In this paper, I give an overview of early exhibitions of phonographs, kinetoscopes and cinematographic devices in colonial Singapore. Beyond giving an overview of the different exhibitions, the paper also sets them in the context of the colonial discourse prevalent in Singapore and many parts of the world. In the newspaper discourse these new technologies from Europe and United States were depicted as an illustration of ‘Western’ progress and civilisation. These technologies, be it railways, roads, steamships, telegraphs or cinematographs, were used to impress and astonish the colonised, and functioned as a way to signal Western power in colonial territories, something Brian Larkin calls the colonial sublime. Newspaper reports frequently commented on the amazement and perplexity of the local, ‘native’ population when encountering public exhibitions of phonographs, kinetoscopes and cinematographs. This was largely a constructed narrative as it helped create and emphasise differences between coloniser and colonised, and justify colonial structures. The paper demonstrates how new technological devices within a few years were exhibited by people from different Asian backgrounds, and thereby diminished perceived and constructed differences between European and Asian people.