research projects

Performing the Archive

(Book project 2010-2011, partly written at NIAS) The proliferation of digital technologies has changed the way we perceive of and use audiovisual archives and their holdings. As Rick Prelinger, founder of the online collection archive.org recently pointed out, YouTube has become the standard of what people expect audiovisual archives to be – unlimited online access and activeuser participation have become crucial for an archive’s visibility and public existence. Although the institutions still function as the principal gatekeepers – if only because of copyright restrictions –the emergence ofvirtualarchives and online portals is changing the relation between the keepers and users of audiovisual heritage. Every presentation adds new layers of meaning to the material and users are becoming experts, challenging the role of the archivist as principal expert on the knowledge the collection represents.

In this book I investigate the implications of this reframing of audiovisualheritageforthe epistemology of the archive. The aim is twofold: first, to provide insight into the consequences of reframing audiovisual heritage for the knowledge the objects represent and second, to propose a re-conceptualization of the audiovisual archive as a space that acknowledges the dynamic, changing meaning of its holdings. I will study a number of cases that demonstrate the various shifts in power and knowledge related to the displacement of audiovisual heritage, from virtual portals of film and television archives to the reuse of archival holdings by artists and filmmakers. The approach is archaeological in that the exploration of virtual portals and archives serves as a starting point for exploring earlier examples that had a similar effect, such as the reuse of colonial film in compilation films and multimedia installations. The theoretical framework comprises ideas from Film and New Media Studies on the meaning of audiovisual heritage, debates from Archival Studies on the power of the archive and studies from the field of Epistemology on the shifts in knowledge that the displacement of audiovisual heritage entails.

Archive.org

NIAS

MeYou andEveryone We Know is a Curator

Blog report MYAEWKIAC

The Audiovisual Memory of (In)Justice

Interdisciplinary research project that investigates the role of audiovisual heritage in relation to cases of severe injustice, like genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In particular, it aims to analyse the dynamic role of audiovisual heritage in the documentation and reconstruction of such conflicts and in the process of coming to terms with them. This dynamics is studied in three social spaces: that of the courtroom (the law), the archive (history) and the communities involved (memory). The dynamic role of audiovisual heritage is exemplified by its movements in time and space. The first stage is that of documenting the conflict, followed by a reconstruction of events on the basis of that documentation, with the final purpose of coming to terms withthe conflict. This movement in time is paralleled by a movement in space: first there is the trial of the crimes in court, followed by the collecting of the documentation of the events in the archive, with thepurpose of developing historical reflection on it. Finally, the conflict can find a place in public memory. It is our purpose to analyse the dynamic interaction between audiovisual heritage and the formation of cultural memory in each of these social spaces and at different moments in time.

Advertising Films

Advertising film is the topic of an international project initiated by  the University of Amsterdam/MA-programme Preservation & Presentation of the Moving Image, the European Association of Film Archives (ACE), and the Nederlands Filmmuseum. These institutions are the founders of the Network Audiovisual Archives and Education in which academic and archival institutes cooperate closely to better coordinate the needs of film archives and various archival programmes and training initiatives. The focus on the rather neglected film genre of advertising films allows us to explore and define the needs of archives and competences of future archivists in more detail. Provisionally defined as a rhetorical genre that aims to influence the opinion, attitude or behaviour of its audiences (either by changing or by continuing it) the term covers a wide range of films. Besides commercials for products, services or juridical persons, we alsoconsider their non-commercial equivalents (e.g. elections, government campaigns). Promotional, information, or propaganda films are also included. Furthermore, advertising is often camouflaged, either wholly (posing as a non-rhetorical film, e.g. a story film) or partly (as in product placement). Advertising films alsochallengethe notion of archival entities, as the films are often tied in with longer and/or wider (mixed-media) campaigns. Finally, from an internationalviewpoint, advertising is an ‘unstable’ genre, with variations inimage, montage, or language. The project intends to generate knowledge about the genre in order to be able to better classify, explain, and asses the cultural value and importance of the many advertising film collections and thus better prepare (future) archivists for the specific problems and issues this corpus films can pose in terms of collection policies (e.g. selection criteria), cataloguing, preservation and restoration, programming and access.

Current initiatives of this ongoing project include: organization of the 5th international workshop at the Nederlands Filmmuseum: The Images that Changed Your Life: Advertising Films (Amsterdam , 19-21 November 2009); a panel at the 7th Orphan Film Symposium: City Promotion Films: From travelogues to YouTube (New York, April 2010); an anthology on Advertising Film (book and DVD, end of 2010).

Partners include: Archivio Nazionale Cinema d’Impresa at Ivrea/Turin, BFI London, Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin, DIF/Deutsches Filmmuseum Frankfurt, European Association of Film Archives (ACE), Lund University (Mats Jönsson), National Library of Sweden/Audiovisual Department, NECS (the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies),Nederlands Filmmuseum, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Stockholm University (Patrick Vonderau), Universiteit van Amsterdam (Julia Noordegraaf and Charles Forceville), University of Gothenburg (Mats Björkin), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Bert Hogenkamp).

ACE

Nederlands Filmmuseum

NECS

Orphan Film Symposium