Introduction: Reusing Research Film and the Institute for Scientific Film

Abstract

This introduction outlines the threefold contribution that this Focus section on research film offers. First, it introduces the vast collection of films from the former Institute for Scientific Film (Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film [IWF]), arguably the most ambitious endeavor ever undertaken to manage the distribution, production, and archiving of research films. At the same time, the institute's questionable roots in the National Socialist education system and in war research are addressed. Second, the introduction points out that the Focus section enters largely uncharted terrain in the history of research films. Third, it argues that a focus on the multiple reuses of research films, as this section attempts, not only suits the medium specificity of film but helps us to map the aesthetic, intermedial, and cultural-political practices of disseminating knowledge. In this vein, the organizers asked established scholars working on film and science to share with us a short story of a reused research film. Scott Curtis, Vinzenz Hediger, Anja Laukötter, and Hanna Rose Shell responded. Their contributions can be found in the supplementary materials to the online edition.

Images on the Move

“…By pointing out the range of variations that the same material can cycle throughout history, our aim is to better map the aesthetic, intermedial and cultural transformations associated with the constant 'reuse' and 'recycling practices' of film material. We want to show that scientific films cannot be fully understood at just one point in their existence but rather through their processes and ongoing analog as well as digital (re)cyclings (Sattelmacher, Schulze, and Waltenspül 2021).…”