Counter-Devices of Moving Image: The Werner Nekes Collection

Abstract

If we trace an archaeological perspective on the history of moving image, we will invariably find innumerable visual devices that both belong to the field of science and that have become popular optical toys. Allowing therefore to put in discussion if the nature of cinematic experience is in fact rooted historically in cinema, since this is a diffuse experience, synthesized in devices that wanted to give back anima to what had previously been fixed in an image. It is for this precise reason that it is particularly pertinent to approach in this context the Werner Nekes' collection of optical devices, because it possesses unique qualities as an archive that condenses the history of visual media, cross-referencing it with visual culture in its popular expression, as well as with the universe of fine arts and contemporary art.