//
Documentary Intentions, Online and Off
........This
two-day conference looks at challenging web-based documentary
........work
and discusses its evolving potential for social change.
Quicklinks
Introduction
When
Where
Nov 14
Nov 15
Participants
Facilitators
Directions
Conference Blogging
summaries, bios, images, links
>Where<
.. The Department of Film and
.......Media Studies at Hunter College
.......695 Park Avenue
.......Hunter North
.......New York, New York 10021
>Participants<
Alison Cornyn, Caroline Koebel, Horit Herman Peled, Jenny Perlin,
Alex Rivera, Julie Perini, Shanti Avirgan, Christine Dierk, Orkan Telhan, Beth Miranda Botshon, Cortlan McManus, Elizabeth Knipe, Harlan Whatley, Eleana Kim, Swati Bandi, Ruth Goldman, Hector Canonge, Jennifer Uihlein, and Robin Brasington.
[ --------------------------------------------- ]
>Introduction<
The conference brings together artists such as Alison Cornyn, Caroline Koebel, Horit Herman Peled, Jenny Perlin and Alex Rivera with graduate students of the Department of Media Study (SUNY Buffalo), The Program in Culture and Media (Department of Anthropology, New York University) and The Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College, (CUNY) to address the potential for social change specific to web-based or web-enriched documentary.
Web-based documentary practices allow for audience participation, cross-connecting
the multitudes. How does the Internet in this context become a useful tool for organizing and audience development? How do possibilities of large bandwidth, accessible to an increasing number of people in the US, change the approach to video distribution?
What do new low cost technologies imply for the politics of the image, particularly in a period when authenticity can be co-opted and sold readily? What is the relevance of a documentary intention in an age of digital manipulation? What are implications for production, editing, distribution as well as for producer "positionality."
Few would claim that the Internet fulfills its interactive potential simply by enabling peer 2 peer communications. Formats like mailing lists, weblogs, wikis, instant messaging are exemplary tools for dialogue opening possibilities for building temporary alliances. What happens to the documentary pact when the interview and fieldwork give way to the interface?
[ --------------------------------------------- ]
Location: Hunter West 217
6pm : Introduction by Professor Stuart Ewen, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Film & Media Studies and Director of the MFA Program in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College
6:15pm: Opening Remarks by Martin Lucas and Trebor Scholz
6:20pm - 8:00pm :: Invited artist presentations
by Alison Cornyn, Caroline Koebel, Horit Herman Peled, Jenny Perlin, and Alex Rivera,
/ _/ Caroline Koebel (Buffalo)
I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABY
BABY is global actionism subverting rightwing USA’s stranglehold on the concept of “family” and its appropriation of such to justify the aggression machine. Participants become “moms” who conceive hypothetical babies, thereby repopulating the world with humane beings and crafting autonomous histories and radical futures. Each mom’s videotaped performance appears on the web and on a video compilation. BABY asks the international resistance to come together—and digitally reproduce—generating the power of the many
to overwhelm the ruling few./ _/ Horit Herman Peled (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Withstanding the State of Exception
Withstanding the State of Exception Herman Peled's presentation will examine emergency state laws increasingly embedded in democratic societies. These laws generate global indifference among nation state citizens and inflict an inhuman existence for an increasingly large number of human beings in what is called the third world. Citizens' indifference is a political paralysis that legitimates extreme right wing government action in their name. In geographical areas inflicted with terror such as Israel, citizen paralysis legitimizes abusive behavior towards the Palestinians non- citizens. In such situations it seems that the only effective political act is becoming a witness to abuse. In the presentation Herman Peled will talk about her last work depicting conceptually the homo sacer from the position of the witness, and the reasons for presenting her work only on the web.
(http://web.macam98.ac.il/~horit_a/horit.htm)View From Elsewhere
Jenny Perlin will present excerpts from several non-fiction works and discuss their intent and some of their effects. Perlin's films work with and against the documentary tradition, incorporating innovative stylistic techniques to emphasize issues of truth, misunderstanding, and personal history. She has recently completed View from Elsewhere, a look at conditions of political asylum seekers in Switzerland, and Perseverance & How to Develop It, a film about the cultural and social histories of self-help in the United States. Her films have won awards at numerous festivals, and have been exhibited in galleries and museums both in the US and abroad.
/ _/ Alison Cornyn (New York)
Alison Cornyn is an artist, founding partner and Director of Picture Projects. Alison will discuss how Picture Project‚s work weaves new technologies ˜ wireless, broadband, satellite ˜ and smart design into an ongoing exploration of our social fabric through first-person stories, dynamic data and dialogue. Alison will present work including www.akaKURDISTAN, a borderless space that provides the opportunity to build a collective memory with a people who have no national archive, as well as www.360degrees.org: Perspectives on the US Justice System. 360degrees.org was recently given the Online Journalism Award for Most Creative Use of the Medium, the Pew Center for Civic Journalism's Batten Award for Innovation, the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and a Webby Award for Net.art.
(www.pictureprojects.com)
/ _/ Alex Rivera (New York)
Alex Rivera is a New York based digital media artist and filmmaker.
Through the past 5 years he‚s made work in digital video and on the
internet that addresses concerns of the Latino community through a
language of humor, satire, and metaphor. In his new work Rivera is using
the internet and the phenomenon of "tele-commuting" as a metaphorical
device to talk about migrant farm workers, or braceros. Alex will
present aspects of his most recent piece, "The Sixth Section," which
blends digital animation and documentary to tell the story of a group of
Mexican immigrants working in Newburgh, New York, who transform their
home town in the state of Puebla, was recently aired on P.O.V.
(www.alexrivera.com)8:15pm-8:30pm Closing Remarks - Scholz, Lucas & McLagan
10:00pm informal gathering at downtown location to be announced.[ --------------------------------------------- ]
Saturday
Location: Hunter North 54410am :: Martin Lucas, and Trebor Scholz introduce the moderators10:15 am - 11:15 am :: Participants Open Space (Introductions)
11:15 am - 1:15 pm :: First session (moderated by: Caroline Koebel)
>Creation of Community -- Documentary Practice as Tool<
10 minute presentations followed by 10 minutes discussion each
/ _/ Julie Perini "Performativity, Identity Construction, and Personal
Documentation on Friendster.com"
Friendster.com creates a virtual social environment which participants
can use to maintain relationships with friends, meet new people, and project an online persona to a community of potential acquaintances. My
inquiry into this online phenomenon focuses on how collaboration and
interactivity contribute to the construction of individual virtual
identities and how this practice might or might not reinforce notions of "truth" when interpreting online personal data.
/ _/ Shanti Avirgan
Mediating Science and Suffering: Documentary Practices and
the Construction of a Transnational AIDS Dissident Network
/ _/ Christine Dierk
Being Muslim in Greenpoint (working title) was shot during the first 10
months after September 11th. It explores how a small Muslim community in
Brooklyn deals deals with living in America after the attack.
/ _/ Orkan Telhan "On Urban Virtual Reality"
Orkan Telhan is interested in raising curious questions about existing
beliefs, behaviors and thoughts about peculiar social places. Places that
are at first invisible, but very influential in human history. His project, "On Escape", is aiming to build a computer environment that is dynamically generated through the interaction of a user. This environment is made of "type and text" and will be both spatial and verbose in the quest for introducing new conditions, welcoming different perceptions, new psychologies - alternatives to the existing conceptions of social spaces in the urban environment. Telhan's project is about exploring:...a digital cemetery [may be without mourning]... a virtual altar [may be without a religion]...some scattered monuments [of unfamiliar heroes]...a [peculiar setting]...in the urban VR...
(http://www.orkantelhan.com/vr )
1:15-2:15pm :: Lunch
2:15pm- 6 pm :: Second session (moderated by Meg McLagan)
>Implications of new technologies on the notion of authenticity<
10 minute presentations followed by 10 minute discussions[ --------------------------------------------- ]/ _/ Beth Miranda Botshon
Keep the Change/Quedate con el Cambio - a 15 minute portrait of a Mexican delivery guy trying to hash out a life in NYC. The film explores issues of exploitation, disillusionment, and nostalgia.
/_/ Cortlan McManus
Cortlan McManus will present ideas from his new doc film: "Animated Cuban Spirits" (working title). This documentary film will look at the young Cuban artists of today through the looking glass of Santeria/Yoruba folktales based on the trickster character of Ajapa. Ajapa, who is a turtle living in the African bush, learns a moral for each folk tale he experiences. Cuban artists are currently living the experiences that Ajapa encountered in the fairy tales: hunger; struggle; power; individualism; collectivism; their past; and their unknown future. The film will cut between the Ajapa animations to modern day doc footage from Cuba shot between 2000-03.
/ _/ Elizabeth Knipe "Maybe it's a trick of the light"
Knipe presents poems highlighting some of the expanding options available
in new media setting(s).
/ _/ Harlan Whatley "Viva Pamplona! Viva San Fermin!"
A nine minute musical odyssey that explores the El Chupinazo,
El Encierro and La Corrida of the Festival de San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain.Implications of new technologies on the notion of authenticity
/ _/ Eleana Kim
Psychodramatic Re-takes
/ _/ Swati Bandi "Once Upon a River"
'Once Upon a River' a documentary film addresses human rights violations. In particular, it addresses the issue of displacement of people living on the Musi River banks in Hyderabad, India by the Government's ‘Nandanavanam’ project. The project sought to rid the city of its slums, which refelected the ugly face of the political structure of the state. After the presentation of clips from the film, I would like to pose certain questions of representation and spectatorship engaged within discourses of documentary, both online and off./ _/ Ruth Goldman "And These Are Jews"
'And These Are Jews' is a documentary in progress about the German Jewish community in Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally a loosely historical piece, the project is has become more personal and is currently organized around issues of assimilation, prejudice, identity, and stereotypes.
/ _/ Hector Canonge
As the third component of the project PHERSU (masks),
HcVtr (HecVatar) deals with notions of (re)construction of Identities and Self encoded by the socio-politico-economic dimensions of the digital format. HcVtr works not just as a personal introspection, but as a revelation of its creator to users at the other end of the virtual space.
/_/ Jennifer Uihlein
Robbie Grae - The dichotomy of gender identification maintains that only two 'conventional' classifications exist, male and female, denouncing the opportunity for one to subscribe to a less definitive identity, that of the 'other". In this gap lies a need for expression between the norms. "Robbie Grae" presents brief anecdotes from 5 characters who live in a world of fluidity. It is from their perspective and experience that the individual is born.
/ _/ Robin Brasington "No Title"
Presentation of short digital video clips that explore various forms and processes dealing with human sexuality in a personal vocabulary.
6:00pm-6:30pm :: Closing Remarks
7:30 pm :: Food - Drink - Music
>Facilitators<
Meg McLagan, Program in Culture and Media Dept of Anthropology, NYU
Meg McLagan is assistant professor of anthropology at New
York University where she teaches in the graduate Program in
Culture and Media. She has a background in independent
documentary film/video production and is completing a book
titled Skillful means: Culture, media, and transnational
Tibet activism for Princeton University Press. Currently she is
running a faculty working group on human rights, religion,
and media at the new Center for Religion and Media at NYU.Martin Lucas, Department of Film & Media Studies at CUNY Hunter
Martin Lucas is a New York-based videomaker whose work has been aired on
outlets including PBS, ZDF Germany, and Channel 4 UK, and featured at
locales including the New York Film Festival, the Whitney Museum, the Ars
Electronica Festival, The Native American Film Festival, and the Human
Rights Watch Film Festival. Martin has a long history as a media educator
and activist, and is currently teaching in the Film & Media Studies Program
at Hunter College, City University of New York. Martin also serves as
Director of Technology for Manhattan Neighborhood Network, New York’s public
access cable system.Trebor Scholz works collaboratively and individually across, often merging
disciplines such as public performance, installation, networked art practice
and critical writing. Interested in politics, art and critical net cultures, Scholz
investigates issues of migration, militarized borders, historical memory, immigration,
exile and media coverage of war. Occasionally he facilitates events and programs
creating networks of productive discontent which take place in art institutions,
educational contexts, the public urban arena as well as on the Internet.
(molodiez.org)
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>Directions<
General Directions to Hunter College and the Dept of Film & Media Studies
can be found at http://filmmedia.hunter.cuny.edu
tel: 212-772-4949
The Friday night location, Hunter West 217 is best reached by using the entrance on the Southwest corner of 68th St. and Lexington Ave., upstairs from the 68th St. Lexington Ave. No. 6 IRT station. Once inside, take the escalator up one flight to the 2nd floor. HW217 will be on the 68th St. or north side of the 2nd floor lobby.
For the Saturday Night Location - Hunter North 544 Enter the North Building at the 68th street entrance (between Park and Lexington Avenues). Take the elevators to the fifth floor. Make a left to the double doors. Make a right and then head straight to the end of the hall, through another set of double doors take a sharp left into 544.
Martin Lucas mlucas@igc.org
Trebor Scholz treborscholz@earthlink.net
