A collection of 27 of the best papers from the Celebrating 1895 international conference of June 1995. In the first part of the collection - Inscribing a New Technology - the papers discuss the reception of film as new technology or characterize institutional agendas that were developed for the preservation of the medium. The second section - Exhibitions and Audiences - draws together a number of papers that challenge current understanding of the exhibition context. The third section - Popular Culture - looks at early film and its relation to popular culture and the fourth part - Cultural Representation - is concerned with the ways in which the new medium threw into disarray earlier definitions of the public and private spheres. The final part - Reconsidering Formal Histories - offers a reconsideration of the formal development of the medium. They conclude that the most pressing area of concern remains the interrelation of reception and the formal development of the medium.