Media Archaelogy and Found Footage Films

Abstract

This essay examines appropriation as a gesture that encourages found footage filmmakers to decolonize images produced under a dominant system of conventions and stereotypes. To demostrate this, it will be discussed the film Introduction to the End of an Argument: Speaking for oneself… Speaking for others…, made by Jayce Salloum and Elia Suleiman in 1990. In this particular context, decolonizing images will be understood as the movement of transcending a partial, unacceptable vision of the world, while transcending will be considered analogous with alternative forms of filmmaking, of revealing what has been hidden by a central meaning. From the archeology of the media as a methodology for conducting research, it will be proven how found footage films—through the use of multiple techniques, through the use of diverse media sources—make possible a critical rereading of the images that surround us.