Embedded Archives: Video Evidence and Database Memory of War in Syria

Abstract:This article is the first of its kind to critically assess the Syrian Archive, a born-digital video archive that preserves footage of war and political violence. It does so with an eye toward classical archival theory, contemporary geopolitics, and theories of representation in documentary cinema. It also analyzes nonfiction moving images as objects gathered and mobilized for imperialism, examining the use of violent and abject images within databases as a very particular discourse of power. It contrasts the approach taken by the Syrian Archive with bak.ma, a video database that emerged out of the Gezi Park protests in Turkey. As a theoretical intervention, this article suggests that moving image archives produced, preserved, and purveyed through recent forms of online activism will become increasingly central within archival studies.