The Kinora as an Intermedial Dispositif of Early Twentieth-Century Home Cinema

This chapter explores the Kinora as an early twentieth-century home cinema technology by positioning it “in between” nineteenth-century optical toys and early cinema, film and photography, and individual and collective modes of viewing. Drawing on the concept of dispositif, it analyses the materiality, design and use of the Kinora in relation to other media technologies and user practices, including early cinema systems like the Lumière Cinématographe, nineteenth-century optical toys such as the stereoscope and Mutoscope, flipbooks, and paper-based animated portrait photography systems. This intermedial positioning allows us to understand the Kinora as a dispositif in its own right—an intermedial dispositif of early twentieth-century home cinema that exemplifies a historically specific hybrid constellation of technological, cultural and experiential elements.