The Hidden Shelves of Pop-Up Archives

Abstract

This thesis examines the emergence of “pop-up archives” within contemporary digital film culture. I use the term to describe freely accessible, user-curated film collections hosted across platforms such as Google Drive, Plex, Mega, or independent websites. These archives are typically assembled by cinephiles driven by a passion for cinema and frustration with institutional gatekeeping. They emerge within a longer history of informal media practices shaped by unregulated flows of information and cultural exchange.

I argue that pop-up archives are defined by instability as a constitutive condition rather than an exception. They frequently appear, circulate widely, and then disappear or are forced to migrate in response to platform regulations or copyright enforcement requiring continuous reconstruction across shifting digital infrastructures. This thesis proposes that this cycle of emergence and disappearance is central to their mode of existence. In this sense, pop-up archives can be understood as operating through ongoing processes of loss and recovery, where disappearance becomes embedded within archiving.

This condition becomes particularly significant in relation to broader structures of digital distribution and access. Many films, especially those outside mainstream circulation, are not available through commercial streaming platforms, making alternative forms of access necessary. Within this context, pop-up archives function as a response to infrastructural and legal constraints, expanding access to otherwise unavailable works. I argue that through practices of collecting, community formation, and exclusion, pop-up archives enable film circulation and reshape how cinema culture is organized and experienced under conditions of digital precarity and ephemerality.