25 October 2019 | Conference Multimodality: Illusion, Performance, Experience Aarhus, DK

Paper Presentation:

Dulce da Rocha Gonçalves:

L. K. Maju (1823-1886): A Dutch Multimedia Entrepreneur

Conference organized by

Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University

The full program can be accessed here.

Abstract:

« Maandag 27 September komt MAJU. »
For the readers of the newspaper De Dordrechtsche Courant from September 24, 1880, the concise advertisement transcribed above was deemed sufficient : Maju would be coming to Dordrecht. But what exactly did that mean? In the case of Maju the possibilities were several: Would he be performing a scientific popular lecture with his Hydro-Oxygen Microscope and projecting the “invisible wonders of the world”? Would he be bringing the patented instruments from the Royal Polytechnic and performing De Geest van Maju, the Netherlands’ own version of Pepper’s Ghost? Or, even still, would he be projecting dissolving views in the city’s park, and challenging the open-air weather conditions of the nights of September?
For the Dutch entrepreneur Levie Kinsbergen Maju, who reportedly died at 61 years of age in 1886, magic, science, entertainment, education, advertisement and even telecommunications were not diverging fields. On the contrary: they were at the core of his professional practice.
Unlike some popularizers of science from the nineteenth century, such as his contemporary (and colleague for a period of time) John Henry Pepper, Maju did not dwell in the memory of the Dutch as a man connected to science (or even entertainment) – in fact he was all but forgotten until now. For a short period of time, however, his name still lingered in the popular collective use as an expression used in case of “unexplained” phenomena such as creaking floors and self closing doors: then people would cast the blame of such occurrence to the geest van Maju!
This article explores the range of his multimedia experiences but also the contrasting nature of the places where he performed such as touring the regional fairs in the Netherlands or as a recurring act of the program of the Royal Polytechnic in London. My research will be focused on primary sources such as newspaper advertisements and reports, and will be informed by David Livingstone’s reflections on geography of science and Bernard Lightman’s formulation of sites and experiences in the nineteenth century’s marketplace of popular culture. As such, I will explore the sites and the experiences that L. K. Maju delivered, as well as their spatial and temporal distribution between 1850 and the year of his death, in Amsterdam, in 1886.