The Project of Parellel Media June 20, 2007

For the last seven years, my research projects have mostly revolved around activist media (noun) or media activism (verb). Sometimes these two phenomena are the same, sometimes they are not. Occasionally, an activist media text falls upon deft ears with no engagement beyond the viewing experience and conversely, media activism can emerge from the most unlikely of media events. In contemporary times, exploring and drawing the boundaries for understanding the engagement between activism and the media is tricky theoretical business. And now, my task is to narrow and focus what I am speaking about when I say “activist documentary.” One of the questions at the forefront of my mind is: How does one recognize, identify and label activist documentary? Or, in other words, how do you know it when you see it?

It was interesting to talk to people who are working on the ground, making and distributing activist media, about the function and character of these texts. Brian Drolet at Deep Dish TV in New York City had this to say:

The two interesting markers that Brian identifies are abstract but incredibly important to this discussion: that activist media (or what he terms parellel media), it is a truth telling mechanism and gives voice to the voiceless in society. In both of these characterizations, the process of political struggle is forgrounded and activist media is the megaphone of the marginalized. Which begs the question, what kind of connection must activist media have to the project of activism and the people who extend and struggle on behalf of the political work identified by an activist media text?

Adventures of Activist Documentary Girl in the City May 10, 2007

So many of my concerns about not having things to do, people to see and archives to discover was a much ado about nothing. Now, my biggest issue is deciding what I can feasibly fit into my week long adventure.

New York has brought much clarity to this book project–roughly centered on exploring the potential for documentary texts to organize and facilitate democratic culture by conceptualizing the camera as an activist tool. Essentially, it is a book with quite a broad scope as of now, focusing on the last 40 years of activist documentary. But more specifically, I am looking for documentary texts that are more than political, they open up a space for activism…and that is much harder to determine 30+ years later with little public documentation or in an archive with no supporting materials. I like this stage, collecting, exploring and learning as much as I can. Focusing this work into a manageable book project will not be so carefree or easy.

I had a chat with a wonderfully smart and helpful scholar yesterday who hooked me up with contacts, phone numbers and great ideas! I also had an interesting visit to a non-descript building that houses Paper Tiger TV and Deep Dish TV. I hit a jackpot at Paper Tiger where the office manager showed me all their training manuals for teaching community production in the last 25 years as well as a new documentary they are putting together about the collective’s history.

Today, tomorrow and Saturday are my library archive days. This portion of my trip will take me to the New York Public Library to explore the AIDS Activist Video Archive, Anthology Film Archives and the NYU Library to check out Deirdre Boyle’s interview transcripts from her book on the guerrilla television movement. Thank you Deirdre for archiving your work in a library so other can build on it! This little discovery helped focus my time here in NYC on things other than trying to track down video activist from the 1970s…I’ll save that for another trip.