Activating the Archive, a four—day gathering at the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, drew a flock of international scholars, filmmakers, students and professionals to pose questions, test answers, and find inspiration as well as each other. An opportunity to reflect deeply on the role of image collections in preserving—and creating—cultural memory. There were case studies, screenings, war stories, and best practices. The EYE is not literally on an island, but it feels like it—one must cross a canal by ferry from the city center to get to the city’s booming Nord side. And, just like Wes Anderson’s recent film title, if you say it three times fast, it’s a happy mantra.
I am not an archivist; I came because I am making a non—fiction film which involves historical footage, as many often do. The archival material is in fact a central character in the short, so I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and research—some of which turned up this serious, focused forum, the subtitle of which was, “Audio—Visual Collections and Civic Engagement, Political Dissent and Societal Change.” Given that my project crystallized around a 16mm film shot 50 years ago in response to the Vietnam war, Activating the Archive was the place to get exposed to new and critical thinking in this area. I’ve organized this summary of my notes for my own future reference on this nonfiction film; by focusing on the ideas that related to it, or otherwise provoked me, I do not mean to exclude any of the great talks and screenings I’m not mentioning. The entire list of presentations in the program can be found online.
Attending the conference was also a chance to meet up with some far—flung old friends, and to reconnect with an influential film professor from my studies as an undergraduate (a long time ago). Dr. Thomas Elsaesser’s impact on film scholarship dates back to the late 1970s; he is a renowned scholar of New German Cinema—bringing Herzog, Wenders, Fassbinder, and Straub—Huillet and the rest to legions of students at a time when doing so required a scholarly rigor to win a legitimate place in the halls of academia. As an intense thinker who spoke in paragraphs of bullet—proof reason, Elsaesser was well suited to that task.
Prof. Thomas Elsaesser on the trajectory of moving image archival studies. (Credit: EYE Filmmuseum)
He subsequently broadened the strategic scope of his mission to push the project of cinema in higher education by developing an institution dedicated to teaching and promoting the preservation and presentation of film culture. His brainchild, the graduate program in Film Preservation and Presentation at the University of Amsterdam, is what fueled Activating the Archive. Fifteen years after its founding, the scale and sweep of the conference (itself now in its fifth year) testify to the ongoing impact the program has had on the film world.
Dr. Elsaesser delivered a keynote talk, reviewing the circuitous, set—back filled journey to creating this international film preservation and presentation effort. His book Film History as Media Archeology (2016, Amsterdam University Press) would be a good place to get an overview, but it appears to be hard to get.
Today, enjoying his emeritus status, he has “switched sides,” as he put it, and recently made his own film, The Sun Island (DE, 2017)—out of archival material. Judging from the stills on IMDb, it appears that he has activated a rich vein of an archive. I hope the Pacific Film Archive brings it to a screen near me soon.
Where some in historical film settings see cinema as under siege from new media and small screens in the 21st century, the organizers here projected their comfort with the increasingly fluid boundaries around the “seventh art:” the poster for the conference depicts a phone taking a picture of an archival image of protest inside the EYE archive itself. Presentation in 2018 confronts preservation of recordings from another era. Indeed, many make the case now for smartphones teaching the language of film to everyone who uses one.
EYE Opening: Archival Traditions and Futures
The conference opened with a review of projects undertaken by the EYE, aptly named “From the Magic Lantern to 3D.” Curators discussed their interventions with various at—risk media cases, from triage to treatment—and then screened their painstaking results in the beautiful cinema tucked up in the nose of the EYE’s spaceship—like building.
Walking up to the screening room is like walking into Caligari’s cabinet: the perspective seems off, and it gets dark quickly. (Credit: B.Kinder)
Blurring the borders among media states continued among the EYE presentations, which covered cases far—flung over the map: animation production artifacts, 1959 Dutch stop—motion film, and even the VHS archive of a Veejay who pioneered projection arts. And finally, because AI is “the thing” in 2018, a bot that makes daily short films using silent film, rights—free clips from the EYE archive, and algorithm—generated title cards. The bot “chooses” its subject matter based on trending phrases in social media, and referencing imagery so tagged in the database. Herein lie the arcana of tagging taxonomies, which any editor can appreciate: the EYE collections have been professionally tagged, with a standardized vocabulary that tends to the abstract, whereas crowd—sourced (aka “amateur”) tagging is typically more concrete and specific. Add to this recipe of tagging the power of speech transcription and search, face—recognition, voice—recognition, and more—recognition, and we find a stew to nourish “Societal Change” of the program’s subtitle, but probably not its “Political Dissent.” In all of this machine—recognition we find the links to complete the circular chain from machine—created to machine—viewed. Surely not all of the ramifications of these choices have been thought through.
I’ve had the bot’s shorts (@Jan_Bot) appear in my Instagram feed for a few days, and the curiosity of it wears thin: the title cards are word salad, and the editing is very, well, machine—like. If you have spent any time trying to synthesize recent current news events into any kind of coherent frame, JanBot’s process (which you can observe in action on the website) and its presentations can be discomfiting—Kate Spade, for example, mentioned without any emotional context, along with jump—cutty silent film imagery. Remember Microsoft recently had Tay, the twitter bot which quickly turned into a racist troll? One can easily imagine Jan_Bot provoking an uproar if enough people sign up and don’t then unfollow. And maybe that would be a sign of its success in the social network economy.
Now, if Jan_Bot took its search cues from someone seeking to activate a more deeply thought aspect of the cultural memory, that could be viewed as a discrete, short step away from automating the assistant editor logging and selects—building work for an editor aiming to create an essay film out of vault ingredients. AI used that way might even come up with some surprising juxtapositions (aka edits).
We know that IBM’s Watson is culling, cutting and posting tennis match highlights, and it is more classically “effective” due to the clarity of the task, and the literal rules of sporting events. Algorithms’ ability to help bring vast image archives to life with organizational, researching, and editorial efforts is at its awkward early stages, but we can be sure it will develop powers disconcerting and unexpected.
ARCHIVES and RESISTANCE: The Conference
The sheer quantity of case studies and presentations was almost stupefying; I wouldn’t trade the variety for a shorter list, but even people who weren’t tormented by jet lag felt the pace may have been too breathless after a while.
The value of archives to resistance movements, marginalized communities, political dissenters, certainly came forth, from political protest in 1980s Philippines, to counterculture video in 1990s Bologna, to 1980s coal miner strikes in the UK. Spanish home movies now have an on—line platform for historical, educational research and art. Singapore and Tibet are examples of these grass roots archives that together to form a pattern of resistance to mainstream cultural memory. In a so—called post—truth world, the existence of these visual records is sometimes the only proof of a moment of historical resistance, the only crack in the official wall of propaganda. Sabrina Negri of University of Colorado made this point sharply in her talk. Another speaker put it in terms of the Soviet idea of “Kino Eye:” truth is captured by camera. In presenting these marginalized archives to the world, the audience is fueled by history to share their own histories—and so the archives, and the truth, grow.
Prof. Faye Ginsburg on the preservation and repurposing of indigenous media (Credit: EYE Filmmuseum)
Indigenous media—usually of, rarely by, and until now almost never for indigenous people—sparked an inquiry from Dr. Faye Ginsburg of NYU’s Anthropology department. She offered a deeply considered review of the areas to consider when dealing with these marginalized collections—suggesting a framework for “decolonizing the archive.” She didn’t have time to review the dozens of decisions to be evaluated, but they include the intriguing question of deciding who should or should not see what’s in a collection. Ginsburg grounded her high—altitude survey with clips from recent, practical examples of films related to the historical image making of aboriginal people in Australia. Look for her pending book, Mediating Culture: Indigenous Media in the Digital Age to see how far this thinking has come since Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, US, 1922).
One cloud of shared concern hovering over everything here: copyright. Peter Jazsi, coauthor of Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back into Copyright (2011, University of Chicago Press) gave a lively review of current thinking and problems with contradictory legal requirements in different countries. Claudy Op Den Kamp of Bournemouth University revealed the paradoxes and sleight of hand involved in taking what would be copyright law—breaking behavior in the film distribution world and giving it safe harbor in the museum/art world.
Another common challenge linking all of the discussions together is the demand for funding. None of them were resourced as they needed to be, but the Australian effort did show some government funds going to the cause of preserving indigenous media, possibly in a reparative gesture.
Fundraising strategies were necessarily part of the survival of the Tibet Film Archive: One hundred hours of rescued material, including imagery of the Dalai Lama before he was exiled, and as a young man with a movie camera (16mm Beaulieu). We would not know about this without a certain boot strapping effort by filmmaker Tenzin Phuntsog. He discussed the classic, box—in—a—closet serendipity that led to his discovery of the trove, and then his budget—conscious, nimble plan to scan a fraction of every reel not only to sample what he had found, but also to get funding to scan the lot. Fifteen years later, The Tibet Film Archive is an archive “without a nation,” but it certainly has an inspiring champion in Phuntsog, who in 2016 activated this archive with a restoration of the 1966 documentary, Raid into Tibet (Adrian Cowell, GB, 1966).
Hold on! – A Reel from EYE’s collection (Credit: B. Kinder)
The Blink of an EYE
The last day of the conference opened the door of the vault of the EYE, a separate building a few blocks away. Like a very buttoned up forensics lab, where the archivists are detectives, and the film object is a clue to reveal itself. The temperature and humidity—controlled vaults were a grounding farewell for anyone starting to feel a little feverish at the future prospect of robots recording and saving and watching robots. There was physical celluloid being preserved, nitrate included. There was a quarantine room for vinegar syndrome film. There was a Soviet—era magic lantern expert, and a Xanadu—worthy room for archaic equipment. It was all reassuringly real.
At the close of the conference, Prof. Giovanna Fossati, the Chief Curator at the EYE, announced the theme for next year’s EYE International Conference. 2019 will be titled, “Sisters.”
Bill Kinder is a filmmaker who writes about film. His perspective is as broad as his experience, which spans documentary, animation, and live action; analog video, digital cinema, and celluloid from Super8 to IMAX. Based in Berkeley, California. More at www.boxpix.co.
Cover photo credit: EYE Filmmuseum
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