By 2022, it is predicted that video will account for 82% of global internet provider traffic (CISCO 2019). In other words, the moving image is set to become humanity’s dominant form of internet communication. Is archaeology ready for this? Archaeologists have embraced filmmaking as a form of recording, reporting, and promoting their work since at least the 1910s, and today, social media abounds in archaeologist-made videos that promote or report archaeological work and values. But can we use filmmaking practices (including videography and animation) to dig deeper than functioning merely as an illustration, record, or PR? Artists, documentary filmmakers, anthropologists, and journalists have long used the medium of filmmaking to ask and answer complex questions about the world in ways the still image and the written word cannot. Borrowing Piccini’s concept of the camera truelle (‘camera trowel’, based on Astruc’s concept of the camera-stylo, or ‘camera-pen’, Astruc 1948, in Piccini 2015: 2), we suggest that for archaeology to make the most of video communications in the 21st century, archaeologists must learn to ‘write’ with the moving image.This session invites archaeologists and aligned heritage and media practitioners to discuss, screen, and share film, video, or animation works (completed or in-production) that actively use the medium of the moving image to generate and construct archaeological knowledge and theories. Speakers are also invited to develop their presentations into articles as part of a planned edited volume on the subject.
Keywords: film, video, animation, recording, drones, underwater filming, ethnographic film, CGI, 3D modelling, film archives, online platforms, databases, social media, live streaming, research design, film theory, media theory, archaeology theory.
Cisco Systems Inc. (2019) Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and trends, 2017-2022. White paper. Available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/white-paper-c11-741490.pdf
Piccini, A. (2015) ‘Forum: Media Archaeologies: An invitation’, Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2 (1), pp. 1-8.
Organisers: Kate Rogers; Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton • Angela Piccini; University of Bristol • Tanya Freke; SCAPE
9:30 | Session organisers | Introduction
9:35 | Tessa Poller, University of Glasgow | Re-living Time Past – Capturing Moments of Creation
9:53 | Jennifer Beamer, University of Leicester | Reconnecting Archaeological Textiles: Integrating Visual Media
10:11 | Dr Chloe N. Duckworth, Newcastle University | Is the lens mightier than the pen?
10:29 | Annika Larsson
(in collaboration with Mohammed Haji Younes), Uppsala University and Research Lab at University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm | Art (e) Facts: Objects as Subjects in Archaeological Research and Presentation
10:47 | - | BREAK
11:07 | Colin Seymour, University College London | Reading between the lines: Interpreting ancient murals at Belsay Castle using video and a semiotically informed analysis of heraldry
11:25 | Kate Rogers, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton | The truth about truth in filming archaeology
11:43 | Colleen Morgan PhD, Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage, Department of Archaeology, The University of York | The disastrous fun of immersive archaeological storytelling through 360° video
12:01 | Tanya Venture, The SCAPE Trust / University of Exeter | That’s a Wrap; film as an intrinsic part of project evaluation
12:19 | Konstanza Kapsali, Filmmaker; Katerina Markoulaki, Filmmaker | Nostalgia for lost Futures: the case of Athens. A video experimentation with the palimpsest of material remains in the Greek capital.
12:37 | Jaime Almansa-Sánchez, JAS Arqueología, Madrid / Incipit-CSIC; Jesús Alonso, Independent Researcher; Felipe Muñoz, Independent Researcher; Guillermo Palomero, Complutense University of Madrid | Four views on a dildo, and other stories of #fakearchaeology
12:55 | Session organisers | Closing statements
13:00 | - | END
