Thursday, November 23, 2006

Among the articles I’ve read about in the past few months is one on Paris Marashi, a student at NYU who is working to promote Iranian vlogs (video weblogs). I visited one of her sites and found myself watching a number of her vlog posts from this summer. I am intrigued by this project, which was essentially an exercise in ethnographic participatory cinema. It is amazing how images serve as such a striking means of conveying information and ideas. The crossing of geographic and socio-cultural boundaries that comes through so powerfully in blogs (and specifically bridgeblogs) feels even starker with video.


Among her other projects is an attempt to promote vlogging in Iran. Her site, vloginiran.blogspot.com sets out to instruct Iranians on how to create a vlog, much as Hoder originally did with blogging. Ultimately, a project such as this might have a harder time catching on because 1) of the cost and availability of the necessary technology and 2) because of the issue government censorship. It is nonetheless an exciting prospect.


Marashi’s projects prompted me to view vlogs from a more anthropological perspective. That her summer project follows the now classic ethnographic genres of cinema verite and participatory cinema (genres blazed by the likes of Jean Rouch, John Adair and others) reminded me of the potency of these types of visual documentary study, as well as their pitfalls. The question of objectivity, one that anthropology has wrestled with for so long, is being reintroduced in the new context of globalized interactive communication. Just as the handheld video camera revolutionized visual anthroplogy during the second half of the 20th century, the internet brings a whole new level of access to the portrayal (read manipulation) of culture. What does this mean in terms of the study and interpretation of ethnic/geographic/socio-economic others? What are the implications in the fetish-ization of the image, especially in the context of Euro-American consumer culture? I don’t have the background to speak with authority on the subject, although I have studied it some and am intrigued by these questions. Take for instance this quote by Marashi from her interview with GVO’s Farid Pouya:

Vlogging immediately opened up the things I wanted to share about my life in Iran to the rest of the world. Today I do something; tonight I post it online; tomorrow someone watches it. It is fascinating how it opens up what you are doing to a global audience. Once something is uploaded on the Internet, or on your videoblog, it is at the hands of the world and available for them to see.

Susan Sontag would have a field-day.


Note to self: keep an eye on this one:
homeyra.wordpress.com

No comments: