Returns of the Archaic, Reserves for the Future: A Conversation with Alexander Kluge

“Where Is ‘Frankfurt’ Now?”

“…Indeed, like Steyerl's installation, Wer sich traut functions as a persistent engage ment with digital image culture through a dialectical process of entry and distillation, creation and "image destruction," extending these importantly collaborative projects of the Frankfurt School into the digital domain. 3 While his prominence in the call for papers (and in the world of German film and media more generally) may have led some German colleagues to anticipate a "Kluge that have yet to be realized. Maybe it was the jet lag, but I felt welcomed, again, into the contemplation of potentiality via Melian's practice of openness: through accu mulation without closure, through sounds without corre sponding images, through historical fragments that remain available resources for the future.…”