A Reminder of the Time capsule

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=315254474724200001

this video i found reminded me of Myeasha's presentation on bringing the person out of the time capsule. It is speaking about the Yanomami people but in the beginning it has a montage of people in their origins and "time capsule" and transfers them to a more mdoern world.

In thinking of more indigenous documentary...

We have already seen a work by Jean Rouch which was his Jaguar, an insight into his work in Africa. Jean Rouch was asked one day why dont you document your own, the Parisians? So he did just that.He made Chronicle of a Summer with Edgar Morin. He interviewed anyone living in Paris, and even got his subjects to interview other subjects. They were asked "Are you Happy?" and got a variety of answers.

Technological Advancement even Prevelant in Museums

I always looked to Museums as an archive of the past, especially the The Natural History Museum. I have done a study in ethnography on the Natural History Museum that reflect's the societie's constant technological gains and advancements that even an archive of History has to incoporate.



There are many massive television screens that people sit through and watch movies. I came across about fifteen of these massive screens. One is in the sea room or otherwise known as the "whale room". The biodiversity hall has many of these in which different movies play. The Dinosaur Wing has an entire movie explaining the history of the dinosaurs.


Most people seem to sit through the entire movie and settle down rather than manouver their way through the exhibit and learn the information and their own rather than just being told.


There are many different Computer stations that exist in almost every single wing, including the oldest, in the Dinosaur Wing. New technologies can be seen everywhere in this museum. There is even a thermal camera that you can walk by and it can read your body temperature. This reflects our culture and how we are constantly moving forward in the technological era. You can see it everywhere in the museum with new screen being placed in old halls every year.

The Underground Orchestra

This is a clip from The Underground Orchestra a film by Heddy Honnigman. It is a type of ethnography in that it explores the world of subway performers in Paris. Most of them are refugees forced to leave their country and start fresh in Paris. It is very much worth seeing!

Indigenous Media

Itam Hakim Hopi by filmmaker Victor Masayesva was a piece considered an Indigenous ethnography in other words a grassroots piece. It was allowing the director Victor Masayesva to turn the camera around on his own people. He had the chance to tell in a sense his story through the main character, Ross Macaya. This piece was original in that although in the native language of Hoopi there were no subtitles. He seemed to have on purpose, narrated over the main narration. His soothing voice and tone allowed to give a feel to the viewer this notion of oral storytelling.


The whole ethnography is in the narrative of Ross Macaya. He is telling stories of the Hoopi people and stories on how they came to be. What is also unique in this type of ethnography is that he seems to not necessarily make a direct connection with what is being seen and what is being told. Although symbolically and metaphorically there is some connection.

He draws many connections between the people and the natural enviornment, or their natural surroundings. He has a very poetic undertone in the way he cut and edited this film. With the words of Ross Macaya, he shows images of corn being collected and planted and as well in the beginning shows Ross himself weaving a type of traditional dress.

This ethnography was interesting in that it was the first look into "grassroots" media other than "Number Our Days".
"Number Our Days" was a very different approach in this look into indigenous film. "Number our Days" while not necessarily as poetic and metaphoric was still an interesting approach to indigneous media. She looked into a community that "one day she would be a part of".

It was revealing not only in the aspects of the culture but it was universal. Not only was it an insight into the Jewish culture but it was a revealing look into the world of the old. Sad and moving it was a compilement of different narratives from the different people in this Jewish Community Center.


She would cut to herself at times and put in her own two sense of her feelings and reactions to her findings. I think it was nice to see how she was reflecting on her own culture. Her being apart of this culture, or eventually to be a part of it, I found myself almost giving her the authority to iterject and give her own opinion because she herself is a pat of that community.


This film was also in a sense a means to communicate the social injustices that this community had to endure. With the scene of the people giving out free groceries and Meyerhoff explaining that there was not enough support of this center, it exposes the in-humane conditions that some of these older people have to go through. It opens the public's eye and shows how hard it is for some people to get by.

Both these films were unique in the ethnographic field in that it was coming from their side. Both these films reflected the film-maker's culture and where they come from or where they will go. I found myself listening to them more and trusting their input and opinions on the culture they were studying because in a sense they had an "in". They could both speak with authority on these cultures because they themselves are those cultures in a sense. I enjoyed both these films. They both offered very different insights into two very different cultures but were very telling, eye opening, and educational

The Museum of Natural History / Haraway

After reading the Haraway piece “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908 – 1936" I was left with a lot of questions and thoughts on the museum. After having spent a lot of time there as a child, I never fully realized that the animals were in fact real at one point and taxidermed. I thought it was interesting when Haraway talks about Akley and his experience in collecting gorillas. She explains, "Akley and his party had killed or attempted to kill every ape that had seen since arriving in the area." (p.57) I thought it was interesting because Akley was trying to bring these Animals to the museum to preserve them however in doing so he had to kill them first. There is something ironic and troubling in the notion of killing off these animals just to put them behind glass in a museum.
Later Haraway tallks about how "Now it was time to hunt with the camera (p.57). I thought this was interesting in that he decided to start snapping a camera rather than shoot a gun to collect information and preserve animals forever in time.
And later on Haraway is explaining a photograph taken of a dead gorilla being photographed by a camera. She says "The contrast of this scene of death with the diorama framing the giant of Karisimbi mounted in New York is total; the animal came to life again, this time imortal." (p.58) I thought that this was interesting because through the epxierience of killing and then photgraphing, the animal was killed but born again. I thought this was a ironic and interesting concept she brought up that makes you question the museum itself and the way things were collected.
The hunting with the camera concept reminded me of Juan Downey's laughing alligator. Both seem to say that the camera is a tool, a weapon to be used. You can hunt with it and use it carefully as your weapon like a gun. However in the Haraway piece it was the alternative to a gun.
What is interesting as well is the dioramas in the museum and how the animals are dead but made re-born again. The scene set up is so forced but supposed to be made to look so real. After going there and re-examine what is being shown there was some sort of eerie presence. Espeically having know that these animals were killed for this purpose and then stuffed and placed in the position that they were in. There was a sad and creepy element to all these dioramas.
What I also noticed in one of the medicine man exhibits there were all these manicans of these men dressed in "taditional" costumes. There were a lot of maks, head pieces, and feathers. However what I noticed or realized was that on one of the manicans, their shoes were converse. It was a very updated shoe on these "traditional" constumes. I thought it was funny and intersting, and probably a slip-up considering none of the other manicans had antyhing like this on.
What also is interesting is the classification of the museum. We talked briefly in class about this and the names of some of the wings. "The African Wing" is just such a broad classification. I felt like i did not learn much because it was so largely sterotyped into one hall. Africa is made up of hundreds of countries so I found it bizarre that the wing was just titled Africa. As well one was titled "The Lure of Asia" which is also troubling and problematic because of how many different cultures and countries there are within Asia.
My favorite room in the museum is the sea room. It has changed since I remember it. There are a lot of new technologies incorporated into it. For example there are many computer stations set up, ones in which you can interact with, and ass well a huge new movie screen that plays a movie about an ocean. The cieling is lit up with blue lights to make it look as if one is underwater. The large wall is still a huge life-size length that makes the room so popular. One disturbing feature was that a lot of the maequins were faceless, and terrified me a little.

Our film...finally

We decided to play with the idea of identity... and when someone becomes a new yorker and why they consider themselves new yorkers....