Speaker(s): Athena Peglidou, Adjunct Professor, Ionian University
Date & Time: 22/05/2016 15:00-18:00
Location: Municipal Theatre
Language: Greek

Video, photography and sound-recorder have become increasingly incorporated into the work of ethnographers as cultural texts, as representations of ethnographic knowledge, as sites of cultural production, social interaction and individual experience. While photographic and film theory can inform our understanding of the potential of visual media in ethnographic research and representation, an ethnographic approach can also support the production and interpretation of visual images. The production of multimedia ethnographic projects either in ethnography or in visual studies and arts now forms a widespread practice, polyphonic, easily accessible and of low budget. As the “participant-observation” has been the paradigmatic method of data collection implying the personal involvement of the researcher with subjects in their social and cultural context over an extensive period of time, “the participant-filmmaking” could be for ethnographer/filmmaker his own wishful thinking of filming during fieldwork. Light and handful cameras are only the beginning as it is the body of filmmaker that must have the readiness, the alertness and the flexibility to get the camera closer either symbolically or practically to the social action and to its agents. The seminar aims to introduce to the technique of the filmic gym that has been elaborated by a member group of the mime artist, Marcel Marceau on demand of Jean Rouch and Michel Brault as a way of preparing the filmmaker to use effectively his body as a vigilant supplement of the camera. A basic filmic grammar and a range of moral and ethical issues to consider during the filmmaking will be discussed.

(Participants are requested to wear comfortable clothes - gym outfits and athletic shoes - and to take a gym mat)