Exposing the Film Apparatus The Film Archive as a Research Laboratory

The book adresses media apparatuses and the awareness of the prominence of media technologies in our culture in the last two centuries. Thirty-two international media scholars and professionals shed their light on this heterogeneous subject. The book has three parts. Part I, "small and portable", elaborates on thinking about technology, film history and the history of technology. Part II, "Medium and not easily portable", describes the archive as a research laboratory and the apparatuses in film archives and museums. Part III, "Large and not portable", plays with the idea of opening an imaginary vault of a media archive. The different approaches in the book correspondend with perspectives on film study and on film archival practice. Some film archivists and curators have chosen some of the apparatuses from their everyday practice. All kind of apparatuses are described, from Edison's Ideal kinematograph, Debrie Parvo camera, Vitascope Movie-maker, Ciné-Kodak, Orbit, Bolex, Video Compact Disc, Sony's Video Rover Ensemble to the iPhone.