Albert Kahn. The Planet Archives

En The invisible cities In Italo Calvino's work, there is mention of a Great Khan who possesses an enormous atlas whose designs represent the globe as a whole and also continent by continent. It depicts the borders of the most distant kingdoms, maritime routes, coastlines, and plans of the most illustrious metropolises and opulent ports. We could almost say that all of this became a reality in a project called The Archives of the Planet [ADP]. Its mentor and ideologue was named Albert Kahn He was a banker of Alsatian origin who sought to create a veritable cinematographic and photographic atlas of the world. The ADP images cover some fifty countries on every continent except Oceania. They truly fulfill the ambitious project that Albert Kahn himself defined as follows: “To fix once and for all those aspects, practices, and modes of human activity whose total disappearance is but a matter of time.”

We can never overstate the richness and ambition of these archives. For example, their more than 70.000 autochrome photographs constitute one of the largest collections in the world. Their film holdings are no less important. They are presented, for the most part, in the form of rushesThat is, raw, unedited footage shot by a wide variety of camera operators working for Albert Kahn. Both the photographic and film collections cover very different areas and genres of imagery, from the scientific to the ethnographic, including newsreels and various documentary forms.

Unfortunately, the 1929 stock market crash ruined the great Kahn, to such an extent that the archive project had to cease all activities in 1931, after almost twenty years of work. By that time, the ADP had amassed 4.000 stereoscopic plates, 72.000 autochrome plates, and 183.000 meters of film, equivalent to more than 100 hours of projection. It is estimated that the number of titles filmed by the ADP is around 2.130 films, although this figure does not correspond to the actual number of films shot, since this estimate is based solely on the inventory of reels held by the archive, even though a single reel can contain different subjects.

Albert Kahn was always a mysterious figure: described as authoritarian, secretive, and maniacal, perhaps what he truly was was a very discreet man who tried throughout his life to avoid the numerous cameras that surrounded him. He was born in 1860, and undoubtedly, this reserved nature, which earned him a reputation as a mysterious man, also contributed to his work falling into oblivion after his death. There is an essential fact in his biography: in 1871, Germany annexed Alsace and part of Lorraine; Kahn, an Alsatian Jew, then moved to Paris to maintain his French nationality. This condition of exile would mark his entire existence, to such an extent that, we believe, it would govern a regulative ideal of an ethical and sociopolitical nature that would inspire all his projects.

Once in the capital, the young Kahn began to distinguish himself through his financial talents, and in 1898, having amassed a fortune through speculation in shares of diamond and gold mining companies in South Africa, he founded his own bank. It was during this time that he settled in Boulogne (near Paris) and began designing his famous gardens. The garden became, in a way, equivalent to the future project of the ADP (Association of Parisian Developers), because it would showcase the harmonious and globalized coexistence of different models of national territories: the French, the Japanese, the Vosges forest of his childhood, and the biblical cedar forest. The garden thus corresponded to his initial conception of utopia. A utopia dedicated to the relationship between peoples, which included, for example, the creation of travel grants for young university students (travel grants that lived up to their name: around the world) and the founding of various societies and debate circles, as well as the financing of a very prolific publishing activity that favored the development of this clearly humanist, ecumenical project.

In 1912, Albert Kahn asked a renowned geologist named Emmanuel de Margerie for help in finding a director for the ADP (Analog-Do-Provence). He defined the profile of the person he was looking for as follows: “An active man, sufficiently young, accustomed to both travel and teaching, and with recognized competence as a geographer.” Margerie recommended Professor Jean Brunhes, who was asked to create an archive that would constitute “a kind of photographic inventory of the Earth’s surface occupied and inhabited by humankind, as it appeared at the beginning of the 20th century.” Brunhes accepted the invitation, which, it must be said, was also accompanied by the creation of a chair of human geography, funded by Kahn, at the Collège de France.

It is important to emphasize the role of Jean Brunhes, because he was a fundamental figure in the ADP. From the archives' inception, he meticulously organized and prepared the missions of the operators under his command, handling all the necessary arrangements for visits to the countries under study and organizing all kinds of preliminary meetings. Each project relied on exhaustive documentation: maps, geography books, travel guides, and photographs. Brunhes also gave away a copy of his book. Human Geography¹ to all those involved in the project. In fact, the theoretical principles of the ADP missions were inspired by this work. Fundamentally, they consisted of highlighting the environment and habitat of the communities as the object of classification, with special emphasis on scenes of daily life. Brunhes's theory, therefore, belongs to a tradition of knowledge that seeks to emphasize field research. The objective of this method was to create a "reasoned view" or an "explanatory description of the Earth's surface." This consisted of translating the geographer's direct observation into words and images. It was, therefore, a matter of introducing photography into the service of a scientific description. The tentatively rational, that is, objective, explanatory, and complete character of the description was based on the use of photography, as if the image provided a deeper and more complex foundation for understanding the world than other textual or graphic protocols. In this sense, Brunhes often used the autochrome prints from the archives to illustrate his classes and lectures, and, convinced of their function, wrote: “an image tells us more than dozens of pages; it says what it says in a different way and with a specific clarity that is its own; it expresses its ideas in a concrete and clarifying form that makes them much more alive and truthful.” The cinematic image, for its part, capable of reproducing movement, that is, in Brunhes’s words: “the rhythm of life,” would complement the table of functions of still images with a fundamental feature of Modernity.

The ADP (Academic and Psychological Projects) undoubtedly constituted an immense undertaking sustained solely by the conviction of a utopian and humanist banker who invested virtually his entire personal fortune in it. The great Kahn truly believed that he was building, for humanity and in the name of the progress of the social sciences, a project of knowledge, a way for humanity itself to know itself better. The garden, in this sense, reflected the same philanthropic spirit: it formed a miniature universe that brought together the different ways of being in the world, just as the ADP constituted an inventory of the earth's ethnocultural diversity.

Thus, we find in the ADP a series of characteristics that define the spirit of knowledge of the era. From an epistemological point of view: rationality in observation, further supported by the descriptive and comparative approach that governs each project; also, and in a truly innovative way, reliance on visual documentation; and finally, perfectly in accordance with these characteristics, the admittedly utopian idea of the unity of the world's peoples. For it is true that the result of the work and ambition of the ADP would crystallize in the description of the world in its entirety and, at the same time, in its unity. We might say that, for the first time, the world has become archivable thanks to the standardization of time and space brought about by technical means, which have made the planet easily accessible to be explored and studied in its entirety.

From its origins, photography was understood as a form of representation capable of establishing a new perspective of knowledge focused on humankind and the world. Very soon after the dissemination of the photographic process, all kinds of travelers, adventurers, merchants, missionaries, and scholars began sending images of peoples and regions previously unknown to Westerners. Photography was considered primarily a surface upon which a directly captureable reality was inscribed, transcending any ideological or aesthetic vision. We are at the moment of the illusion of photographic objectivity. This conviction granted the photographic image, and later the cinematographic image, the value of irrefutable, anonymous, detached, and objective proof. Here we have the clear foundations of any archive that aspires to be authentic: something that takes the form of a clarified reality, easy to organize and store, ready to be communicated and compared. In this sense, following Foucault, we would say (The archaeology of knowledge), that every file generates its own presence field, and that the field of presence The work of Kahn's era does not follow the same forms or selection criteria—nor the same principles of exclusion—as that of the classical era or our own. Each era recounts, sees, describes, imagines, and unfolds or orders its reality in a different way. For example, unlike nineteenth-century inventories, which were compiled from the collection and classification of pre-existing images, the work carried out by the ADP (Analog-Producer Documentation) is shown from the outset as a production companyTherefore, as Kahn himself confirms, direct fieldwork by photographers and filmmakers is a central element of the project: “Fieldwork studies seem to me to be the only means of realizing true geography. They will reach their full value and achieve their full effect when our whole little planet has become familiar.”

However, behind this homogeneity of objectives, the ADP constituted a truly polysemous project. Indeed, it presented a genuine heterogeneity with regard to, for example, the topics covered. Very different types of narratives, disciplines, influences, and relationships with the outside world intersected there. The references are as multiple as they are complex, insofar as the archive seeks, precisely, to inventory a world that is undergoing profound change. A world where unprecedented technological progress allows us to shorten distances to the point of exploring the infinitely distant and vast alongside the infinitely small, and thus rely on the mechanical capacity to record absolute reality.

In Kahn's case, the experience of travel was foundational. It was in 1898, after a trip through the Far East, that the banker conceived the plan for his entire body of work. Ten years later, he embarked on a round-the-world trip, accompanied by an assistant who would be responsible for photographing and filming. Kahn was thus driven by a kind of desire for total representation, seeking to gather as many facets of reality as possible. From that initial journey, during which thousands of images were taken, Kahn began to consider the technological protocols his project would require and also began to reflect on recruiting camera operators and the need for scientific direction. Auguste Léon was the first professional hired by Kahn, in 1909. He would accompany the banker on most of his travels in France and abroad. Photographic or cinematographic fieldwork, as we know, did not require any particular academic background, but it did demand a strong physical constitution, a pronounced taste for adventure, and a certain technical skill. The various operators hired by the ADP will possess these attitudes. However, what Brunhes' management implements is the scientific training of its workers. It will therefore emphasize their ability to understand the internal logic of the cultures they study. It will try to educate them so that they rise above the chance encounters of travel and also—and this is important—will ensure they escape the influence of the conventional and banalizing images that were beginning to shape the worldview of the time through postcard photography.

Consequently, the inventory of the ADP (Advanced Documentary Papers) seeks, on the one hand, to respond to the rapid or urgent changes occurring on the world stage. But it also seeks to generate relevant images from the perspective of a sociohistorical discipline, that is, to generate documents that allow for reliable historical—and political—analysis. In this sense, the concept of human geography Brunhes's approach focused on fieldwork as a crucial methodological element; in fact, it was this aspect that imbued photography with a previously unprecedented scientific dimension. human geographyAs Brunhes understood it, she was interested in the dynamics between man and his environment, and in the activities that allowed him to inhabit and transform space. From this point of view, she essentially asserted herself as a science of the visibleA practice that granted to record of the concrete space of substantial importance. Photography was not merely a way of disseminating academic or abstract knowledge, but the more direct and precise practice of corroborating specific reality: the best way to translate into images the work of direct observation in the field.

There is another fascinating aspect to the perspective taken by Brunhes in configuring The Archives of the Planet: contrary to the tradition of academic geography, which was always monographic and based on the intensive study of narrow fields, the object of study, in this case, was conceived as the unfolding of a very broad geographical panoply starting from a given theme. This allowed for an approach of a comparatist This focused on how a given element (for example, of a geological nature) produced variations. This, in turn, allowed researchers to observe the consequences of these variations on the phenomenon under study (which could be architectural, ethnographic, landscape-related, or cultural). From this perspective, photographs constituted the material that allowed for the precise classification and comparison of phenomena. It is undoubtedly these research protocols that facilitate the production of what we understand today as an archive. Furthermore, this approach revealed the real relationships between the specific environment and the productions of the people who lived there. This is why Brunhes himself could call the Archives of the Planet project the “workshop of decisive tests.”

As the archive grew, the scientific approach became more explicit. To ensure an academic perspective, Brunhes always organized preparatory meetings before each field trip. The collected images clearly demonstrate the influence of these protocols. For example, it is evident that the field photographers drew inspiration from classifications established by the discipline of human geography: their primary focus was on population communities, their infrastructure and methods of communication and transportation, then on forms of human production and habitat use—primarily agricultural and fishing infrastructure—and finally on monuments and works of art. It was clear that the geographer's guidelines prioritized the human contribution on the territory. However, it does not appear that there has ever been a strict program that defined the specific destinations or themes of the missions, beyond a perspective—as we have pointed out—of a strategic nature. totalizing about the space of the world.

We also find in the ADP a very Benjaminian idea. It's not so much about telling the world as it is about showing it. It consists, therefore, of absolute trust in the visual. In fact, Kahn believed that visually documenting the world would help people develop universal knowledge and, consequently, build a stronger foundation for peace. So, only through the visual would the possibility of pacifism arise. With the added advantage of having a very broad sample of the emotions and gestures of as many people as possible. It's also worth highlighting the conviction—quite unusual at the time—that the history of the future should be told from the perspective of the daily life, as Henri Lefebvre would argue decades later, with truly transcendent sociological, political and aesthetic consequences.

In this sense, one can also observe a distinctly elegiac tone throughout the entire ADP project. It seeks to account for a form or state of the world in the process of disappearing. Kahn, of course, spared no expense in his attempt to depict a world in perpetual transit. A world in motion, in transition. In 1908, as we mentioned, Kahn traveled around the world with his chauffeur. From France to New York by ship and from there to San Francisco by train. From there by ship again to Japan. And then to China, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Suez Canal, and Italy (the Amalfi Coast). The banker and his assistant seem like characters from Jules Verne. There is, indeed, a component of agonizing urgency in Albert Kahn's entire project of struggling through time, against time itself. This is what Lévi-Strauss later identified as characteristic of the anthropologist's craft. This was ultimately confirmed by Susan Sontag in photography: an elegiac art—or craft, or knowledge—that safeguards places and cultures in images before they disappear from the world. Kahn's images are, we might say, seasons of melancholyThey make us remember or feel the fatal and brutal dominion of transience over everything. Not only—which is obvious—over that time frozen fragilely in the autochromes. This effect is projected and reaches even ourselves. Barthes, in his Camera lucidaHe touched on this. Therefore, we must consider or understand Kahn not only as a very advanced perception of an era, but as production of the gaze From that same era. The era—we might say—of the image of the world. This was specifically its objective: to make the world familiar through photographic and cinematographic images. Herein lies, perhaps, the founding myth of these Archives of the Planet.

It is also true that the ADP project is part of a documentary tradition characteristic of the 19th century, born from the need to record and organize information within the framework – as we have pointed out – of a comprehensive view about the space of the world. Only these kinds of endeavors can generally only rely on the will to account for a disappearing form. If cultures have always been in constant flux through contact with one another, this phenomenon, and the acute awareness of its existence, accelerated throughout the 20th century, especially under the influence of the new technological—and geopolitical—regime of the image-text and, specifically, of the colonial context itself, so important, incidentally, in Kahn's archives. The banker, in fact, is one of the first to perceive this globalization in its germ, which it perceives as a disruptive factor and a homogenizing force in the customs and practices of men. As anthropologists would later do, the ADP understood that societies considered traditional embodied vestiges of existence whose traces it was important to safeguard. In this sense, and as with ethnology, archives respond to a discipline of memory and urgency.

In fact, the ADP (Analogies of the Natural Environment) are strictly contemporaneous with the birth of ethnography, with authors like Lévy-Bruhl, around 1910, although it would be necessary to wait until 1917 for the founding of the renowned Institute of Ethnology. From this perspective, Kahn's archives occupy an indeterminate point between two disciplines: geography and ethnology. The intersection occurs in the relationship between the natural environment and human activity. However, to be more precise, Kahn's interests often focus on human works, that is, on the desire to explain the social through the practice or concrete existence of individuals. If, in principle, for geographers the framework of life is an objective environment, for archival thought, an environment is always dependent on the practices and uses through which it acquires meaning. At this point, and from the outset, there is a certain differentiation between Brunhes's and Kahn's reflections on this matter. This is an oscillation that can be verified by viewing the archive images. human geography De Brunhes understands that it must be a science of places, not so much of people. In this way, the study of human activity is approached through the lens of material reality, rather than from the perspective of the individual. This is why the study of streets, roads, buildings, towns, and cultural works is favored, rather than that of “races and cultures.” However, for Kahn, the essential acts that must be considered are expressed through the human work and of people's habits. Over time, Brunhes's perspective would move closer to Kanh's: "We," Brunhes would write in 1915, "believe we can make a valuable contribution to ethnographic research through truly modern documentation. It is true and evident that color photography can provide documentary material that is of the highest order for all research on customs." The geographer, in short, also ended up arguing that archives should focus on people: on what they experience and produce. It is humankind in society, in the midst of their daily activities, that should be sought out. Again, Brunhes: "While in ethnographic museums human types are represented by wax models or posed photographs, we want to focus on people in the very truth of their everyday attitudes; instead of being interested in individuals alone, we are concerned, first and foremost, with group life; because all life, considered geographically and ethnographically, has a collective character."

Thus, the operators are invited to move beyond the neutral observation of physical types in order to try to capture a social and, at the same time, psychological reality. This involves selecting expressions, attitudes, subtle body movements, glances; everything that, on the ground, formalizes the rituals and ceremonies of a community. What agoIndeed, community. We would say, then, that here too, by the very act of adopting this perspective, the emergence of a melancholic component in Kahn's mission is inevitable, in his attempt to preserve evidence of such mutations, perceived from the outset as irreversible. In Kahn's words: “Stereoscopic photography, projections, the cinematograph especially—these are all things I would like to fully utilize in order to fix, once and for all, the aspects, practices, and modalities of human activity whose inevitable disappearance is merely a matter of time.”

Thus, as we see, Kahn's allegorical impulse arose from an appreciation of the transience of things, coupled with an interest in preserving them for eternity or, at least, for posterity. However, we might say that this allegorical impulse is tinged with an apocalyptic component that also perhaps fostered the encyclopedic zeal for archiving and accumulation itself, as extreme forms of resistance against the unstoppable erasure of the future. On the other hand, when contemplating these images, Kahn's contemporaries must have felt what Lévi-Strauss also recounts in sad tropics: an unprecedented experience, somewhat alienating, yet also self-realizing. Through the image, they could relive “the experience of the ancient travelers and, through it, that crucial moment in modern thought when, thanks to the great discoveries, a humanity that believed itself complete and finished suddenly received, like a counter-revelation, the announcement that it was not alone, that it constituted a piece in a vaster whole, and that to know itself it first had to contemplate its unrecognizable image in that mirror from which a plot forgotten by the centuries was going to cast, for me alone, its first and last reflection.” In reality, this new experience blends two very different emotions. On the one hand, the recognition of the devastating effect of Western society on indigenous cultures, but, at the same time, a utopian projection onto indigenous cultures, in the Rousseauian vein of the “state of nature.” A projection by which these cultures acquire their greatest value for the observer purely in their capacity for contrast, in their difference from the anthropologist’s own culture. On a third level, we could even note—as already mentioned—that As Lévi-Strauss did, Brunhes and Kahn could not help but be aware of their contribution—even if unintentional—to the very disappearance of non-Western cultures, and the realization that the anthropological enterprise, coupled with the reproductive, invasive, and coercive capacity of the image, is destined to participate very intensely in this historical process of the disintegration of differences. It is in this realization that, perhaps, the Kahnian melancholy that permeates his project from beginning to end takes shape.

Here we touch upon a fundamental aporia, which we can state in the following brutal way: being and knowing are mutually exclusive. “Every effort to understand,” wrote Lévi-Strauss, “destroys the object to which we have clung, in favor of an object of another nature; it demands a new effort from us, which it cancels in favor of a third, and so on until we reach the only lasting presence, which is that where the distinction between meaning and meaninglessness vanishes: the very one from which we started” (sad tropicsMelancholy, then, is inscribed at the very heart of any enterprise of knowledge, as a kind of beforehand epistemological. Or perhaps we should qualify this by saying: at the very heart, not of just any endeavor of knowledge, but of Western science as a particular way of knowing, or, to be even more precise, perhaps only at the heart of a certain way of understanding science from a vocation of grasping definitive totalities. Because—as Kahn confirmed—meaning is never static, it always proliferates; the ways in which it is grasped are nothing more than provisional scaffolding that allows us to grasp the world while simultaneously separating us from it, obstructing our vision of it. This is one of the great lessons we can draw from Kahn's paradoxes.

The other dilemma is that generated by the very concept of humanism—of which Kahn is a prime example—and its murky relationship with domination based on idiosyncratic and ethnocentric categories, when not as a mere imposition of subjective character—now called vision of the world—which imposes itself on all things through the image. No one appreciated this better than Heidegger, precisely in an essay entitled “The Age of the World Picture” (belonging to the book Forest paths). Heidegger says: “The more completely and absolutely the world is available as a conquered world, the more objective the object will appear, the more subjectively, or, what amounts to the same thing, imperiously, the subjectum And in an all the more irrepressible way, the contemplation of the world and the theory of the world will be transformed into a theory of man, into an anthropology. Given this, it is no wonder that humanism arises only where the world becomes an image.” From that moment on, world history will unfold in the mode of the “struggle between different worldviews.” And, Heidegger concludes, “in accordance with the nature of the struggle, man brings into play the unlimited power of calculation, planning, and the correction of things.”

It cannot be forgotten that Albert Kahn's work was directed at the elites of society. He sought to clarify decisions, hoping that, through the quality and diversity of the sources made available, privileged viewers could form an opinion that would favor the common good and whose ultimate goal would be the possibility of lasting peace. It is at this point that the archives, like Kahn's other projects, also constitute an undertaking of a specific nature. humanistThey are located –we might say– in the conjunction across pacifism y scientismThe images are created with a very specific purpose; they seek to enrich a demonstration, reflexión, an a certain speech about the state of the worldWhen the First World War broke out, the banker, publicly hostile to the Prussian regime, offered, for example, his expertise and all his resources to the official propaganda organs of the French state. He placed his infrastructure, equipment, and collaborators at the service of the army and also during the postwar period of national reconstruction. These services also included propaganda purposes. Neutrality, therefore, was replaced during these years by commitment. Thus, the defense of the patriotic cause would be replaced, after the war, by the service of peace.

The archives thus reveal a mode of knowledge that seeks to study cultural and social phenomena, and which grants crucial importance to the direct observation of living cultures and to fieldwork. But we cannot forget that this postulate was established within the context of colonial conquest. Knowing the other, learning their culture, in order to better govern and administer them, were some of the justifications for all ethnological research at that time. The Institute of Ethnology at the University of Paris, for example, was funded by the Ministry of Colonies and was responsible for teaching some rudiments of the method to future colonial administrators.

Once again, as Foucault already noted, very diverse interests and protocols intertwine and operate through the collection of images from archives. It is evident that there is a political dimension, but also a moral one—even a religious one in the case of Brunhes—in Kahn's undertaking. These are points of intersection that inevitably highlight the contradictions of the thought of the time, shaped by scientific positivism, religion itself, and the colonialist perspective. But we must acknowledge Kahn's aforementioned desire to preserve the testimonies and visual vestiges of that which is condemned to oblivion. In this sense, it is also worth noting that all of Kahn's projects sought to understand the reasons for mutations of the world and, through this knowledge, try to to understand the effects and therefore prevent the consequencesKahn is certainly a utopian banker. Someone who uses all his resources for the sake of improving the world and someone who believes that observation and analysis of the present play a vital role. Thus, he financed, for example, the so-called National Committee for Social and Political Studies, which for sixteen years brought together political leaders, administrators, industry representatives, public health officials, military officers, trade union leaders, and others to analyze the economic, social, and political problems of their time. At the same time, Albert Kahn edited fourteen information bulletins, two of them general-interest press reviews on which fifteen journalists worked full-time. These materials were organized according to a plan defined by Kahn and distributed free of charge to libraries and a wide range of prominent figures: “Recording facts or judgments does not mean that one approves or disapproves of them. Rather, it is a matter of avoiding all judgment. The facts must speak for themselves,” Kahn believed. This is also a snapshot of the times, of the way of thinking of an era.

What, moreover, would these events be? Generally, current events did not interest Albert Kahn. He focused instead on having the operators try to capture those processes capable of transforming the surface of the world and that they could take advantage of the new planetary shifts. It is fascinating to note how the banker came to realize that all these materials could function as driving forces for future historians. In Brunhes' words, again: "The ADP aims to constitute a kind of real-life sample of our time, becoming the quintessential monument for reference and comparison for all those who will come after us." This reflection certainly confirms the cumulative dimension of the project, conceived to be enriched over the long term and thus allow for its evolution. Kahn's gesture and work would be merely a stage, the initial link in a long chain of testimonies to be contributed by future generations.

This conception of a world in perpetual mutation and evolution determines the presence of a perspective of order diachronic Through the lens of the archives. The selection of territories like China, the Balkans, or Morocco is far from innocent, as they are experiencing pivotal events that affect, for example, the survival of certain ethnic minorities. In this sense, the series of images focused on the Balkans serves as an exemplary illustration of how the geographer's perspective seeks to depict a region of intense geopolitical turmoil.

On the other hand, the collaborations and tensions that arose within the archive in its relationship with the major film production centers of the time, such as Pathé and Gaumont, are also significant. At times, the archives used film footage and professional experts from the studios. However, the management explicitly rejected the large-scale commercial distribution that characterized the operation of these studios. The prospect of co-production was quickly abandoned because commercial methods and the very attempts to fictionalize the treatment of reality were radically opposed to the methodological and even moral principles of the archives. Both the films and the photographs were conceived under the idea of a descriptive objectivityEven its distribution method, through small gatherings for experts and prominent figures in political and cultural life, never considered the possibility of commercialization. Under these premises, the filmmakers had to escape the conventions of commercial cinema: all sensationalism was rejected, dramatic tension was not sought, and picturesque elements and declamatory tones were avoided as much as possible. This was taken to such an extent that even the idea of editing these materials was rejected; they have remained, for the most part, as raw footage, that is, rushes still unassembled. Everything pointed, therefore, to an ideal of descriptive neutralityTherefore, the graphic documents provided by the archive are radically different from journalistic reporting. In similar terms, Brunhes often emphasized the academic dimension of this work in service of History: “What we want to do is not at all a piece of reporting, but a methodical and detailed study. (…) The expenses are covered by Mr. Kahn and the resulting photographs will belong to a collection of public interest. One cannot imagine a more selfless project.”

Esta neutrality The one we are discussing generates a particular visual and descriptive regime. A regime resulting from the attention given to experience from the places themselves and fieldwork, to the analysis of the context. It's not so much about showing an event as it is about unfolding a kind of sociology of a phenomenonThe austerity of form is a hallmark of the studio, for example, the long, static film shots. The economy of means also aims to respond to the search for... scientific rationality and, at the same time, to oppose contemporary narratives whose visual and narrative effectiveness was often—even back then—scripted. The ideal of a absence of stagingThis, though not always achieved, is therefore the goal. In this sense, one of the most interesting questions that archival analysis raises is that of the porous boundaries between document and artificeThe existence of a colonial political situation, for example, calls into question any principled neutrality, to the point that the boundary between staging and propaganda—especially in some cases such as military parades and the like—has become nonexistent. This ambiguous position permeates the entire archive, particularly when considered in the context of dissemination.

Therefore, what must be done with any archive is, as Foucault suggested, “to place oneself at a certain distance from its manifest conceptual play and try to determine according to what schemes (of seriation, of simultaneous groupings, of linear or reciprocal modification) the statements can be linked to one another in a type of discourse; it is a matter of establishing how the recurrent elements of the statements can reappear, dissociate, recompose, gain in extension or in determination, be taken up again within new logical structures, acquire new semantic contents in return, constitute partial organizations among themselves.” This is a fascinating task: describing discursive formation in all its dimensions—delimiting the formation of the objects of study, the enunciative modalities, the concepts, the theoretical choices; arranging series, composing rhetorical units. In short, putting into practice the possibilities of discourse that Kahn's immense archive fosters to truly incredible limits. Like any archive – Kahn's perhaps more than any other – it requires, in order to be defined exactly, a theoretical elaboration.

It is worth remembering at this point that Kahn will always defend the idea that the construction of a lasting peace is founded based on intercultural dialogueHis work will therefore advocate for “international coordination within a better, more organized humanity.” The archives would serve for the education of a critical spirit which would serve for the understanding from other cultures. In this respect, Kahn himself exemplifies a characteristic way of approaching the idea of the archive, made explicit again by Foucault. This concerns the fact that there are very different positions of the subject of discourse that each person can occupy: a subject who merely observes, for example, with greater or lesser instrumental mediation, or a subject who makes decisions from a plurality of perspectives, selecting certain elements, even a subject who—in the manner of Professor Brunhes—transcribes these elements into a coded vocabulary and context, etc. There are many and diverse possibilities for using the statements that must reactivate the archive.

In this respect as well, the collections of gardens from Kahn's mansion and the image archives complement and clarify each other. Both demonstrate a desire to to restore reality according to different modalitiesTo the work of image registration responds to the attempt to poetic synthesis of the gardenBeyond the utopian temptation of to embrace reality in its entiretyand consequently of abolish distances that exist in the world, the banker's purpose is to to make the world itself more accessible and sensitive for the people. Whether through the viewing sessions through images, whether through walks amidst the sumptuous garden. This is confirmed by the philosopher Henri Bergson, a friend of the banker since his youth and an inspiration for many of his ideas. Kahn's house, the philosopher says, “possessed something unique: a moral atmosphere that allows all those who lack the dream of an organized and better humanity to breathe, even if only for a few hours.”