archive fever

In relation to a film, a museum essentially needs to preserve, show and interpret not just an object/artefact, but a system, more specifically a working system. The term “object” and “artefact” fall short in relation to what film is, because they only refer to one element of the film equation (the film strip). It is a necessary element for creating the film experience…but it is certainly not identical with it. The term film experience, on the other hand, is not a sensible replacement term either. An experience is something individual; too much of it resides in the unattainable world of the viewer. A museum cannot “preserve” something which, to a high degree, is outside its influence. It can only establish the conditions for a film experience to take place. A further conceptual step brings us closer to what we’re searching for: The film experience is enabled by a performance of a film – the act of putting the “time-less” film-object/artefact into a machine which…produces the phenomenon we call film.

Alexander Horwath (in Film Curatorship: Archives, Museums and the Digital Marketplace)

(Source: subjective-objective, via bestmatedonnanoble)

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