A History of Pathé 9.5mm film

Speeches/Talks (2021)

Presentation about the history of Pathé 9.5mm film for students of the Lycée Technique des Arts et Métiers (LTAM) in Luxembourg. Invited lecture organized by the Centre national de l'audiovisuel (CNA ... [more ▼]

Presentation about the history of Pathé 9.5mm film for students of the Lycée Technique des Arts et Métiers (LTAM) in Luxembourg. Invited lecture organized by the Centre national de l'audiovisuel (CNA) Luxembourg, Dudelange, on 17 March 2021. [less ▲]

Performing a historical re-enactment: the making of a 16mm home movie

Presentation (2020, December 18)

In this presentation, I will “perform” the making of a 16mm home movie based on my media archaeological experiments with an original Ciné-Kodak film camera from 1930. A split screen montage shows the ... [more ▼]

In this presentation, I will “perform” the making of a 16mm home movie based on my media archaeological experiments with an original Ciné-Kodak film camera from 1930. A split screen montage shows the recorded analogue film fragments besides footage that illustrates the process of making the film captured by my documentation equipment, including a digital video camera, GoPro and 360 degree camera. My contribution aims to discuss and re-evaluate the performative nature of media archaeological experiments, and how digital (documentation) tools enable new forms of presentation, explication and dissemination of historical tacit knowledge in early-twentieth century amateur filmmaking. [less ▲]

Inside the Trading Zone: Thinkering in a Digital History Lab

in Digital Humanities Quarterly (2020), 14(3),

The goal of this article is to critically reflect on the practical and epistemological challenges of doing historical research in the digital age. The analysis is based on a case study of the Doctoral ... [more ▼]

The goal of this article is to critically reflect on the practical and epistemological challenges of doing historical research in the digital age. The analysis is based on a case study of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) “Digital History and Hermeneutics”, an interdisciplinary research and training programme that was established at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) of the University of Luxembourg. The DTU is designed as interdisciplinary trading zone that applies the method of “thinkering” – the tinkering with technology combined with the critical reflection on the practice of doing digital history. Based on this case study, the article addresses the question of how to constitute an interdisciplinary trading zone in practice and how to situate this trading zone in physical working environments, like a Digital History Lab and shared office space. [less ▲]

From Kinora to Small-Gauge: An Experimental Media Archaeological Approach to Early-Twentieth Century Home Cinema

Presentation (2019, December 17)

In this workshop contribution, I present my post-doctoral study within the "Doing Experimental Media Archaeology" (DEMA) research project in which I examine the genealogy of home cinema and amateur ... [more ▼]

In this workshop contribution, I present my post-doctoral study within the "Doing Experimental Media Archaeology" (DEMA) research project in which I examine the genealogy of home cinema and amateur moviemaking as early-twentieth century practices by means of a comparative, intermedial and experimental media archaeological approach. Through hands-on media archaeological experiments with the Kinora, one of the first motion picture viewing and recording technologies designed for home use from the 1900s, and various “small-gauge” film technologies from the 1920s and early 1930s, including Pathé-Baby 9.5mm and Kodak 16mm film cameras and projectors, two different “dispositifs” of home cinema and amateur moviemaking will be explored and compared. Various hands-on experiments will be conducted to provide a better understanding of the materiality and functionality of the Kinora and small-gauge film technologies as historical media objects as well as their technological affordances and performative qualities. The study aims to contribute to the development of experimental media archaeology as an alternative, experimental and sensorial approach to media historiography. [less ▲]

Digital History as Trading Zone? Reflections from a Doctoral Training Unit

Scientific Conference (2019, September 12)

This paper addresses the question how Digital History “trading zones” are being constituted in practice and how they are situated in physical working environments. The analysis is based on a case study of ... [more ▼]

This paper addresses the question how Digital History “trading zones” are being constituted in practice and how they are situated in physical working environments. The analysis is based on a case study of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) “Digital History and Hermeneutics”, an interdisciplinary research and training programme that was established at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) of the University of Luxembourg. The DTU is designed as an interdisciplinary “trading zone”, in which thirteen doctoral candidates with different disciplinary backgrounds – from history, linguistics and philosophy to computer and information science – reflect on the epistemological and methodological challenges of doing digital history and humanities research (Fickers 2015, 2012). The paper reflects on the project’s first year, in which the doctoral researchers were introduced to various skills and methods in digital humanities as part of the so-called “DH incubation phase”. This phase included trainings in text mining, digital source criticism, database structures, data visualization, GIS analysis, tool criticism and algorithmic critique. The paper presents some of the main practical and epistemological opportunities and challenges of “thinkering”: the playful experimentation with digital tools and technologies for doing historical research. It furthermore reflects on the practical and institutional challenges of constituting an interdisciplinary trading zone, like the DTU. As such, it addresses a number of critical questions: How to build bridges between different knowledge domains in a specific research environment? How to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration and to get scholars out of their disciplinary or methodological comfort zones? What is at stake in such interdisciplinary trading zones? Who are the traders – and what is being traded? The analysis is informed by studies on interdisciplinarity (Klein 2015, Deegan and McCarty 2012, Stehr and Weingart 2000), trading zones (Collins et al. 2007, Galison 1996, Kemman 2019) and communities of practice (Wenger 1998). Empirically, it draws on a series of semi-structured interviews and thirty-nine self-reflexive training reports, in which the doctoral researchers of the DTU discuss their experiences of doing digital history and hermeneutics in an interdisciplinary setting. Finally, the paper evaluates the suitability of the trading zone concept as analytical framework for studying interdisciplinary collaborations in Digital History as a field. [less ▲]

'Analogue Renaissance': Strategies of Technostalgia with Kodak’s new Super 8 film camera

Scientific Conference (2018, November 09)

“There are some moments that digital just can’t deliver, because it doesn’t have the incomparable depth and beauty of film. These moments inspired Kodak to design a new generation of film cameras.” Along ... [more ▼]

“There are some moments that digital just can’t deliver, because it doesn’t have the incomparable depth and beauty of film. These moments inspired Kodak to design a new generation of film cameras.” Along with this mission statement, Kodak announced the making of a new Super 8 film camera at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2016. The announcement preceded the re-release of various other “retro” and “vintage” products in the following years, including Kodak’s iconic Ektachrome film stock. This paper critically investigates Kodak’s so-called “Analogue Renaissance”, the return of these analogue amateur film technologies that used to be widely popular among amateur film and home moviemakers in the 1970s. The re-releases not only fostered the imagination of numerous hobbyists around the world who were familiar with analogue filmmaking already, but also a new generation of users interested in film’s analogue aesthetic and material qualities. The paper analyses Kodak’s cross-generational attempt to remediate, revive and re-imagine the Super 8 film camera as a past media technology in particular. Drawing on the concept of “technostalgia”, the reminiscence of past media technologies in contemporary memory practices, it aims to further build on previous attempts to theorize the dynamic relations between the past and the present, the analogue and the digital, and the archival and the performative. While Kodak has been strategically framing the new Super 8 film camera under the label of the “Analogue Renaissance”, it will be shown that it not limits itself to remediating the design and analogue functionality of the device’s idiosyncratic equivalent. On the contrary, remarkably enough, the new Super 8 camera comes with several additional digital features, such as the recording of digital sound and a LCD display. The paper argues that this merging of the film camera’s original analogue features with digital ones makes Kodak’s new film camera a fundamental “hybrid” media technology, whose manufacturer’s attempt to update it to the present day by adding digital features entails more than just a way of enhancing user possibilities and experiences. While Kodak advertises its new device with a statement that aims to exaggerate the impossibilities of the digital, it will be argued that Kodak’s new Super 8 film camera requires a theoretical thinking that moves beyond the analogue-digital divide as well as previous conceptualizations of (tech)nostalgia. [less ▲]

Home Movie Day 2018: van smalfilm tot selfie

Speeches/Talks (2018)

Home Movie Day at Eye Filmmuseum is an international tribute to the amateur film. This year, Home Movie Day highlights the history of amateur film which spans more than 100 years: from film strips to ... [more ▼]

Home Movie Day at Eye Filmmuseum is an international tribute to the amateur film. This year, Home Movie Day highlights the history of amateur film which spans more than 100 years: from film strips to selfies. How has the making and screening of amateur films and home movies changed in the past century? Who was filming? How and what did they film? And what role did the changing media landscape play? Eye celebrates the Home Movie Day on 20 October. The worldwide tribute to the amateur film has been organised every year since 2002, in countries such as the United States, Argentina and Japan. This edition, through the use of special objects and historical archive material, Home Movie Day zooms in on a number of drastic changes in amateur film. There was the rise of home video in the 1970s and 80s, and the transition from analogue to digital. The amateur and family filmer first filmed on a narrow film or Super8. After these transitions, there were plenty of new possibilities to capture daily life. On October 20 at 15.00 there is a lecture and presentation (90', in Dutch) in Eye in cooperation with Stichting Amateurfilm and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The lecture will be held by Tim van der Heijden, media historian and board member of Stichting Amateurfilm. After the presentation, there is an opportunity to exchange information, ask questions and view the exhibited equipment. [less ▲]

Conceptualizing Tactics and Engagement in Amateur Media Practices: A Longue Durée Perspective

Scientific Conference (2018, June 27)

This paper reflects on media tactics and engagement in amateur media practices from a longue durée perspective. More specifically, it addresses the question how discourses on and from users of different ... [more ▼]

This paper reflects on media tactics and engagement in amateur media practices from a longue durée perspective. More specifically, it addresses the question how discourses on and from users of different amateur and home movie technologies – from film via home video to digital media – reflect various forms of engagement, adaptation and resistance in amateur user practices. In the history of amateur filmmaking, a wide variety of users can be identified – from family filmmakers to cine-club hobbyists or even avant-garde artists. Differentiating not only between user types, but also between user generations, this paper argues, is helpful for understanding the user dynamics involved in so-called periods of transition, when the introduction of a new media technology brings about an (re)positioning of users vis-à-vis the new media technology’s affordances and constraints within its different contexts of use. Based on a historical discourse analysis of a wide variety of amateur photography, film and video magazines published between 1895 and 2005, the paper aims to provide both a conceptual and long-term historical reflection on this user dynamics involved in transitions of amateur media technologies and user practices. In total four periods of transition will be compared: the introduction of (1) small-gauge technologies in the 1920s and 1930s, (2) Super 8 film technologies in the 1960s, (3) home video technologies in the late 1970s and 1980s, and (4) digital media technologies in the 1990s and 2000s. Distinguishing between so-called ‘first-time users’, ‘adoptive users’ and ‘resistant users’ as together constituting a user generation in these four periods of transition, shows that while tactics and engagement involved in amateur media practices may take different forms throughout time, dependent on user types and contexts of use, actually various continuities (e.g. democratization discourses) and “historical hybridities” can be found in and between user generations of twentieth-century amateur media technologies. [less ▲]

Hybrid Histories: Technologies of Memory and the Cultural Dynamics of Home Movies, 1895-2005 (presentation)

Scientific Conference (2018, May 25)

In this presentation, I will present my PhD dissertation on the cultural dynamics of home movies in the twentieth century. In my research, I have investigated how various generations have recorded their ... [more ▼]

In this presentation, I will present my PhD dissertation on the cultural dynamics of home movies in the twentieth century. In my research, I have investigated how various generations have recorded their memories on film, video and digital media, and, more specifically, how changes in these “technologies of memory” have shaped new forms of home movie making and screening. Covering the period from the invention of the film camera in the late nineteenth century, the introduction of 9.5mm, 16mm, 8mm small-gauges and Super 8 film technologies for amateurs, via home video to digital media technologies, this study addresses the complex interrelations between the materiality of film, video and digital media technologies, their social usages and cultural meanings from a long-term historical perspective. Focusing on specific periods of transition, it becomes clear that different media technologies, user practices and discourses not only succeed each other in time, but also increasingly interrelate, interact or even transform each other. Maintaining both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective on media transitions, I propose an alternative form of media historiography that rethinks media histories beyond the frameworks of change and continuity by perceiving hybridity as a constant factor in media historical development. [less ▲]

Historicizing Home Movie Practices: Two Complementary Perspectives

Article for general public (2018)