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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Giovanna Fossati and Annie van den Oever (eds.) Exposing the Film Apparatus: The Film Archive as a Research Laboratory Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2016, pp. 480
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Reviews / Comptes rendus
2016-10-01
2021-09-22
2016-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Rossella Catanese
2016/10/01
Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
2036-461X
26-27
en
Giovanna Fossati and Annie van den Oever (eds.) Exposing the Film Apparatus: The Film Archive as a Research Laboratory Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2016, pp. 480
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16457/16779
16
Giovanna Fossati and Annie van den Oever (eds.)
Exposing the Film Apparatus: The Film Archive as a Research
Laboratory
Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2016, pp. 480




   Film archives can be understood as repositories of the historical experience of
cinema; they are first and foremost places dedicated to the transmission of visual
memory, and therefore testify to the importance of film heritage as an expression
of cultural identity. Film archives emerged in response to a need for film conser-
vation, caused by a series of historical events, not to mention the physical fea-
tures of the carriers – i.e. subject to chemical decay. However, film archives are
currently entering a radical, new phase: they are no longer merely the depositary
for visual cultural heritage, but moreover institutions that can dialogue with the
current mediascape and new forms of audience experience, that are addressed
to a projection of the future.
   Among these kinds of institutions, the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam
has a leading role, and the book series Framing Film, launched by Amsterdam
University Press in collaboration with EYE, is dedicated to studies of restoration,
archival, and exhibition practices.
   This eclectic collection of 29 essays is based on presentations at the Film
Archive as a Research Laboratory conference, held in 2013 in Amsterdam and
Groningen, and they discuss the role of the archive in current academic teaching
and research on film. The editors are Giovanna Fossati1 and Annie van den
Oever.2 With this volume, their aim is to research the history and development
of film studies through a media-archaeological perspective.
   This approach begins by reflecting on the etymology of the term ‘technol-
ogy’, which comes from the ancient Greek techné and thus captured both con-
cepts of craft and art. As such, cinema and media technologies face the com-
plex challenge of their contemporaneity, deeply impacting the society in which
they emerge. The authors are well aware of the theoretical background in media
studies, established by Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler,
Bernard Stiegler, Paul Virilio etc. Nevertheless, here this study of media history
and theory predominantly addresses the ‘exposure’ of devices and apparatuses

1
  Giovanna Fossati, From Grain to Pixel: The Archival Life of Film in Transition (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 2009).
2
  Annie van den Oever, Techné/Technology: Researching Cinema and Media Technologies, their
Development, Use, and Impact (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014).

                                      Cinéma & Cie, vol. XVI, no. 26-27, Spring/Summer 2016
                             Reviews / Comptes-rendus


by reassessing the history of audiovisual media, and it focuses specifically on the
practical applications of these epistemic objects.
   In fact, media technology questions its own historical determination, while
moreover investigating the role of the film archive: the main idea of this volume is
to promote new forms of collaboration between academic and cultural heritage
institutions, and thus invite media historians to interpret museums and archives
as research laboratories. Film archivists today seek to reframe the meaning of
their collections in view of this moment of technological transition, while film
scholars are currently redefining the conceptual issues related to film history and
to the so-called ‘digital turn’. As such, practices of archival institutions become
crucial in a rapidly changing ‘mediascape’, which in turn is connected to an
ecosystem of apparatus advancements: for example, every tool for darkened
rooms (projectors, printers, cameras) has made its mark in the moving image
heritage. In this framework, the intertwined genealogies of art and media relate
the cultural value of technological artifacts to an epistemological relevance,
overcoming the traditional reticence for apparatuses in film studies. In the
volume, apparatuses are re-conceptualized by film scholars and curators within
a trajectory that goes from the small to the large: a first section, entitled Small
and Portable, includes analyses of the portable devices, comparing the impact of
smartphones, portable cameras – such as the hand-cranked Debrie Parvo, which
dates back early 1900s – and devices like the 16mm Movie Maker or Ciné-Kodak
system, for amateur use. Histories of material objects and of amateur filmmaking
practices are intertwined, with particularly original contribution focuses on
tools like the tripod. From the iPhone back to the Edison Ideal Kinematograph,
through the history of Bolex cameras, VCD and Sony Video Rover Ensemble,
this section reflects on the crucial role of devices in the spectator’s relationship
with the moving image. The second section, Medium and Not Easily Portable,
examines projectors (from Kinemacolor to a 2k DLP Digital Cinema Projector)
and other machinery such as the 1909 Pathé Frères stencil-cutter or the Biophon
sound-on-disc system. The final section of the volume, Large and Not Portable, is
dedicated to bigger apparatuses used in post-production. From printers to editing
tables, from 19th-century stereoscopy to 3D computer graphics, installations and
databases, and from movie theaters to augmented reality, this expanded idea
of cinema responds to the widespread presence of the moving image that has
continually shaped our daily life.
   The universe of visual arts and the spaces of modern life have been permeated
by the functions of all these devices, which impact cinema both as an art form
and an industry. With the introduction of digital technologies, the heritage of
the moving image is becoming a more complex cultural object: it now reflects
technological progress and its social impact, due to the status of contemporary
media formats and their specific modes of fruition.
   The theoretical framing of this research adopts Michel Foucault’s definition of
the dispositif – later used by Jean-Louis Baudry and Giorgio Agamben; accord-
ing to this theory, the mechanics of representation in cinema engender a power

168
      Giovanna Fossati and Annie van den Oever (eds.), Exposing the Film Apparatus


dynamic, connecting the audience and spectatorial practices within an ‘imagi-
nary relation’, i.e. the immaterial effects of the work of the apparatus. But the
cinematic medium does not involve only a trascendental condition: technology
must be recognized as categorical in the epistemology of the media. Accordingly,
this book engages in an analysis of the experiences activated by various devices
by promoting scholarly awareness of the materiality of the apparatus. The heu-
ristic methodology of ‘re-enactment’, already well-established in the field of ex-
perimental archaeology and in the history of science, directs the research of this
edited collection towards an experimental approach, which focuses both on the
discursive construction of epistemological structures related to the media, and
the materiality of the various devices as well as their modes of use.


             [Rossella Catanese, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”]




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