Sensing Film Archival Data The Film Catcher

Analysing the Eye Filmmuseum’s permanent installation The Film Catcher through the lens of film cataloguing and digital heritage theory, this chapter argues that the installation reflects the confluence of a long-standing wish for multimedia retrieval in film scholarship, and a current turn towards sensory collection access in museology, where leaving behind the written word as a privileged entry point is increasingly seen as affording greater participation, agency and inclusivity. Placing The Film Catcher in the context of historical and contemporary debates, the chapter discusses how the installation reflects current sensory heritage approaches to collection access, and the visualisation-driven sense-making of audiovisual archives, while recasting the Filmmuseum’s practice of challenging traditional film historical categories.