Materiality and Montage: Film Studies, Digital Humanities and the Visualization of Moving Images

Abstract

In this paper, I will highlight some recent initiatives in the study of film within the digital humanities, in which context I will also present some of my own endeavors, specifically visualizations created in collaboration with the pioneering new media theorist Lev Manovich from films made by the Soviet avant-garde director Dziga Vertov (1896-1954). Following this, I will discuss some of the issues related to the use of visualizations as an aid to scholarly research. Finally, I will address a number of possible research questions in film and media studies, answers to which may benefit significantly from the collaboration between film/media scholars and computer scientists on the one hand, and (moving image) archivists on the other.