Sound and Vision: The Audio-Visual Archive

Over the course of the past two decades the increasing digitization and accessibility of audio-visual archival materials has prompted both an ontological and participatory rethinking of the archive as a haptic and static textual repository. As we emerge from the initial shocks of the archive as digital projection we can start to assess where we currently stand and where we need to journey next using the audio-visual archive as a test-bed for new experiences and concepts. This chapter draws on current research to model the future potential of the audio-visual archive (and by extension other archival forms) and examines how the idea of the text as something fixed can be remade within a range of contexts. Drawing on examples of creative partnerships, experimental and contested practices it considers the new potentiality of the archive as a self-mediated, sensorious, and immersive experience that is increasingly integrated within social and cultural practices.