Film History As Media Archaeology ─ Tracking Digital Cinema

Since cinema has entered the digital era, its very nature has come under renewed scrutiny. Countering the "death of cinema" debate,Film History, Media Archaeology and the Poetics of Obsolescence presents a robust overall argument for cinema's current status as a new epistemological object of interest to philosophers, while also examining the presence of moving images in museum and art spaces as a challenge for art history. The study is the fruit of twenty years of research and writing at the interface of film history, media theory, and media archaeology by one of the acknowledged pioneers of new film history and media archaeology. It joins the efforts of other media scholars to locate cinema's historical emergence and subsequent transformations within the broader field of media change and interaction as we experience them today.
 

Thomas Elsaesser is professor emeritus of film and television studies in the Department of Art and Culture at the University of Amsterdam.