Overview
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 equipment 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 also through the emergence of large private collections, thanks to which apparatuses, and possible analog forms of use, are now being made available again.
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 special 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.
