Archival Assembly #3
Over the last decade or so, archivists, artists, curators, and scholars have increasingly engaged with archives to make cinema’s varied and multiple pasts visible and create new futures for and with moving images. But an engagement with archives is never just an act of looking at, but also of listening to moving images. In the work of archivists, artists, curators, and scholars, archives become audible as much as they become visible. How exactly does the audible relate to the visible in moving image archives, and how does the work of opening up these archives to audiences through programs, artworks, and scholarship reconfigure that relationship? How does what we might call the re-sounding of archives shape film and media history and the audiovisual arts?
A first overview of the formats of the entire festival and its highlights can be found here.
Symposium
RESOUNDING ARCHIVES: THE POLITICS OF LISTENING TO THE MOVING IMAGE
Wednesday, September 18
09:30: Welcoming remarks by Vinzenz Hediger and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus
10.00–11.30: Rumors Recorded and Remembered: Oral Histories and the Archives of Gossip
Erika Balsom will talk about the silent screening with live commentary of documentary footage shot by Vibeke Løkkeberg during the first international “Frauenfilm-Seminar” of 1973 at Archival Assembly 2023. Marc Siegel will talk about gossip as a productive mode of knowledge circulation. Moderation: Petra Löffler
12.00–13.30: Sonic Maps of Migration: Documentary Sound Archives
Petna Ndaliko Katondolo will talk about soundscapes and trauma. Britta Lange will discuss the latency of colonial sound archives. Moderation: Laliv Melamed
Thursday, September 19
10.00–11.30: Cinephilia as Sonophilia
Diedrich Diederichsen will talk about Jack Smith’s record collection and film performances. Pavitra Sundar (Hamilton College) will discuss feminist approaches to the history of Bombay film sound. Moderation: Marc Siegel
12.00–13.30: Archive Work as Artistic Practice
Artist talk with Saodat Ismailova, Dana Iskakova and Susanne Sachsse. Moderation: Asja Makarević
Friday, September 20
10.00–11.30: Does this Sound Right? The Ethics of Curating Sound
Matěj Strnad (Prague) will discuss questions of access to film history through language, sound, and music. Sonia Campanini (Frankfurt am Main) will talk about new ways of experiencing film through sound-based curation. Eunice Martins (Berlin) will talk about experimental live music in the cinema. Moderation: Heleen Gerritsen (Wiesbaden)
12:00–13:30: Tell Me What I See: The Art of Live Narration-as-Translation
Matthias Krings and Solomon Waliaula will talk about live commentary superstars in Kenya. Chalida Uabumrungjit will discuss the practice of live dubbing in Thailand. Abigail Mann will address Indian films dubbed in Hausa. Moderation: Stefanie Schulte Strathaus
Saturday, September 21
10:00–11:30: Listen Up and Be Persuaded: Archives of Interpellation
Tom Rice (St. Andrews) will discuss the lost art of film strip presentation, a precursor to tiktok videos. Moderation: Salma Siddique
12:00–13:30: Sounding Out Materiality: Archiving Foley Sound
Jonáš Kucharský will talk about the Foley archive at the Národní filmový archiv. Simone Nowicki will discuss Foley artists and how they have localized themselves throughout history. Moderation: Vinzenz Hediger
Sunday, September 22
10.00–11.30: Speaking Up
Fiona Berg will discuss feminist networks, festivals, and manifestos. Ahmeed Refaat (Cairo) will talk about the 2nd Afro-Asian Film Festival that took place in Cairo in 1960. Moderation: Brigitta Kuster
12:00–13:30: Pirate Sounds: Composing Histories From Acoustic Fragments and Debris
Tom Simmert will speak of pirate media and YouTube archives in Nigerian music. Aboubakar Sanogo will discuss hip hop and how it remediates what we might call the “African Emancipation Library.” Moderation: Erica Carter
Archival Assembly #3 is organized by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in collaboration with the master’s program Film Culture at Goethe University Frankfurt, the Goethe Institut, silent green, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, and migas, a listening bar. Funding is provided by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Wednesday, Sept 18 – Sunday, Sept 22
Kuppelhalle
Admission free, please register by e-mail: archive(at)arsenal-berlin.de
All information and dates