The concerns of this thesis stem from the reflections of a filmmaker and the recognition
of artists’ use of archival materials in moving image practice as an intervention in
making visible aspects of experience that are implicit and often left out of linear
accounts of a history of technologies. The implications of the thesis are that in the
strategic mobilisation of moving image artefacts in the archive in their inter-relationship
of making and viewing, concerns over what is not present, what is missing, what is unarchivable,
what is fragmentary, and the copy are alleviated.
The thesis conceives of the Mnemosyne Radical Moving Image Archive as an
artistic archival practice to challenge traditional approaches to archiving moving
images. The project is proposed in order to overcome dualistic conceptions of moving
image archives as either technological or cultural, which are highlighted through
concerns such as digitisation and accessibility. Notions of a Radical Moving Image
Archive as a Problematic presents archival knowledge as a co-construction of image,
apparatus, maker, and viewer. The thesis proceeds from a media archaeological
approach to the study of media technologies in order to elaborate an understanding of
moving images as a network of technological apparatus that are historically, culturally,
politically, and aesthetically contingent. As a speculative archival practice, the
Mnemosyne Radical Moving Image Archive builds upon the work of art historian Aby
Warburg’s approach to the Mnemosyne Atlas project, particularly through the concept
of assemblage, utilising comparison and disjuncture to read the image contextually in
multiple aspects. This practice is also considered in light of Jakob von Ueküll’s notion
of umwelt. The Mnemosyne Radical Moving Image Archive takes images and sequences
from moving image works to problematise traditional film studies categories of the
moving image, as form, auteur, spectator, nation, etc., to assert other potential relations
amongst the works.
Date of Award | 2017 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | |
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Supervisor | Michael Punt (Other Supervisor) |
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Notions of a Radical Moving Image Archive as a Problematic
Egbe, A. (Author). 2017
Student thesis: MPhil