Long before blockbuster art exhibitions, crowds were awed by traveling shows called phantasmagoria, in which stories were performed with the use of magic lanterns and rear projections, creating dancing shadows and frightening theatrical effects. From September 3 through November 8, the USC Fisher Museum of Art presents the exhibition Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence, which will draw on forms of representation linked with traditions of fantasy and magic, reframing them around contemporary issues.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Jim Campbell, whose work is featured in “Phantasmagoria,” will give a talk. Originally trained as a mathematician and electrical engineer, Campbell started to make interactive work in video and with electronic components in the late 1980s. In his work in “Phantasmagoria,” Campbell explores the limits of legibility by employing electronic systems in which the image is converted to its basic elements, demonstrating that both eye and brain tend to supply the missing information.

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, Campbell has virtually no formal training as an artist. His art apprenticeship consisted of repairing video equipment and, later, designing integrated circuits for video in Silicon Valley. But at a time when many artists who want to create technologically-based art seek a partner who knows the electronics and will leave the creativity to them, Campbell is a whole different thing — a  technocrat who discovered early on that he has an artist’s soul.

A reception will follow.

Organized by the USC Fisher Museum of Art. The exhibition is co-organized by Independent Curators International, New York, and the Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia.