Object definition: Digitization threatens not only the loss of analogue devices and related dispositives, but also of knowledge formations, specific perceptions of aesthetics and modes of use. The project explores archiving practices of analogue film devices with a special focus on historical and future forms of use and will anchor these within the framework of theoretical conceptualizations. We are concentrating on private collections from Switzerland, which usually collect with different objectives and a broader scope than official institutions, and the collectors often have a different knowledge of the devices. This is a project with both a theoretical and a practical focus. The urgency is determined by different aspects: Analog film apparatuses are being displaced in the industry, but are coming back into the public eye through various processes – on the one hand through new digital technologies, which enable renewed use and thus lead to increased demand, but on the other hand also through the emergence of large private collections, thanks to which apparatuses, and possible analog forms of use, are now being made available again.

 

Questions: The central aspect relates questions of archiving and making the apparatuses available to a possible renewed use of old media and modes of use with the help of new digital media. A materially oriented concept of remediatization offers an important frame of reference for analysing how old media and practices with new media become hybrid forms through which specific knowledge formations can be secured. There is a need for research here above all at the level of the devices themselves, which is why repair knowledge is a central component of relevance alongside use. This culture of repair is no longer primarily aimed at maintenance, but rather at extending the use of old devices through the development and production of new spare parts, which thus serve as prostheses.

 

Methods: As this project brings together various collections, collectors and apparatuses that cannot be classified according to the usual instruments, a transdisciplinary approach informed by film studies is applied. Methods of praxeology and ethnography are central to the topic in order to be able to analyse and systematize modes of use. Production studies approaches are important in order to make actors in the production process theoretically describable. Approaches from cultural technology research should be applied in relation to historical apparatuses.

 

Relevance: The topicality and relevance of the project is based on the existence of unique – and currently still locally available – private collections of cinematographic apparatus in Switzerland, which would either be broken up, sold or disposed of in the next few years. At this point in time, we can still determine how older dispositives have shaped specific knowledge and perception formations and how these relate to current power relations. To ensure that this research can continue in the future, the project aims to answer the fundamental questions. With the Lichtspiel Kinemathek Bern as a project partner, we have an expert in collections, museums, apparatus history, repair knowledge and oral history in the project and, with the Cinémathèque suisse, an expert in the evaluation of collections and professional archiving.