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- Convenors:
-
Beate Engelbrecht
(Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity)
Susanne Hammacher (Übersee-Museum Bremen)
Catarina Alves Costa (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
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- Chair:
-
Catarina Alves Costa
(Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 0.30
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
Cultural diversity can be recorded by audio-visual means. Audio-visual representations are part of the diversity of cultural expressions. Everybody can create such representations. Anthropologists are using them increasingly. Which are the theoretical, methodological and practical consequences?
Long Abstract:
Diversity can be seen in cultural expressions of different areas. Diversity can be a consequence of differences in religions, ethnicities or other sub-cultural groupings. Diversity arises from the creative expression of individuals or groups.
The richness and varieties of culture can be represented by audio-visual means. The processes of imaging cultural diversity, of recording cultural expression, might be quite different depending on who is doing it (authorship), for what purpose and which audience. The production of images itself can be conceived as a cultural process. Questions of diversity of representation strategies enface a globalisation of communication means arise.
There are various ways for using the recordings. Anthropologist analyse them, they integrate them into their teaching or use them in order to communicate their findings/research results (for communicating their findings). Others use them also in quite diverse contexts.
The work with audio-visuals implies manifold forms of collaboration and processes of transformation. As a consequence, new theoretical, methodological and practical concepts are developed.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 August, 2008, -Patrick Devlieger (University of Leuven)
Paper short abstract:
The paper traces the making of 'Leuven Horen en Voelen' (Hearing and Touching Leuven) in which visually impaired and able-bodied people collaborated in writing a multi-sensorial text, selecting and producing tactile plates, and developing an audio-guide of the city of Leuven. Diversity and mutuality are explored in terms of a critique of the visual and the generation of multi-sensorial knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I trace the making of 'Leuven Horen en Voelen' (a multi-sensorial book of historic sites in the City of Leuven, Belgium, published in 2007). The book consists of a multi-sensorial text, photographs, tactile plates, and an audio-guide. Its use is intended for everyone, including people who are not visually impaired. First, I discuss how the project emerged from an idea that followed a European initiative, namely the 2003 European Year of Disabled Persons, with its emphasis on collaboration between able-bodied and disabled people and on accessibility, as it was being translated to the local level of a city and its applicability in the promotion of its historical resources. In particular, I retrace the organic nature of collaboration and mutuality. Second, I discuss some misunderstandings and miscalculations by city guides and participants in the city tour. These 'misunderstandings' could be seen as the response of a critique on the dominance of visual experience and attempts to reincorporate the project into existing discourses and practices, which then again requires new steps in an ongoing dialogue. In this context, I also discuss the awarding of the Hugo De Keyser price to the project. Thirdly, I offer some thoughts on the limits and expansions of the book-as-medium and the dominance of the visual. Finally, I evaluate to what extent visual impairment serves as an expansion of existing diversity and mutuality in cities, but also acknowledging existing borders and different worlds that cannot be easily transgressed.
Ricardo Leizaola (Goldsmiths) Nico Lewis (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper deals with the production and trade of audiovisual representations of cultural diversity during the One Thousand Stars Festival, Ethiopia.
Paper long abstract:
The Southern region (SNNPR) is the most ethnically diverse area of Ethiopia. For five years now the Thousand Stars Festival has been showcasing this diversity in Arba Minch. The festival features most of the SNNPR's 56 recognised ethnic groups. The aim of the festival is the celebration of cultural diversity. The festival also aims to be a platform for cultural exchange and understanding for all the different ethnic groups involved as well as a display for city people. This year the event attracted around 50,000 visitors including many outsiders keen to photograph the event and record the music.
In addition to organizing the festival Gughe Indigenous Art and Music Association in collaboration with researchers from the Centre for Visual Anthropology is attempting to document this cultural diversity. While the event attracts an array of image-makers (professional and amateur, local and foreign...) many groups of the performers themselves are recording their own culture and contribution.
This paper reviews this collaboration against the backdrop of these multiple and sometimes competing interests. It argues that visual anthropology is distinctive from the other records primarily because it tries to put the performances in complex context and to understand and portray these cultural expressions and exchanges as processes rather than catching them as fixed isolated products. In this light, attention should also be given to the production and trade in visual representations of cultural diversity (including by the researchers) that is taking place because of the Festival.
Chrisanna Gustafson (California State University, Chico)
Paper short abstract:
A rise in new worldwide media, including the internet, televisions broadcasts, and documentary films, makes evident the richness and real value of cultural diversity. Yet the shift of audio-visual data to an increasingly public sphere yields ethical questions concerning dual cultural realities, aesthetics in academic data, and privacy rights.
Paper long abstract:
Contemplating and categorizing the richness and ultimately valuable aspects of cultural diversity has been made infinitely more possible with the rise of new worldwide media, including the internet, live real-time televisions broadcasts, and international documentary films. Moreover, citizens and scholars alike have access to tools with which to produce audio-visual images, and are using them increasingly, yet with different aims.
This paper will explore three current classes of audio-visual recording: First, that of recording explicitly for public consumption, most especially on the part of news media and broadcasting agencies. Second, the practice of recording for scholarly examination, including anthropological data obtained from ethnographic fieldwork. Finally, the growing trend of self-recording and broadcasting as an international movement, evidenced by internet video and networking sites.
In each of these instances issues of context come into play. In some cases, authorship determines what contextual information is ultimately included in distributed audio-visual recordings, giving rise to ethical questions concerning dual cultural realities, aesthetics versus academic data, and privacy rights. Understanding the potential consequences of utilizing audio-visual means as tools of communication with and by an international public sphere requires a new formulation of methodology and theory in the realm of visual practices.
Pedram Khosronejad (Powerhouse Museum) Nader Gholi Talebzadeh Ordoubadi
Paper short abstract:
Avini believed that a documentary film, and especially war documentaries, should function without any narration and that narration should come to the aid of images when picture alone are insufficient or unclear. “As no camera can capture and present all the events and moments of the war-fronts, which are surprising and wondering, we need to use a narration for these kinds of images to make them real, touchable and more comprehensible”.
Paper long abstract:
When images of war form shocking reminders of what actually occurred, they become references for the future generations. Carefully preserved in folklore and enthroned as tradition, these images can be invoked for political purposes that transcend party and class factionalism, and serve to unite the nation in a supreme sacrifice in the national interest.
The inception of Iranian war cinema occurred after the beginning of the war in Iran. However, it took many years - and can still be considered to be trying today - to find its own language, manner, and identity.
Iranian war films, like most war films in the world, mainly concentrate on the home fronts, rather than on the conflict at the military war-fronts, and are often paired with other genres such as tragedy, epic, and comedy. Their subject matter includes the effects of war on society, the heartbreak of war, the situation of Iranian society during the post-war period and profound explorations of moral and human issues. However, few of them provide decisive criticism of senseless warfare, with frequently acknowledged and explored themes including the bravery of soldiers and tales of heroic sacrifice and struggle.
In the voluntary absence of the international media at the Iranian war-fronts, a few Iranians tried to capture the real images of the fronts. The most important work in this regard was carried out by Seyed Morteza Avini and his crew, not only during the war but also after its end.
Terence Wright (Ulster University)
Paper short abstract:
The Interactive Village is an accumulated digital, interactive archive that makes it possible for users to discover, select and recombine information. The paper offers critical discussion of ethnographic film and the promise, potentials and possibilities of interactive documentary media are examined in this context.
Paper long abstract:
The rationale behind the "Interactive Village" is represented by reference to historical and contemporary ethnographic film and the different narrative strategies used by documentary filmmakers. For example, J. Hoberman, film critic for New York's 'The Village Voice', has referred to ethnographic film as 'documentary's avant-garde'. With this sentiment in mind, the paper maintains that visual ethnography should play a central role in exploring and redefining documentary practice in relation to the new media technologies.
While the theoretical basis for The Interactive Village production is firmly situated within the discipline of visual anthropology, it makes reference to documentary film and feature film (e.g. the Czech New Wave of the 1960s). In addition the use of new media technologies aims to question the dividing lines applied to the existing genres of news, documentary and ethnography. At one end, the production can be viewed as a 'soft' news human interest story; at the other, it can provide an in-depth study of human life with scholarly sophistication. Indeed the three central approaches traditionally provided by the visual ethnographer: Observational - Didactic - Journalistic are now subject to the viewer's choice. Respectively the viewer can decide whether to: watch and listen; hear the anthropologist's commentary explaining, guiding, informing; or access a particular point of view on a subject or issue e.g. threat to rural transport issues - viability of train service, village communication. The ethnography was produced as part of the NM2 (New Media for a New Millennium) research project.
Roger Canals (University of Barcelona)
Paper short abstract:
By this paper I aim to demonstrate the existing tight relationship between theory and practice in ethnographic cinema; furthermore, I wish to demonstrate that the filming techniques and the cinematic language used are subjected to the cultural characteristics of the community being studied.
Paper long abstract:
In order to use the camera as a research tool on cultural diversity, the visual anthropologist always needs to take into account the investigated community' s conception on concepts such as "image", "view", "gaze", "reflection". The meaning of those cinematic terms in the context of this study will determine, partly, the ethnographic methodology to be followed throughout the field work. Nevertheless, how can one find out the significance of those concepts in a different cultural ground? By introducing the camera during the ethnographic investigation. In short, the theoretical knowledge about the image conditions the cinematic methodology whereas the latter offers ethnographic data on notions such as vision and representation that can be of great value for the conceptual debate.
I realized this interdependence between theory and practice in visual anthropology during my field work conducted in Venezuela concerning the worship of Maria Lionza. The believers of Maria Lionza, for example, explained to me that while filming the rituals, and in order to avoid "hurting" -or even "killing"- the possessed medium or spirit that "was incarnated" there, I had to be aware of certain factors. These prohibitions derived from a very certain notion of the followers regarding the image, the gaze or the reflection.
In conclusion, by this paper I aim to demonstrate the existing tight relationship between theory and practice in ethnographic cinema; furthermore, I wish to demonstrate that the filming techniques and the cinematic language used are subjected to the cultural characteristics of the community being studied.