Entre archives et archive : l’espace inarchivé et inarchivable du cinéma de réemploi
Between archives, as defined by archival science, and the archive as a concept used outside of the discipline, there is a semantic, conceptual and theoretical gap. On one side archives represent the documentary by-product of human activity retained for their long-term value. On the other the archive has become a conceptual and critical tool to address a variety of ideas linked to memory and history. However, this interval between archives and archive is particularly fertile. In this space, nontraditional archives users, such as found footage filmmakers (whose works consist in reusing pre-existing footage) find inspiration. Through the narratives of their work, they show what is not always visible in archives. From the decomposition of film stock to the power dynamics behind archiving and its tacit narratives, through emotions and affect conveyed by records, the artworks confront us with a double unarchived and unarchivable dimension (what is not archived and what cannot be archived), constituent of how archives are created. Studying the archives that are part of found footage works through their usage (exploitation), namely their uses and potentials uses, it is possible to categorize the composition of the unarchived and the unarchivable. Three main divisions emerge from this analysis: the absence, linked to gaps, fragments and incompleteness; the forbidden that manifests in archives as material traces; the invisible that takes part in what is not shown. These three categories have to do with an unconceived (impensé): a state of the archival field reflecting the intentional or unintentional inconceivability or omission of some of its theoretical or practical aspects. In investing in the unconceived, in other words studying archival science from practices on the margins, it is possible to renew ideas and discourses inside the discipline.
Archives Archive Absence Invisible Found footage Archival usage Archival science Unarchivable Unconceived Forbidden