Countless commentaries, fantasies and parables lie buried between rarely opened book covers. Although Maillet has left this important issue largely unexplored, he is correct: even a cursory “archival dig” reveals an abundance of discursive kaleidoscopes. The concluding section of his essay goes further, drawing parallels between chemistry and kaleidoscopic imagery, and suggesting that the kaleidoscope played a role in the «redefinition of the imagination» in the late nineteenth century.

Such parables, which I call «discursive kaleidoscopes», are encountered over and over again in textual and visual traditions their significations are molded by the contexts within which they are evoked.ģArnaud Maillet has explored the kaleidoscope’s impact on nineteenth-century theories of visual abstraction and ornamentation, and consequently on debates about applied arts and industrial production, demonstrating, «how kaleidoscopic thinking fed the creative imagination and led to the proliferation of crafts and industrial applications in the early nineteenth century» 4. In their critique of Saint-Simon’s The German Ideology, they used the kaleidoscopic image as a parable of ideological shams: its apparent variety is produced by repeating the same pattern ad infinitum 3. Crary also pointed out that for Marx and Engels, «the kaleidoscope had a very different function». This issue was briefly touched upon by Jonathan Crary when he noted, how for Charles Baudelaire «the kaleidoscope coincided with modernity itself to become a “kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness” was the goal of “the lover of universal life”» 2. Still, they may have been accompanied by even more numerous “shadow instruments.” By this I mean their discursive simulations in textual and visual traditions. Patent archives may be exponentially growing necropolises of human ingenuity, but Google Patent Search reveals that the flow of patents for things kaleidoscopic has not dried out.ĢInnumerable kaleidoscopes have been produced during the past two centuries. There is something for every wallet, from inexpensive mass-produced toy souvenirs to unique handcrafted «Princely Treasures». Kaleidoscopes appeal to both children and grown-ups. In almost any part of the world, eager eyes keep peeking into Brewster’s picture tubes, marveling at the metamorphosing visions inside. Patented almost exactly two centuries ago by the Scottish natural philosopher Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), it shows no signs of terminal obsolescence 1.

Against this background, the kaleidoscope is a remarkable survivor. Some yesteryear’s gadgets survive at flea markets and in cabinets of curiosities, but most are trashed and wiped out from cultural memory. New models replace older ones at relentless pace. Millions of devices are produced this year and remaindered the next. 1 About kaleidoscope production, collection and hobbyism today, see (.)ġTechnological fashions come and go.

Picture of kaleidoscope