The ancient Greek term “technikos” – the etymological root of “technique” – situates the technical between art and hardware (Annie van den Oever 2014). Accordingly, we understand technology as a locus where hardware, software (the flexible and changeable parts of the machine) and human agents (artists/spectators) meet. It is in this sense that we approach a work of art as a “machine.” This conference will also emphasize the physical properties of film and animation technology, the materiality and operational logic involved in producing and exhibiting moving images. Another focus will lie on the sociocultural contexts that surround technological changes, such as the (relatively) recent transition from the analog to the digital. “If we are to grasp what is at stake in this shift to digital, we need to understand and identify with accuracy the specificities of each machine and the viewing conditions it produces, and more generally expand this research to the history of dispositives of moving and animated images […].” (Benoît Turquety, 2015)