ABSTRACT
In line with the call on film museums to use their archives as research laboratories in Exposing the Film Apparatus (2016), this chapter discusses new developments since, among them: radical media archaeology (Ernst, Emerson) and the “materiality of media” (Kittler); and the effects of the exposure to the smartphone as a black-boxed cinematic apparatus, which allows its users a closer and more physical relationship with the technological devices for filmmaking than ever before in history (Odin). This begs the question whether this omnipresent device that asks to be handled and touched has inspired new directions in archival and curatorial practices and media archaeology. This underlying assumption forms the heart of a hands-on workshop with students in a post-apartheid setting.
