.2016198.
Google Scholar
Huhtamo, Erkki. Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2013. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9228.001.0001.
Google Scholar
Kłeczek, Jakub. Performans cyfrowy – historycznomedialne przemiany. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2022.
Google Scholar
Król-Kaczorowska, Barbara. “Antoni Sacchetti – dekorator romantyczny: Działalność w latach 1829–1845.” Pamiętnik Teatralny 8, no. 1/3 (1959): 219–261.
Google Scholar
Król-Kaczorowska, Barbara. “Antoni Sacchetti – dekorator romantyczny: Działalność w latach 1846–1870.” Pamiętnik Teatralny 16, no. 2 (1967): 231–251.
Google Scholar
Mitzner, Piotr. “Fajerwerki.” Pamiętnik Teatralny 32, no. 1 (1983): 59–79.
Google Scholar
Reilly, Kara, ed. Theatre, Performance and Analogue Technology: Historical Interfaces and Intermedialities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.doi:10.1057/9781137319678.
Google Scholar
Tortajada, Maria, and François Albéra, eds. Cine-Dispositives: Essays in Epistemology Across Media. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015. doi:10.1515/9789048523443.
Google Scholar
Waszkiel, Marek. “Kinetozograficzny teatr Kuparenki.” Pamiętnik Teatralny 45, no. 1/2 (1996): 88–117.
Google Scholar
Waszkiel, Marek. “Teatry mechaniczne w Warszawie w latach 1795–1847.” Pamiętnik Teatralny 26, no. 1 (1977): 69–92.
Google Scholar
Wiercińska, Janina. “Papierowy świat teatru.” Pamiętnik Teatralny 42, no. 1/2 (1993): 97–126.
Google Scholar
Wynants, Nele, ed. Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance: Deep Time of the Theatre. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Google Scholar
Zielinski, Siegfried. Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Translated by Gloria Custance. Cambridge, ma: The MIT Press, 2006.
Google Scholar
Authors
Jakub Kłeczekjakub.kleczek@umk.pl
Nicolaus Copernicus University Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9499-1567
Jakub Kłeczek - PhD, performing arts researcher, and media archaeologist. Assistant Professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (Faculty of Humanities). Principal Investigator of the project “Intermedia performance from the perspective of media archaeology: The avant-garde of performing arts and popular spectacles of the 19th and 20th centuries” (founded by the National Science Center in Poland). Post-doc fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (The Department of Design Media Arts) in 2022. He published Performans cyfrowy – historycznomedialne przemiany (Toruń, 2022), as well as over thirty research articles.
Statistics
Abstract views: 7PDF downloads: 1
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Jakub Kłeczek
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author grants a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Pamiętnik Teatralny should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.
From issue 1/2018 to 3/2022 all articles were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Jakub Kłeczek, Performing the Power of the Photography: “BeHere/1942” by Masaki Fujihata , Pamiętnik Teatralny: Vol. 72 No. 3 (2023): Transnational Pathways of Eurasian Performance Arts (with essay cluster curated by Artur Duda)
