ABSTRACT
Nowadays, digital media frame how we experience our physical “presence” and the temporal category of “the present.” At the same time it seems that it has never been easier to access the “past” of moving images: This comprises the films but also film historic knowledge about restorations, etc. This chapter sheds a light on the experiential historiographic effects. A first case study discusses the representation of film restorations on the internet. It demonstrates “comparative vision” to be a pivotal element within the context of an aisthetic historiography which operates in digital dispositifs. The term “dispositif” reflects the institutional structures as well as digital spatial arrangements that establish “the politics of time”: A public debate in 2020 serves as a second case study. The politics of time turn into methodological questions that emerge when working with digitized historic material. The spatiotemporal dynamics point towards the necessity of a performative notion of film history.
