Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices

Abstract

This book review gives an overview of the key concepts and themes of Catherine Russell’s new book Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices. Russell describes ‘archiveology’ as a critical artistic practice of engaging with the archive: re-mixing, re-purposing, re-cutting, and re-contextualizing moving images. Her central interest lies in thinking about cinema as it passes into the digital in terms of translation and considers archiveology as a language through which we can understand media culture at this contemporary moment where analogue media takes on a new aura in its obsolescence.