Community Media - Interactive World

Worldwide Community Film Screenings

2012-01-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

The International Community Film Festival (ICFF) has announced its intention to branch out in 2012 with selected screenings of the best films to be made available through key partners worldwide.

2012 will be the Fourth Festival organized by Dr Ian McCormick. If you're interested in looking at the work of ICFF in the recent past, click here.

Are you able to help? How can you participate in free ICFF film screenings in your part of the world ?

1. Please send me an email or message if you are interested in screening a selection of the best films from ICFF 2012 in your home town or city during September-October 2012. (You will be able to set your own specific date)

2. You will need access to a free cinema space, or to a school, college, community centre, public building, or university space that is equipped with a suitable DVD player/laptop, projector, and a screen.

3. Ideally, you will want to organise your own events and speakers around the screening and - crucial detail - be self-financing as we do not have a top-down budget to dispense (at this stage - and I can't make any promises for the future).

4. ICFF will provide help and support with Press Releases, Publicity, Social Media, Building Local Partnerships and how to gain Sponsorship.

5. Some evidence of festival and/or organizational experience, or other relevant skills would be a major advantage.

6. New partners will be listed in the forthcoming 2012 Call for Films.

I look forward to hearing from you and to exploring partnership opportunities,

Dr Ian McCormick
ICFF Director.

ian.mccormick@hotmail.co.uk

ICFF is on Facebook
ICFF is on Twitter as "PostFilm"

Blogs:
30 Way to Put the Community Into Film

Wikepdia Article on Community Film
What is Community Film?

In Praise of the Brave People of Syria and their Poets

2012-01-11T07:24:00.000-08:00

Adonis - Poet of Syria

Every day we hear about more atrocities committed in Syria in the name of a Tyrant against his long-suffering people. The Arab League inspectors appear unable to support the will of the Syrian people and their democratic right to freedom from oppression. One commentator has declared that their mission is a farce.

My thoughts turned to the great Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said Esber (called Adonis), who was born in 1930. His life has been one of exile, but his words resonate with beauty, spirit, nobility, suffering and elegance. Decades later his words are inspiring and resonant for all oppressed peoples seeking a decent life, basic rights, and self-expression.

In tribute to the true and brave people of Syria; the imprisoned Syrians and the exiled Syrians; may I quote from Adonis's 1957 poem "The Banished":

Stay here, our hearts, do not leave us,
do not dare your fate
among hunger and bitter despair.
Stay here on this soil and grow
and tomorrow it will be said
from this earth a struggle arose,
fed on our arms,
nourished by our call,
an endless search
for a new dawn.

Corporate Power and the Space for Occupation

2011-11-23T08:34:00.001-08:00

“The biggest challenge in the present crisis [2008] is whether we can recover some sense of the connection between money and material reality — the production of specific things, the achievement of recognisably human goals that have something to do with a shared sense of what is good for the human community in the widest sense.”

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, writing in The Spectator (23 September 2008.)

"The economic stimulus and the bailouts will not bring back our casino capitalism. And as the meltdown shows no signs of abating, and the bailouts show no sign of working, the recklessness and desperation of our capitalist overlords have increased." (187)

"When money becomes worthless, so does government. All traditional standards and beliefs are shattered in a severe economic crisis. The moral order is turned upside down." (188)

"They descended into orgies of self indulgence, surrendered their civic and emotional lives to the glitter, excitement, and spectacle of the arena, became politically apathetic and collapsed." (189)

"The worse reality becomes, the less a beleaguered population wants to hear about it, and the more it distracts itself with the squalid pseudo-events of celebrity break-downs, gossip, and trivia." (190)

"Our culture of illusion is, at its core, a culture of death." (192)

Quotations from Chris Hedge's inspiring book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of the Spectacle.

It’s one thing to profess to having a faith and to have hope for human action as a positive force; it is another to subscribe to a religion that has become highly codified and rigid. The more a religion exercises control against our free will the more we think of it as a cult – as a harmful form of mind-control and manipulation. I suspect that in the long run those faith groups that are more responsive to the lived life of individuals and communities are better able to speak to the people and guide them most effectively in their ethical, critical and creative choices. But the predicaments of doctrine, tradition, the use of Church buildings, and faith as an informant of social action have been thrown into stark relief by recent events in The City of London.

In an important sense the Christian faith does not offer a specific programme of actions; rather it helps to inform our choices and (one hopes) supports us to lead a better and a more responsible life. It is in these contexts that I want to explore the worldwide Occupy movements in relation to politics and postcolonial theology. Here are some questions and a few observations.

As I write two senior members of the Church of England have resigned over the issue of the occupation of land adjoining St Paul’s Cathedral in London. At the same time other senior members of the Church are now authorizing legal action that will if successful lead to the forced removal by the police of the occupiers who are campaigning against global capital, debt, and the London Stock Exchange. The reaction of the church is divided and we are told that the occupiers do not even know what they want to achieve. A more sympathetic and minority voice has been Madeleine Bunting writing in The Guardian on Sunday 30 October 2011:

“The critics complain that there are no clearly identified objectives; there is no manifesto. But ‘Occupy’ is not some proto-political party. Critics insist there must be leaders or representatives. But the protesters stubbornly refuse to conform to any of the conventions of our political and media culture.”

Let me say at the outset that I have been struck by the media hostility to the occupy movements. I’m writing from a British perspective and that may mean that your experience of the occupations, the activists and the media has been very different from mine. But a range of writers and thinkers such as Slavoj Zizek have also been prepared to celebrate the lack of a fixity of direction and purpose. The last thing a new movement wants is to build out of failed structures; the old politics and an irrelevant religion. The present climate of revolutionary play may to some historians, however, be deemed to be oddly reminiscent of the student-led revolts of ’68 and the experimental excitement and hope of the Situationists.

If to some people the occupiers appear to represent an unreal fantasy world of myth and imagination, perhaps the same can be said for the financial and economic gurus who seem to be unable or ill-equipped to deal with the present crisis (one in which a global youth population of 80 million may not find work). The need for critical dialogue based on common-sense realities is one feature of the argument that Rowan William was proposing back in 2008:

“The mythologies and abstractions, the pseudo-objects of much modern financial culture, are in urgent need of their own Dawkins or Hitchens. We need to be reacquainted with our own capacity to choose — which means acquiring some skills in discerning true faith from false, and re-learning some of the inescapable face-to-face dimensions of human trust.”

The main complaint from the media and from commentators on the left and the right is that the Occupy ‘movement’ lacks a coherent programme; that it lacks specific demands. It has been confusing for some commentators that its participants appear to cross political party and class boundaries. Debate rages about who these groups are. They range from inheritors of the Tea Party movement sponsored by big business to a lunatic fringe of latter day hippies and anarcho-socialists. It appears to be a very wide church and it’s difficult to pin a label on the “occupiers.”

The Occupation Movement's semantic mobility and viral acceleration is further propelled by harnessing the potential of digital social media. A few tents in the City of London become the focus for global media. Small gestures can have gigantic consequences and I suspect that there has been more than one commentator who pointed to Luther’s nailed theses as the beginning of global movement almost 500 years ago. (In his case a movement disseminated at high velocity by the ‘new’ technology of the printing press.)

I had intended to refer to ‘them’ as protestors, but even that label harks back to a mode of activism that appears rather outmoded. Is there some kind of identity crisis going on; like Christians, are ‘they’ like us and also different from ‘us’? It’s crucial to note in this regard that our obsession with categories and classifications (taxonomy was an Enlightenment project) is in its turn based on a need to police spaces and their boundaries. Space is a key battleground and it is also a place for identity-formation and for the construction of ideological coherence.

Let us not forget that the architecture of Western capitalism and empire was in key respects constructed in the coffee-houses of London (see Jurgen Habermas’s work) where merchant, stock jobbers and brokers, mercantile officers, manufacturers, poets and journalists did deals and described for the first time a new outlook on how to shape the world.

It’s ironic, or apposite, then, that what we are seeing today is a campaign against unfair terms of trade, global capital accumulation, and hostility to the Starbucks’ model of transnational capitalism. (I suspect that the Occupiers are also sceptical about, or hostile to, the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility.)

It is significant then that the new tented communities are experimenting with the occupation of space as the basic unit of struggle. It is an issue that goes to the very heart of a privatized and commodified world; it is an issue that goes back, also to seventeenth century debates about the commons – a free space for community use; an unfenced zone available for the common good.

It is instructive to think about how few are the public and open spaces that remain available to the people. Schools and colleges and Universities are increasingly closed and privatized spaces. Free evening classes are in decline and many educational institutions are walled, gated, and protected spaces in both real and metaphoric respects. The spaces available to faith groups and community organizations have been in decline since the 1970s. Even the much loved public houses of intoxication (or not) are in steep decline.

A major concern in cultural geography and postcolonial theology is with the ownership and the occupation of spaces; the domination and the exploitation of spaces by specific groups; the inequalities of space understood in discreet, local and global terms. Space then is crucial to the occupation in London, part of which is land owned by the Church. In the first instance the Occupiers were welcomed by the Church. Now that situation has changed and the Occupiers have been asked to leave. Legal action is underway. In other parts of the world the police are moving in. Is this 'our' Tahrir Square moment? Has the Arab Spring become an Anglo-American Winter of Discontent?

Let’s ponder the centrality of space again. A key discovery in recent years has been to identify evidence that where you live is the prime driver of where you will end up in life – and how and when you will die. Life expectancy across poor and rich boroughs of London varies by an astonishing seventeen years. Across the world, average life expectancy ranges from early forties to high seventies – almost twice as long.What questions does such a disparity raise? How does it affect our conscience as social animals and as ethical beings?

Surely a ministry and a social activism that fails to be informed by tragic inequalities will not be deemed relevant or responsive to human suffering by a majority of the global population. In Britain, we call the inequalities of health, opportunity and social mobility the ‘postcode lottery.’ How far is there an element in mission to cross boundaries and to embrace our common humanity?

Again I would like to quote Madeleine Bunting’s highly perceptive analysis of why the occupation of space needs to be understood as an essential feature of the ongoing debates:

“Space” is the theme that runs through much of what the protesters say. Their first agreed principle is that the current system is unsustainable, undemocratic and unjust, and they want to create the space to think of alternatives. First that means taking key symbolic public space – this is the politics of geography – to use it for conviviality, living, learning and participation. That’s no easy task in a city designed to facilitate only three activities – working, transport and shopping – with as little human interaction as possible. Metal fencing is springing up around even small public spaces in the City of London to preclude new camps. The protesters’ aim is to open up space, physically and socially, for people to connect and thereby open up space in people’s imaginations.”

Confusion, chaos and anarchy are one effect of an indiscriminate mixing of spaces. But doesn’t a true sense of equality suggest and imply a constructive potential for mixing, crossing, mingling, blending, exchanging? (Is our language in this regard ‘fallen’ if we think only of such exchanges as material commodities, financial transactions, and monetary vehicles?)

The occupy movements are loosely connected across the globe but they are not disorganized or chaotic. As The Guardian’s Madeleine Bunting has commented “The level of organisation is remarkable. There is nothing chaotic about this experiment in community in which no one is turned away, and everyone has their say.”

In fact a participatory and deliberative approach appears to be at the core of what they do as the following example of ‘principles’ drawn from Take the Square demonstrates:

Inclusiveness, we are a movement of people, whose plurality goes beyond any label; no political parties, trade unions or associations represent us.
Horizontality, we gather together in assemblies for taking decisions, so these decisions are taken as most shared as possible.
Collective intelligence, facing the problems we use or collective intelligence to scape the logic of the power.
Respect, because we look for what join us together rather what divides us, respect for the others is basic.
Non-violence, because non-violence make us stronger, it allow us to change the reality, break the predictable, it make us more radical.

It is too early to let Madeleine Bunting have the last word, but her conclusion has proved controversial in the comments section attached to her newspaper article:

“One might have hoped that an institution such as St Paul’s, conscious of its own history of civic purpose and national identity, not to mention the radical gospel of a Jewish itinerant carpenter, would have grasped the symbolism of the moment more astutely. That they failed demonstrates all the more starkly the ethical bankruptcy of our age. And that, after all, is exactly what Occupy London is about.”

What the occupations mean and where they are going it is difficult to predict. But I do sense that there is an unfinished project that in a significant way is taking its bearings (conscious or not) from Rowan Williams, writing in 2008, so eloquently expressed

“Behind all this, though, is the deeper moral issue. We find ourselves talking about capital or the market almost as if they were individuals, with purposes and strategies, making choices, deliberating reasonably about how to achieve aims. We lose sight of the fact that they are things that we make. They are sets of practices, habits, agreements which have arisen through a mixture of choice and chance. Once we get used to speaking about any of them as if they had a life independent of actual human practices and relations, we fall into any number of destructive errors.”

[An earlier version of this essay was posted on Postcolonial Networks. If you visit the site you will notice that there has been some thoughtful commentary on what I said at the time.]

18 Advantages of visual auto-ethnography for research

2011-11-23T06:48:00.001-08:00

What is it?

Visual auto-ethnography is a form of participant -authored audio-visual storytelling. Still confused? Think video diary and you're almost there. In recent years the availability of more affordable camcorders has meant that researchers and participants can engage in more effective research.

Real examples of practical use of video

In recent projects I have used flip cameras with participants from ethnic minority communities who were recording their experience of adult learning as enrichment. In another project we used more expensive cameras in a health setting in order to examine what the priorities were for service users. The footage has had multiple benefits and we continue to develop the use of visual technologies and methodologies:

to empower and support the participation of service users and clients;

to provide evidence and documentation of outputs and project delivery;

to support the creative personalization of service delivery;

to inform project evaluation;

to demonstrate accountability;

to improve the accessibility and awareness of services;

to influence policy and strategic development options;

to foster dialogue between groups of people - both vertical (client to manager) and horizontal (client to service user)

...etc

What are the advantages of visual auto-ethnography?

1. If the researcher is working with a group that finds reading and writing difficult then it makes sense to tap into their self- or group- expression through visual literacy

2. Inexpensive cameras are very easy to use. Basic training is all that is required on a technical level.

3. The researcher will be hearing the world through the voice of the participant.

4. The research will be seeing the world through the eyes of the participant.

5. The participant rather than the researcher selects what is relevant - using focus, emphasis, frame, duration of shot etc.

6. The film product may more successfully encompass a more private world than would be accessible to the external, "other" world of the researcher.

7. By taking the researcher out of the filming process there is less opportunity for the researcher to influence the proceedings - either deliberately or unwittingly.

8. Participants are likely to have an understanding of their participation based on their experience of popular genres such as reality TV, or fly-on-the-wall documentary.

9. Because it's participant-led the researcher may end up with a degree of personalization that cuts through the tired cliches, social prejudices and/ or imposed expectations.

10. Participants are able to generate a lot of material in a short time.

11. Participants may have the option to edit or delete the footage that they recorded - giving them more power over the research

12. Participation in editing may provide additional opportunities for reflective work by the participants

13. The researcher has a rich database of material on which to work.

14. The researcher can replay clips in order to capture detailed responses and nuances that might other wise be missed. Similarly, the research may also zoom in on visual details.

15. Remember that many hand-held cameras are small and portable; they are ideal for working in confined environments.

16. Camcorders have become so cheap that they will often fit within a tight researcher's budget

17. Because they are inexpensive the researcher need not fear the risk that some cameras may be lost or damaged. There is less need for supervision and security issues.

18. Affordability means that a wider or larger focus group of participants can be employed than would be the case if more professional equipment were employed.

In another blog I will be discussing the practical aspects of setting up a video diary for research. And after that we will be moving on to discuss the dangers and disadvantages of using visual auto-ethnography. We will be discussing ethical issues and the secrets of getting the most out of your participants to create high quality research.

Watch our for notices regarding future posts on Facebook or Twitter.

The International Community Film Forum showcases participatory video from around the world.

If you want to read more, there is a short article from The Guardian that is quite helpful:

Video diaries. "One of the simplest and cheapest ways to start filming is to make a video diary. These are the secrets of making a good one."

Occupy London and the Church of England

2011-11-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

The BBC has just published a selection of comments on the situation outside St Paul's cathedral in London, where a tented village has been established by "Occupy." Legal notice has just been served on the "Occupiers" who may be forced to leave in 48 hours' time.

George Pitcher, an Anglican priest and former Archbishop of Canterbury's Public Affairs Secretary comments

"Talking about these camps cropping up like boils across our city, and indeed the mayor of London shouting at the protesters, "In the name of God and Mammon go!" I think that's really pantomime material and I'm glad that the Church is dissociating itself from it."

If you are interested in these issues you can read my short essay discussing

"Faith, Space and Occupation" here.

Twenty Tips to make your film a re-sounding success

2011-10-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

Why are so many low-budget and community films let down by poor attention to sound? What do we need to do to make our films a resounding success?

The obvious answer is that we live in a world where the visual takes priority. We don't really listen to the sounds around us. In fact we often - without realizing - block out sounds that may be distracting. But when we play back a recording the wrong sounds leap out and obstruct the message.

Our golden rules and tips for success with sound are

Accept that manufacturers of budget camcorders often cut costs by using a poor microphone device. A small investment of $150 will make a big difference to your recordings.
Practise listening to the world around you. How many sounds can you hear? Traffic? The computer's fan? Birdsong? The rustle of your clothes? Your keyboard as you type? A chair creaking? Your breathing? Your heartbeat? (Try to count twenty environmental sounds as a listening exercise with your film crew.)
Some background sounds are helpful in creating an atmosphere. But if some of your sounds begin to distract from the clarity of your speaker's voice, for instance, then urgent remedial action is required. Remember than you can add a track with background or atmospheric sounds - on top of the voice interview. This approach gives you far more control over your material.
With artificial amplification the effects on our listening and hearing are easier to discern. Therefore I recommend that you invest in a good external microphone and learn how to use it. Practise listening to the world around you with a good quality microphone and headphones. Learn to notice how different the recording can be from 'normal' hearing.
When making your film it is good practice to have one person with responsibility for recording and monitoring the sound. Attentive listening can also be a shared activity and is very strenuous and tiring as it demands a lot of concentration.
Microphone position is also important. Again trial and error is essential. A boom pole, for example, allows you to place a microphone in an ideal position just above a speaker's head. With a shotgun microphone you can point at an object to be recorded. Clip microphone can also be effective for interviews.
If you are doing an interview try to avoid the urge to speak over the interviewee; also avoid fidgeting, laughing, and vocally (dis)agreeing as the person speaks - off-screen sounds cannot be deleted.
A lot of time is spent thinking about locations in visual terms. But it is also essential to think about the recording as a sound environment. Set up you camcorder or microphones underneath the air-conditioning system, for instance, is not a good idea. Some large rooms may have unpleasant echo and reverb effects. Unfurnished rooms lack warmth.
A wind-jammer can be effective to cut down on noise caused by wind. You will find that cheap cameras are adversely affected even by a light breeze that begins to sound like a raging hurricane.
Watch the recording levels on your camera or recording equipment. Set the Gain/Volume so that the louder noises do not push the recording levels into the red zone where the recording will sound distorted. Trial and error take planning and time. Don't cut corners.
Timing: Don't start recording until everyone is ready. Don't stop until everyone has finished. It is good practice to record an extra minute of sound.
Do not set the volume levels too low. You can increase them on playback but you will also be increasing the unwanted background noises.
Remember that there is no remedy for badly distorted recordings at the film/sound edit stage.
Pay attention to sound in your editing. Reject clips with bad sound just as you would dispose of clips that are out of focus.
Consider investing in recorded music as part of your soundtrack. It really lifts a film and can also add continuity by linking section of the film thematically. Or maybe you can record a community choir or local band. Think local and DIY.
Experiment with fading sounds in and out in your edit.
Ensure that sound levels have been balanced and equalized across your film. It is annoying if we have to keep turning the sound up and down on a DVD.
If you are using music in your film comply with legal requirements.
Invest in, and insist on, excellent speakers and amplification when you screen / present your film to the public.
Think Disability. Are subtitles and audio description appropriate and helpful? - and in your budget?

Dummies, Donors and Dictators

2011-10-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

Communities have things done to them; they are seldom in charge of their own destiny. Sometimes it's quite difficult to work out who is really pulling the strings. The sources of power are often hidden and far away.

The disparity between donor and beneficiary exists on many levels: North/South; urban/rural; male/female; black/white; bourgeois/worker; West/Oriental; Christian/Islamic and so on.

Ideally the funding programme will have been informed by research with the oppressed community in order to ascertain their needs, and their priorities for change.

The reality is more likely to be guided by the donors’ existing scheme of values. Their ways of doing things. Their priorities. When we enforce an alien doctrine we do more harm than good. We deal with the wrong priorities. Our efforts, perhaps well-meaning, are misguided.

A recurring issue in the field of education and development work which is insufficiently documented is how certain scenarios and pressures cause us to deviate from the empowerment and participation strategies which have been demonstrated to work effectively. The possibility of successful work is compromised on a variety of levels and at different stages of a project. On a more global scale, the encompassing strategy may be flawed in the process of research, planning and development. For the community development worker there will be experiential issues of conscience and compromise, of fear and frustration, that do not make it into the final evaluation which often ends up being as neutral as is neutered.

The most common problem is the disjunction between the aspirations of the funding bodies and their target groups; the preoccupations of distant charities and remote trustees often have a poor fit with the lived experience on the ground.

I often think of the ventriloquist and the dummy. While the dummy appears to lead, has the best lines, and a comic energy, behind the scenes the power balance belongs to the ventriloquist. The dummy appears to be the leading actor and occupies the stage, but when the curtain falls, dummy returns to his box and the ventriloquist is free and self-determined in his expression.

Note that I’m not saying that the oppressed are silenced; just that smooth operators are skilled at speaking on their behalf. There is a necessary communication deficit when we talk through someone, rather than being liberated to speak for ourselves.

(Let me know what you’re thinking if you’ve read Nick Couldry’s new book Why voice Matters: Culture and Politics after Neoliberalism London: Sage Publications 2010).

One example which I cam across recently was female genital mutilation. It is an issue which is being widely and rightly addressed by campaigners, support workers, help groups, and development education programmes worldwide. But Dr Augustin Hatar, a theatre education researcher, discovered that amongst the Barbaig, a nomadic ethnic group in Northern Tanzania, female genital mutilation was not an identified issue or priority for change. Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) had been using the participatory theatre methodology to sensitize women about their rights. Dr Hatar noted that

“The central themes of these previous experiences centered around issues such as domestic violence, girl education, property inheritance for women, HIV/AIDS and women, early and forced marriages as well as girl education.”

Meanwhile, HAWOCODA (Hanaang Women’s Counseling and Development Association) formed in 1993 had by 1999 recorded 388 cases related to women’s problems, including 115 cases for rape and 87 cases for domestic violence.

But from the villager’s perspective the first issue was reclaiming their grazing rights; levels of poverty; men pocketing sales of goats and cows and squandering the money gained on alcohol; men frequenting bars and consorting with women; acquired sexually transmitted diseases.

The women noted violence against them but also complained of their grinding poverty and excessively hard work. As Dr Hatar noted, “wife beating was an expected phenomenon. Not that it was seen to be good, but that it was seen as an ordinary event.” (15-16)

Education of females also required special consideration when considered from within the local social context:

“With regard to girl education, the community said that they saw no value from the end products of such schooling as instead those who went through school brought them enormous embarrassment and shame when they took jobs of “ washing dishes” for rich people.”

When you’re speaking on behalf of someone, or working for the donor, there’s a danger that you’re not meeting the needs of the ‘beneficiaries.’ You’re putting words into their mouths.

Please don't exploit my participation

2011-10-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

Participation is under attack. We are encouraged to take part but in the process part of us is commodified and sold off. How can people keep hold of the power that is their birthright? Why do I constantly get stuck in the net of someone's else's program(mme) ?

In the current exploitative model of participation, my contribution to the web and my use of emails, cell / mobile phones, apps etc chiefly supports global corporate power, because it

permits part of me/my world to be stolen for the use of corporate interests;

fragments the potential or full force of my personhood from acting on the world;

duplicates and replicates the status quo;

fuels the engine of consumer capitalism and hinders genuine emancipation;

allows components of my personal data to be used for the profit of others;

supports surveillance strategies of corporate and governmental agencies;

converts my work into free intellectual capital for the gain of others;

creates an illusory sense that my contribution makes a difference;

strengthens the authority of the most visible global powers;

fails to redistribute power and influence or strengthens inequalities;

conceals a circularity and tautology of ‘participating in participation’;

masks a weakening of informed consent;

promises a reward, gift, or return, that never arrives or materialises (myths of monetisation).

I’ve deliberately heightened the language here because we are seldom aware of the progressive, insidious, unnoticed and concealed diminution of our public and private identity. It is almost as though the notion of ‘going public’ necessitates and permits our self to be sold off. There is seldom an option knowingly to consent.

And let’s recall how far the dice is loaded against the protection of my self and your self, from manipulation and control. Compare, for instance, the global corporate advertising budget ($466,000,000,000) with the several million that support the global human rights movement. That is the true weighting of the Scales of Injustice.

Approached from another direction there is also the problematic of community participation. It sounds great, does it not? But how often does it mask power and authority under the guise of inclusion?

Here are some of the recurring problems that often beset or compromise community led participatory initiatives:

existing or trusted leaders speak on behalf of the community;

those best equipped for participation participate most;

community is homogenized, totalised, simplified;

differences are minoritized or relegated for the sake of group / collective voice;

radical or traditional perspectives must be accomodated to working compromises;

agreement is transitory and unsustainable;

community interests are in reality displaced by the larger priorities of donors / funders;

the underlying and unspoken terms of reference and methodolgy are not up debate;

the idea of community mythologises and romanticises;

community displaces and conceals larger differences of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, faith, age, education, or caste

Cooke and Kothari (2001) outline the case for and against 'participation':

The ostensible aim of participatory approaches to development was to make ‘people’ central to development by encouraging beneficiary involvement in interventions that affect them and over which they previously had limited or no control or influence. […] This recognition and support for greater involvement of ‘local’ people’s perspectives, knowledge, priorities and skills presented an alternative to donor-driven and outsider-led development and was rapidly and widely adopted by individuals and organizations. Participatory approaches to development, then, are justified in terms of sustainability, relevance and empowerment. (5)

But the premise of their book is that

Participatory development’s tyrannical potential is systemic, and not merely a matter of how the practitioner operates or the specificities of the techniques and tools employed. (4)

They conclude

In sum, then, tyranny is the illegitimate and/or unjust exercise of power; this book is about how participatory development facilitates this. (4)

And why the image, above? It is Hobbes’s Leviathan in which the people participate in and through the person of the monarch. Is that the kind of freedom we're looking at?

Today, global institutions such as the IMF and World Bank are the new agents for and on behalf of the people. But are their methodologies just another form of tyranny? How far, in league with NGOs and business are we encountering new forms of power masked by the kind face or pseudo-participation.

Today, arguably, monarchs and tyrants are in decline. Participation is not.

The NGO movement is now a trillion dollar industry. But is it sufficiently accountable? What do you think?

Further Research:

Simon Bell (1994) “Methods and Mindsets: Towards and Understanding of the Tyranny of Methodology” Public Administration and Development, 14(4), 323-338.

Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari (2001) Participation: The New Tyranny (Zed Books Ltd)

Samuel Hickey (Editor), Giles Mohan (Editor) (2004) Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? - Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development (Zed Books Ltd)

Panel “Tyrannies of Participation” ISEA 2011; Friday, 16 September, 2011 - 09:00 - 10:30
Chair Person: Seeta Peña Gangadharan ; Presenters: Jon Leidecker ; Joshua Kit Clayton ; John Kim ; Anthony Tran ; Vasily Trubetskoy

What is Database Cinema?

2011-10-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

When a digital film editor begins to put a film together he has a variety of clips or digital files to choose from. Think of these clips as a database; files of information waiting to be used.

These 'files' can be assembled in a logical sequence, or can be out of sequence. In a story the events are typically in chronological (time/event) order; in the narrative plot we may begin in the middle of thins (in media res) and then have flashbacks.

Dislocations of sequence add to suspense and keep the spectator intrigued. The plot becomes a kind of puzzle and the spectator may have to do more work. One result is a feeling of greater participation. Also it is possible to re-tell the story with a different outcome, if the components are re-arranged. An example is the film Run Lola Run.

In some cases clips or files that have been uploaded can be played back by the application in random order with the result that each viewing will be different from the one that came before.

Or clips uploaded can be run alongside an established film for irony, collision, similarity of difference. An example of database film as participatory engagement is Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake. As their website explains, the film is

“a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera and upload them to this site. Software developed specifically for this project archives, sequences and streams the submissions as a film. Anyone can upload footage. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage, in Vertov’s terms the ‘decoding of life as it is’.”

When the material is linked thematically it is possible to preserve a degree of coherence in the material.

Alternatively, the material submitted can be curated, selected or composed by a Director or a team of editors. An example is the YouTube sensation Life in a Day.

A more radical step is to abandon storyline and allow free access to all of the footage, and to provide options for the reader to re-arrange it. Potentially, each participant creates his or her own film composition.

As the technology evolves we can anticipate more complex editing options and a great range of source material that can be used as 'free commons.'

The options currently available for print and text that Burroughs and B.S. Johnson experimented with fifty years ago with will soon be available to experimental film makers.

If you want to read more on this topic, see my blog

Collaboration, Art, and the Discourses of Participatory Film

Forty PostFilm Perspectives

2011-10-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

PostFilm supplements and supplants the modernist project of Film - its heavy demands on capital; its specialisation and division of labour; its guild restrictions; its white male supremacy and its glossy media moguls.

PostFilm is an interaction between the emerging vitality of the community and the enriching ambition offered by an artistic outlook. It is process and product.

PostFilm embraces innovation and creativity but it also critically inhabits the life forces latent in tradition and ‘the past.’

PostFilm overthrows the capitalist structures, metaphors, motivation, ego-laden late capitalist film processes and products.

PostFilm is everyday. It is a cultural materialism more than a textual postmodernism. Kant’s logical tact, tricks of Homer’s Odysseus and untheorized ordinary life of Michel de Certeau.

PostFilm shakes hands with visual studies, visual anthropology, and video ethnography; with participatory and community media. It’s the School and the University which fragments power, and polices disciplinary boundaries.

PostFilm is Visual Plus because the visual cannot be isolated, bounded, commodified or self-contained without a necessary remainder. Let’s listen and look. Enact. (Trans-) Form temporary alliances, co-working relationships. Seek out the pool and unlock the skills of the oppressed. Their lifeworld is seldom a desert; just as a desert is never a desert. (Freire)

PostFilm celebrates the multiple convergences between film, music sound worlds, games and other technological-driven opportunities. Transmutation is divine. Plunder and proliferate. Gifts are more powerful than gadgets.

PostFilm is inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary. The PostFilmers play across the arts, across traditional disciplines; he or she inhabits multiple communities and life worlds. Voyagers and fence-breakers. the chink in the armour. The hole in the wall. Bottom’s drama and ‘sub-plots.’

PostFilmers courageously challenge the single rooted individual; PostFilmers oppose tedious repetitions and the boredom that besets the excessive and cramped divisions of labour, established roles and settled hierarchies, the rigid machinery of certification and professionalised elites.

PostFilm embraces the ‘individual’ who embraces the collectivity of forces which are composing him or her. The PostFilm personality is enquiring and talkative. As Joyce said, Here Comes Everybody (H.C.E)

PostFilm occupies three world or lifeworks: public services, the private sector and community-led activities (the Third Sector) and the Fourth Way. (Gurdjieff)

PostFilm rejects the tyranny sometimes imposed by the geekmachines, technocracies and jargon-weavers; we celebrate those people and those sites which are helping us to decode and replace unnecessary technical jargon.

PostFilm is pragmatic. It shamelessly embraces any tool that comes to hand. Bricolage. Beg, borrow and steal.

PostFilm is a mixed bag of tricks. But the magic is the community not the machine.

PostFilm is post credit crunch; for PostFilmers’ enforced leisure, there is opportunity, innovation, and enterprise.

PostFilm welcomes artists who see themselves as entrepreneurs. Labouring to enrich the community we require a solid understanding of risk and ambition. Immaterialism is another mode of decadence.

PostFilm notes that there have never been so many opportunities to explore diversity and difference. And to identify, discuss and celebrate what we have in common.

PostFilm is a sanctioned universal piracy. Honest theft. Enlightened Piracy rules. A Robin Hood reversal that adds to the Common Stock.

PostFilm says Farewell to Stars; they have expired in terms that they define as success. Farewell to the starry firmament of globalized products, brands, icons.

PostFilm is haunted by its own extinction, the impossibility of its future presence. PostFilm in parenthesis.

PostFilm questions the obsession with the 90 minute product. PostFilms are momentary, discontinuous, un-terminated. (Peter Greenway’s suitcases)

PostFilm welcomes opportunities for byproducts. PostFilm is gymnastic multimedia. Recycle, re-use. PostFilm embraces all ethical products and productions for the common good. Co-opportunity and sustainability (John Grant)

PostFilm welcomes fans and followers, relationship management, public relations and an antagonistic but warm relation to its critics. Ho, ho, ho.

PostFilm notes the Loss of the Awesome, ‘He’s a film director’, ‘Hollywood’

PostFilmers want more from the experience; they want the event. Let’s say that people want more than to watch content. They are coming together to discuss, participate, engage, co-create. Popcorn is not enough. Re-negotiate the Spectacle (Mikhail Bakhtin and Guy Debord)

PostFilm finds opportunities in the lack of standardised structures and products for investors since that situation obstructs cross-colonisation. Pragmatic PostFilmers are tricksters who find a way to make their magic with the community, not against it.

PostFilm retires from action the mobile army of grubby agents and the surplus of parasitic service providers and fees, the arts aristocracies and their bleating councils of denial and despair. (Nietzsche)

PostFilm is the ultimate efficiency because it springs from the absolute commitments of its participants. (Marx)

PostFilm brings joy to its participants rather than feathers for patrons and cash for investors.

PostFilm is reciprocal, slippery, multi-faceted. PostFilm inhabits our life, we inhabit its lifeworlds. A renewal and encounter with Being. (Heidegger)

PostFilm is a notion of experienced time that cannot be fully recovered: a less progressive, directional notion of time. Mediated subjects but not the immateriality of the inter-subjective. The trace of the other. (Derrida)

PostFilm collectivizes and extends without limit the post-production phase “The process of editing film or video after acquiring the footage” Remix, mashup, wreckage. In the end is the beginning.

PostFilm’s Progress is imperceptibly slow or fast, depending on your point of view. Fortunately, it lacks early visibility. It is constantly finding itself unfit. Major patrons have left the room. It is too small for government and too relevant for private backers. For the YouTubers it is exponential and omni-absent.

The PostFilm Producer is a practice and a paradox.

PostFilm Festivals are value-added. Festivals are more of an experience and less of a market. They are participant and community-led.

PostFilm stops trying to be everything to everybody. A Global Commodity is not our objective. We say No! to the tyranny of the lowest common denominator; we always and everywhere affirm the validity of the remainder, the undigested, the uncompromised.

PostFilm asks about the prehistory of film. Also the lost traditions. What can PostFilm rescue from the old studio system (‘a vast array of disciplines were brought together in the same place every day with the sole purpose of developing, making, and marketing films.’ Ted Hope) But we also note the criticism that "The studio assembly line smothered creativity."

PostFilm democratizes the Grand Jury, but it does not abandon opportunities to make informed judgements. Cans not Cannes.

PostFilm originated in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK, the home and source of Cultural Studies

Retrospective

"Let us exhibit it instead as a cruel denunciation, as a painful testimony to the level at which the peoples of the world have been forced to limit their artistic creativity. The future, without doubt, will be with folk art, but then there will be no need to call it that, because nobody and nothing will any longer be able to again paralyze the creative spirit of the people.

Art will not disappear into nothingness; it will disappear into everything."

(Julio Garcia Espinosa) - Havana, December 7, 1969

“The alienation of the spectator to the profit of thecontemplated object is expressed in the following way: the more he contemplatesthe less he lives; the more he accepts recognizing himself in the dominantimages of need, the less he understands his own existence and his own desires.The externality of the spectacle in relation to the active man appears in thefact that his own gestures are no longer his but those of another whorepresents him”

(Guy Debord)

Towards an Imperfect Cinema

2011-10-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

Recently I have enjoyed reading Julio Garcia Espinosa's Jump Cut essay "For an Imperfect Cinema." (Translated 1979 [1969]).

Before considering the relevance and living force of his ideas for contemporary cinema of the people may I propose reading some short samples of his work that clearly express the appealing direction of his thought, his vision, and his relevance for us today?

"Nowadays, perfect cinema — technically and artistically masterful — is almost always reactionary cinema. The major temptation facing Cuban cinema at this time — when it is achieving its objective of becoming a cinema of quality, one which is culturally meaningful within the revolutionary process — is precisely that of transforming itself into a perfect cinema. [...]

What happens if the development of videotape solves the problem of inevitably limited laboratory capacity, if television systems with their potential for "projecting" independently of the central studio renders the ad infinitum construction of movie theaters suddenly superfluous? [...]

What happens then is not only an act of social justice — the possibility for everyone to make films — but also a fact of extreme importance for artistic culture: the possibility of recovering, without any kinds of complexes or guilt feelings, the true meaning of artistic activity.[...]

Imperfect cinema is an answer, but it is also a question which will discover its own answers in the course of its development. Imperfect cinema can make use of the documentary or the fictional mode, or both. It can use whatever genre, or all genres. It can use cinema as a pluralistic art form or as a specialized form of expression.[...]

"Imperfect cinema is no longer interested in quality or technique. It can be created equally well with a Mitchell or with an 8mm camera, in a studio or in a guerrilla camp in the middle of the jungle. Imperfect cinema is no longer interested in predetermined taste, and much less in "good taste." It is not quality which it seeks in an artist's work. The only thing it is interested in is how an artist responds to the following question: What are you doing in order to overcome the barrier of the "cultured" elite audience which up to now has conditioned the form of your work?"

May I also take this opportunity to recommend his work to all community film revolutionaries? You can read more of his essay here.

And a second recommendation.

Take a look at the Plymouth-based collected called Imperfect Cinema.

They've been reading Jacques Ranciere (which has to be a good sign). But I'll let them speak for themselves:

"The project takes inspiration from their shared backgrounds in DIY punk, and seeks to activate key methodological techniques of this subculture to describe, position, interrogate and socialise a micro-cinema practice which directly addresses issues of sustainability & inequality existent within the mainstreams of contemporary film culture."

They were in Birmingham UK recently for the SuperSonic Festival and I'm told that they plan to make their footage available for remixing. A living database cinema has arrived. Long live free commons!

Time to revisit my forty-part anti-film manifesto that MySpace Forum banned?

I'm not sure that I can improve on Espinosa.

But I'd like to think that I'm following in his footsteps. With a torch. And a camera.

Children, Climate Change and Collaboration

2011-10-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

In the traditional classroom it's often the same children answering the questions. As a result many young people feel left out and they may become alienated from education altogether. They feel that their educational needs are lost in the large class environment. Their voices are drowned out. But children are our most precious resource. Like our fragile planet they need care, support and respect in order to thrive.

Let' be honest: teachers struggle too. Larger classes, less money. More bureaucracy, less creativity. Examinations not celebrations ...

Collaborative learning can be a very effective way to promote participation in lessons between children.

In collaborative learning projects the teacher provides supportive interventions, and acts as a guide or facilitator, rather than the discipline-obsessed dictator in the corner. I'm not suggesting that teacher abandons his or her role. But the emphasis shifts from teaching to learning; from a state of spoon feeding dependence to the young people doing their own digging.

Collaborative learning requires its own skills of community and co-operation and these have to be learned and can be improved upon. But they are also key life skills that we need urgently to develop if we are to face the challenges of issues that require concerted global action such as poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, species loss and climate change.

What we are finding is that if we trust children or young people to work together on research and the presentation of their findings we will have successful outcomes together with pleasurable and sustainable learning. Collaboration works well because research and presentation exercises involve a process of acquisition and a process of revision. In both regards, collaborative work is ideally suited to an approach driven by process.

Before taking a look at a case-study it ought to be noted that collaboration can extend beyond the classroom to encompass children of different ages, in different schools, in different parts of the world.

And why stop there? What about active collaboration with parents and members of the 'adult' community? The collaborative approach works well when the issue to be explored is complex; when it is open to multiple interpretation and affects a wide range of people. Broad topics are a good starting point but that does not mean that you are banned from specialization at a later stage.

If you want to take a look at a recent success story consider the use of Google Docs & Spreadsheets
to explore strategies for combating global warming. In this flagship project Google partnered with Global SchoolNet to invite teachers and students to use collaborative software. Children of all ages from more than 80 schools around the world participated. Here are their results

Include global warming/climate change in school curricula (as part of National Science Standards), so when the students are in charge they can make educated decisions.
Increase availability of low-interest Energy Efficient Mortgages to support homeowners who increase the energy efficiency of their homes.
Put light sensors in all office and school buildings so all lights go off when the rooms are empty.
Require that all products contributing to global warming be marked with a specific color (e.g., chemical pesticides could be marked with a red sticker for being extremely dangerous to the environment).
Use less paper; use the back of the paper to print on or write on; use recyled paper.
Plant more trees to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Teach recycling techniques in classes and school-wide programs.
Make recycling mandatory in all public facilities, such as schools, parks and beaches.
Do public service announcements on TV featuring celebrities promoting carpooling, walking, riding bikes, using public transportation, conserving electricity and recycling.
Give grants and tax credits to companies that invest in alternative, sustainable, emission-free fuel technologies while ending such subsidies for fosssil fuel production.
The media should conduct interviews of legislators to help the public become aware of their ability and willingness to help solve the problem.
Replace incandescence light bulbs with fluorescence light bulbs.
Restrict the use of chemical fertilizer in agriculture.
Provide incentives and policies to encourage car makers to make more fuel efficient cars.
Protect wetlands and preserve more open space.
Provide tax incentives for regular recyclers and car poolers.
Use solar panels in the construction of new homes and office buildings.
Substitute local community transportation fleets with hybrid vehicles.
Require that car dealers hand out fact sheets that inform car buyers about the pollution levels of different cars.
Send scientists to talk about global warming in schools. They can bring hands-on activities so students feel more involved.
Unplug all electronics from the wall when they're not in use.
Have another Global Warming Student Speakout in one year - to see if any of these ideas have been implemented.
Raise mandatory emissions standards for cars and other vehicles sold in the US.
Use solar power in the day and use electricity at night when needed.
Give tax rebates for using solar power.
Congress should ratify the Kyoto Agreement.
Establish off-shore wind farms - saves land space and produces reliable power.
Levy higher taxes on companies that pollute the air.
Wait until you have a lot of clothes to wash before using the washing machine.
Provide tax incentives for companies that create Hybrid cars. That will reduce the need for oil.
Schools and businesses should be fined for not having recycling bins available to the people on their premises.
The media should tell us about what is really going on with global warming. We don't think that we have all the information we need.
At the end of the weather forecast, report “CO2 emissions levels today…” or comparative average temperatures (i.e., this year's temperature as it compares to the past several years).
Lead by example and convert 50% of government vehicles to environmentally friendly cars by the year 2020.
Place recycling bins throughout the city wherever there is a trash can.
Require companies to limit the amount of packaging an item can have and it must be recyclable.
Block bills that cause more damage to the environment.
Media could reduce advertising costs for alternative energy products to inform and increase sales in these areas.
Keep your tires fully inflated to improve gas mileage.
Replace old appliances with Energy Star appliances.
Promote awareness of local recycling centers.
Require college and high school students to take a global warming class.
Give tax reductions to public transportation users.
Protect our oceans - prevent plankton in the ocean from dying.
People running for elections should use email, radio and other media to campaign and stop using so many paper signs and flyers that use up our natural resources and then get left out and become pollution.
Reuse newspapers as wrapping paper for gifts.
Enforce laws about littering.
Use less electricity, turn off the TV, read books, walk, run, bike, surf, play tennis.
Business should require employees to telecommute several days a week.
Provide scientists appropriate resources to help them research the future of energy and the freedom to explore innovative ideas.
Deploy images, diagrams, sound, music and video to strengthen your message and to make your learning more inclusive of different learning styles
Collaborate: community work is often more efficient and more effective

I've taken the LIBERTY to add TWO ideas to the project as presented above and on the Google website for the project. 51 and 52 are my ADDITIONS. Now that we've collaborated there's one idea for every week of the year. A minor improvement, admittedly, but I do feel closer to it now as a participant.

And I'm going round the house now unplugging gadgets.

Public Speaking - How to Improve - Video

2011-10-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

How to improve your confidence and effectiveness as a public speaker.

Newspapers and Press Conferences - Top tips

2011-10-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

This video was produced in order to support the work of community groups, charities, nonprofits and voluntary organizations.

Appearing on the TV - top tips video

2011-10-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

This video was produced in order to support the work of community groups, charities, nonprofits and voluntary organizations.

Portrait of the Lord Mayor of Birmingham in 2008-9

2011-10-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

My Life: A Portrait .

The life of Muslim community leader Cllr. Chauhdry A Rashid, who has served as a Justice of the Peace and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham (2008), in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

He was born in Kashmir, Pakistan, but has lived most of his life in Birmingham and Workington.

He has been a leading campaigner on diversity and equality issues and has been an inspiration to many in his community. In this film he talks about the importance of education and what he loves about living in the City of Birmingham.

Community Media - Interactive World

Worldwide Community Film Screenings

In Praise of the Brave People of Syria and their Poets

More Top Tips for Viral Video Success

11 Laws of Viral Video - Part 1

11 Laws of Viral Video - Part 1

Corporate Power and the Space for Occupation

18 Advantages of visual auto-ethnography for research

Video diaries. "One of the simplest and cheapest ways to start filming is to make a video diary. These are the secrets of making a good one."

Occupy London and the Church of England

Twenty Tips to make your film a re-sounding success

Dummies, Donors and Dictators

Please don't exploit my participation

What is Database Cinema?

Collaboration, Art, and the Discourses of Participatory Film

Forty PostFilm Perspectives

Towards an Imperfect Cinema

Children, Climate Change and Collaboration

Public Speaking - How to Improve - Video

Newspapers and Press Conferences - Top tips

Appearing on the TV - top tips video

Portrait of the Lord Mayor of Birmingham in 2008-9