Man with a (Movie) Camera – a Community with (Media) Imagination

The Soviet media community or the community with media imagination developed gradually, reacting to specific conditions of socialist economy and ethics. Millions of people were listening, watching, but also actively creating their media products, such as amateur films. The socialist way of producing and disseminating media and its infrastructure was closely connected with the ideas of collective labor, common property, and ideological self-consciousness. But at the same time, Soviet media amateurs shared common or universal features, and often their works appeal to an international audience.

During the online seminar, we will discuss several aspects of home or amateur media: "archival practices," "media as social practice," "film, technology and home" and "between film and art." In addition, the seminar will have a section for open discussion, where participants can share their approaches to home/private media and discuss artistic practices related to these media.

The online seminar is a part of accompanying program for the "Society with a Movie Camera" exhibition at the Center for Urban History, which was designed around the compilation of amateur films from private collections. These films have been accumulated over the past ten years by the Urban Media Archive and continue to be replenished with new finds and discoveries.

We invite you to participate, and please, register in advance [register]

The event will run on zoom, with the stream on youtube.

Language of presentations — Ukrainian, zoom will have the simultaneous interpreting in English for few discussion panels.

PROGRAM

November, 18

• 11:00-12:30 – Film, Technology and Home
  Oleksandr Makhanets "Social Aspect of Technology: How Portable Cameras 'Worked' in Lviv"
  Aniela Trojanowska "Polish Archive of Home Movies – Between Social Archive and Institutional Practice"
  Anna Onufriienko "Amateur Filmmakers as Cinephiles. Reflections on Media in Fiction Home Movies"
• 14:00-15:30 – Media as Social Practice
  Oleksandr Mykhed "Media as a Space of Identity Manifestation: the Case of a Reality Show"
  Bohdan Shumylovych "Rituals of Transition and Transgression in Lviv Video Art"
  Taras Nazaruk "Imagination, Mediality, and Electronic Brain: How TV Set Manufacturing was Automatized in Soviet Lviv"
• 16:15-17:45 – Archival Practices
  Dan Streible "'Home Movie' Dilemmas: Digital-era Reappraisal, Archives, Citizens"
  Maria Vinogradova "Amateur Films of the Soviet Era: Where to Find Them and How to Preserve Them"
  Laurence McFalls "From the DustBin of History to the Federal Archive: Home Movies from the Trivial to the Sublime"

November, 19

• 11:00-12:15 – Between Film and Art
  Yulia Kovalenko "Shot Your Own Filmic Other: Phenomenon of Film- and Video Amateurism as the Mechanism of the Distancing from the Reality"
  Wojciech Puś "'Queer Landscapes': Reflections on Embracing Professional and Amateur Qualities in Cinematic Work"
  
• 13:00-15:00 – Discussion of Films and Artistic Practices
  Oleh Chornyi, film director, video artist, Kyiv, Ukraine
  Oleksandr Makhanets, Center for Urban History, Lviv, Ukraine
  Bohdan Shumylovych, Center for Urban History, Lviv, Ukraine
  Maria Stoianova, film director, video artist, Kyiv, Ukraine
  Sergiy Petlyuk, video artist, Львів, Ukraine
  Piotr Macha, Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts, Poznań, Poland

Organizer — Center for Urban History

Team of the "Man with a (Movie) Camera – a Community with (Media) Imagination" DHS

• curator: Bohdan Shumylovych
• coordination and logistical support: Viktoriia Panas
• communication: Maryana Mazurak, Viktoriia Panas
• technical support: Oleksandr Dmytriiev

Credits

Cover image: Image from the collection of Central cine-photo-phono archive of Ukraine named after G. Pshenychnyi in Kyiv // Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History