Group items tagged

From the website: "The Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) is a section of the American Anthropological Association. We promote the study of visual representation and media. Both research methods and teaching strategies fall within the scope of the society. SVA members are involved in all aspects of production, dissemination, and analysis of visual forms. Works in film, video, photography, and computer-based multimedia explore signification, perception, and communication-in-context, as well as a multitude of other anthropological and ethnographic themes.The Society encourages the use of media, including still photography, film, video and non-camera generated images, in the recording of ethnographic, archaeological and other anthropological genres. Members examine how aspects of culture can be pictorially/visually interpreted and expressed, and how images can be understood as artifacts of culture.

ORDINARY MIRACLES: THE PHOTO LEAGUE'S NEW YORK is a feature-length documentary film which tells the story of the rise and politically motivated fall of the Photo League, (1936-1951) which for fifteen years served as the center of the documentary movement in American photography at a time when the camera was held to be, in James Agee's words, "the central instrument of our time."

I keep intending to pass along this site - folkstreams.net - which has digitized and archived a number of "canonical" ethnographic films. You can watch them for free - check out Salamanders!

Watkins studies young people's social and digital media behaviors. He teaches at the University of Texas, Austin, in the departments of Radio-Television-Film, Sociology, and the Center for African and African American Studies. C.

The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard is a unique collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Visual & Environmental Studies (VES). Harnessing perspectives drawn from the human sciences, the arts, and the humanities, the aim of SEL is to support innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, with original nonfiction media practices that explore the bodily praxis and affective fabric of human existence. As such, it encourages attention to the many dimensions of social experience and subjectivity that may only with difficulty be rendered with words alone. SEL provides an academic and institutional context for the development of work which is itself constitutively visual or acoustic - that is conducted through audiovisual media rather than purely verbal sign systems - and which may thus complement the human sciences' and humanities' traditionally exclusive reliance on the written word. The instruction offered through SEL is thus distinct from other graduate visual anthropology programs in the United States in that it is practice-based, and promotes experimentation with culturally-inflected, nonfiction image-making.

Harvard seems to have a lot going on for it... In context for what we /do/ with digital ethnography materials, I wish that more of the projects that are featured were actually available for, at the very least, preview (at odds with the program's description of conduction through audiovisual media...). I wish I knew more about Zeega (and the apparent connection based on large logo presence on the projects page), even if it is only in alpha... http://zeega.org/about.php

The projects at SEL provide a rich landscape for sensory/experiential exploration. This type of work really opens the mind to new perspectives and detail that is often exploited or skewed through popular media - like maintstream cinema or video games. Being a huge fan of the film "Where Eagles Dare" and the old SkyTram at Disneyland, I really enjoyed the Greunrekorder - Swiss Mountain Transport Systems sound recordings. I wonder if anyone has conducted similar research on the Portland Aerial Tram. Many of the trailers were exquisite, too. "Sweetgrass" looks to be an amazing documentary.

This is fascinating. A Kansas State professor encouraged his students to create individual YouTube videos (of themselves) in order to generate different types of creative, self-reflexive, and personal digital "ethnographies." Scroll down the webpage to view individual videos or visit the class's group page on YouTube.

This project by Michael Wesch has been going for some time and earned him much attention/respect. Check his bio here: http://mediatedcultures.net/michael-wesch/

Just testing diigo, but thought this service provided by WalMart(!) was interesting.

Nothing better than Walmart trying to control the media world :)

To compliment the Dhiraj Murthy reading, the link above is a quick look of what the film is about. Unfortunately the entire movie has been removed from Vimeo and YouTube. I believe the AAA library has a copy of it available if you are interested. For the planning and design community, this is a vital resource.

First "issue" to launch Sept. 1. Some ethnographic films available on site currently.