Converting Archived Fieldwork Footage into a Documentary: Life Beyond the Archive

• Rui Oliveira ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidade de Aveiro

     Universidade de Aveiro

     Vera Cruz, Portugal

     
• Localización: Ethnomusicology and audiovisual communication: selected papers from the MusiCam 2014 Symposium / coord. por Enrique Cámara de Landa, Leonardo D'Amico, Matías Isolabella, Yoshitaka Terada, 2016, ISBN 978-84-608-9291-5, págs. 187-200
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Through the history of anthropology and ethnomusicology many researchers have turned to audiovisual recording as a research support tool. However, once the recording have been analysed to aid the production of knowledge, often published in written form, what should be the destination of this footage? Arguably, a technologically developed and “stagnant” archive, whether in private or in institutional facilities, often seems to be the option, many times in a definitive way (EVIA – Digital Archive Project 2014).

    The constant development of recording, playing and storage technologies can make it difficult to play older footage, as the equipment tends to become obsolete. Since the archived images contain considerable knowledge, how can an audiovisual archive be enhanced as a nucleus of documentation for the construction of new knowledge? These images enclose considerable potential insight that can be reanalysed and republished, possibly by different researchers, in different formats, like for example a documentary.

    The aim of this paper is to reflect upon these issues on the basis of two case studies –the documentaries Sons de Goa and Kola San Jon. These documentaries were based on fieldwork footage collected by ethnomusicologists and were partially archived at the University of Aveiro branch of INAET-md (Institute of Ethnomusicology – Center for Music and Dance Studies). This paper also aims to provide alternative forms and discuss the role of archival footage, the ultimate goal being to transform the knowledge that the latter holds into knowledge accessible to a greater public, whether or not enrolled in the academy