Rethinking the Phantasmagoria: an enclosure and three worlds

The Phantasmagoria was not just a spectacle based on projections of images of ghosts and monsters. Relying upon new archival findings, this article claims that the Phantasmagoria was instead an optical–environmental dispositive that combined an enclosed space with the exploration of three worlds: the otherworld of the Dead, the physical world of Nature, and the inner world of spectators’ Interiority. While its ultimate goal was to provide an unconventional map of the three domains that were of the greatest interest at the time, its combined interest in a spatial arrangement and a visual address suggests the need for a new, rhizomatic archaeology in which to include the screen-based dispositives.