Projections Volume 6, Issue 2, Winter 2012: 102–120 © Berghahn Journals doi: 10.3167/proj.2012.060207 ISSN 1934-9688 (Print), ISSN 1934-9696 (Online) The Archive Effect: Archival Footage as an Experience of Reception Jaimie Baron Abstract: In recent years, “the archive” as both a concept and an object has been undergoing a transformation. The increased availability of still and video cameras, analog and then digital, has led to a proliferation of indexical docu- ments outside of official archives and prompted questions about what consti- tutes an “archive,” and, hence, what constitute “archival documents.” At the same time, filmmakers are appropriating sounds and images from various sources, thereby breaking down the distinction between “found” and “archival” documents. This situation calls for a reformulation of the very no- tion of the archival document. This article reframes the archival document not as an object but as a spectatorial experience or a relationship between viewer and text. I contend that certain appropriated audiovisual documents produce for the viewer what I call the “archive effect” and that this encounter endows these documents with a particular kind of authority as “evidence.” Keywords: appropriation, documentary, evidence, film, found footage, histori- ography, history, perception, viewer In the past several decades, the archive as both a concept and an object has been undergoing a transformation. Although official photography, film, and television archives still promote their holdings as the most valuable and au- thentic basis for documentary films on historical topics, other kinds of audio- visual archives have begun to compete with them. Online databases and private collections, in particular, threaten to unseat official archives as the pri- mary purveyors of evidentiary audiovisual documents. Indeed, while amateur photography, film, and video have always existed in an uneasy relationship with official archives, the increased availability of still and video cameras, ana- log and then digital, has led to a proliferation of indexical documents outside of official archives. It has also prompted questions about the nature of “archival documents” and their historical and social value as well as about their preservation. Since the 1990s official archives have been archiving ama- teur films, including home movies, but the rise of amateur video in particular has made the preservation of such documents increasingly partial (Zimmer-