TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

From exhibition prints to matrices

What we have described so far in our fictional scenario is the material history of the film, a multilayered account of what happened to the creative work as a whole and to the physical components created for its duplication and exhibition. For the sake of argument, it shall be assumed that one of the elements of our case study – print 36, a nitrate positive – has been found somewhere, formally acquired by a museum as part of its permanent collection, and believed to be the only extant one for that title. The lonely messenger of what the creative work once was becomes the protagonist of a totally different story, unfolding in what is referred to as the art and technique of film preservation.