The Archive Effect: Archival Footage as an Experience of Reception.

In recent years, 'the archive' as both a concept and an object has been undergoing a transformation. The increased availability of still and video cameras, analog and then digital, has led to a proliferation of indexical documents outside of official archives and prompted questions about what constitutes an 'archive,' and, hence, what constitute 'archival documents.' At the same time, filmmakers are appropriating sounds and images from various sources, thereby breaking down the distinction between 'found' and 'archival' documents. This situation calls for a reformulation of the very notion of the archival document. This article reframes the archival document not as an object but as a spectatorial experience or a relationship between viewer and text. I contend that certain appropriated audiovisual documents produce for the viewer what I call the 'archive effect' and that this encounter endows these documents with a particular kind of authority as 'evidence.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]