The Promise and Threat of Reproducibility
The Promise and Threat of Reproducibility
Film theory has largely overlooked the fact that film and video are founded in an economy of the multiple. In this chapter, I outline a theory of the moving image as a reproducible medium that considers the way an image may be copied repeatedly so as to facilitate circulation across distribution networks. By moving into this domain, one confronts not the questions of indexicality, documentary, and realism that so often get asked in relation to the image’s status as a copy of the profilmic; rather, issues of authority, originality, and authenticity become paramount. This chapter unfolds what is at stake in approaching the moving image in this way and will examine how its reproducibility has been conceived of as both a utopian promise and the site of a dangerous inauthenticity since its emergence in the late nineteenth century.
Keywords: Authenticity, Rarity, Reproducibility, Copy, old media, new media
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