Amateur Film Archeology

Supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, this research project on Amateur Film Archeology is the first of its kind to systematically analyze cinematographic expressions and practices of amateur film. Thus, it defines itself as a developmental project in a field that has only been partially recognized by international scientific research. The primary goal of the research project is the systematic analysis of approximately 7,000 roughly organized rolls of amateur film from the collection of the Austrian Film Museum.

 

The extensive archive includes a wide range of filmic documents in terms of time of origin, modes of addressing the audience as well as “authorship,” and offers a rich basis for the fundamental study of amateur film: early amateur feature films; a collection focussing on the 1920s and 30s; biographically reconstructible home movies such as the unique filmic catalog of the Apfelthaler Collection (approx. 150 rolls, including several "actualities"); intricately constructed Kulturfilme; or a special inventory of flea market finds from very different sources (Arash Collection Arash, ca. 1930 to 1980).

 

The project aims at reconstructing the history of themes and aesthetic forms in their given heterogeneity and at relating them to those cultural practices whose result and expression they are. Thus, two requirements that were voiced during recent debates on the subject are being addressed here: On the one hand, the study includes not only the aesthetic forms of 'home movies' but also the work of so-called 'ambitious amateurs'; on the other hand, the historical development of aesthetic forms is explored to determine which influencing factors - technological developments, socio-historical contexts or intermedia aspects - define their genesis.

 

The research project aims at uncovering factual, historical, social and material information that amateur film can claim within modern visual culture, as well as developing the methodological and analytical tools, expanding them on an empirical basis, and makinge that information accessible to academic research. 

  

Siegfried Mattl, Univ. Doz. Dr. (Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Institut für Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Cluster Geschichte)

 

Project staff:

Vrääth Öhner, Dr. (Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Geschichte und Gesellschaft)

Karin Fest, Mag.ª (Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Geschichte und Gesellschaft)

The research project Amateur Film Archeology. Excavations in modern visual culture is funded by The Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Project number: P23093.

  

To the project homepage

To the homepage of the Chair of Media History, University of Siegen

To the homepage of Medienamateure

To the homepage of the Kinothek Asta Nielsen