Frank Kessler is professor of Media History at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He is a former president of DOMITOR, the international association for research on early cinema and one of the founders of KINtop. Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films. His research interests are focused on the emergence of cinema as a mass medium and cultural form. In his current research projects “B-Magic. The Magic Lantern and Its Cultural Impact as Visual Mass Medium in Belgium, (1830-1940)” and “Projecting Knowledge – The Magic Lantern as a Tool for Mediated Science Communication in the Netherlands, 1880-1940” he works on the role of the magic lantern as a medium for knowledge transmission in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. He co-edited Machines, Magie, Médias (2018) together with Jean-Marc Larue and Giusy Pisano and A Million Pictures. Magic Lantern Slides in the History of Learning (2020) together with Sarah Dellmann, and he is the author of Mise en scene (2014).