Images as portals to themselves

This essay explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the public presentation of film heritage in contemporary museums, focusing on two case studies: the Film Catcher installation at the Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam) and the online collection interface of ACMI (Melbourne). Both institutions employ AI-driven image and sound analysis tools to allow users to navigate their digitized collections through unconventional filters such as color, shape, movement, and audio transcription. These categories, once peripheral in archival curation, are now central entry points for audience engagement, enabled by algorithmic perception. The essay examines this shift as both a critical and material transformation in curatorial practice, analyzing how AI mediates the encounter between visitors and cinema history. Through a comparative reading of the two museums’ institutional strategies and digital interfaces, it considers how machine vision challenges traditional modes of classification and interpretation, decentering the human gaze and reconfiguring visual access to film heritage. In doing so, it situates these innovations within a broader redefinition of museums as institutions which are responding to the challenges of digitization, networked culture, and participatory media environments. Ultimately, the essay argues that museums embracing AI are not only rethinking curation, but actively shaping new frameworks for cultural memory and meaning-making in the digital age.