Digital Media and Social Memory

4/2017

+plus The Meaning of Life: Locarno Film Festival 2017 Media Development is published quarterly by the World Association for Christian Communication 308 Main Street Toronto, Ontario M4C 4X7, Canada. Tel: 416-691-1999 Fax: 416-691-1997 Join the World www.waccglobal.org Association for Christian Communication! Editor: Philip Lee Editorial Consultants WACC is an international organization that pro- Clifford G. Christians (University of Illinois, motes communication as a basic human right, essen- Urbana-Champaign, USA). tial to people’s dignity and community. Rooted in Margaret Gallagher (Communications Consultant, Christian faith, WACC works with all those denied United Kingdom). the right to communicate because of status, identity, Robert A. Hackett (Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, or gender. It advocates full access to information and Canada). communication, and promotes open and diverse me- Cees J. Hamelink (University of Amsterdam, dia. WACC strengthens networks of communicators Netherlands). to advance peace, understanding and justice. Patricia A. Made (Journalist and Media Trainer, Harare, Zimbabwe). Robert W. McChesney (University of Illinois, MEMBERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES Membership of WACC provides opportunities to Urbana-Champaign, USA). network with people of similar interests and values, Samuel W. Meshack (Hindustan Bible Institute & to learn about and support WACC’s work, and to College, Chennai, India) exchange information about global and local ques- Francis Nyamnjoh (CODESRIA, Dakar, Senegal). tions of communication rights and the democratiza- Rossana Reguillo (University of Guadalajara, Mexico). tion of the media. Clemencia Rodriguez (Ohio University, USA). Ubonrat Siriyuvasek (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand) WACC Members are linked to a Regional Associa- Annabelle Sreberny (School of Oriental and African tion for the geographic area in which they are based. Studies, London, United Kingdom). They receive regular publications, an annual report, Pradip Thomas (University of Queensland, and other materials. Regional Associations also pro- Brisbane, Australia). duce newsletters. In addition, members are invited to participate in regional and global activities such as seminars, workshops, and webinars. Subscriptions to Media Development Individuals worldwide US$40. Full details can be found on WACC’s web site: Libraries and institutions in North America and www.waccglobal.org Europe US$75. Libraries and institutions elsewhere in the world US$50.

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4 Editorial 36 The Meaning of Life: Locarno Film Festival 2017 5 Go-ogle: Gender and memory Robert K. Johnston in the “globital” age Anna Reading 9 Asylum seekers, new media, In the Next Issue and society’s memory Noam Tirosh The 1/2018 issue of Media Develop- ment will include articles in prepara- 13 Video games, transmedia, and tion for the the sixty-second session cultural memory of the Commission on the Status of Colin Harvey Women, taking place 12-23 March 2018. CSW’s priority theme is 17 Digital narratives: me, us, and “Participation in and access of women to the media and information and who else? communications technologies and Karen Worcman their impact on and use as an instru- ment for the advancement and em- 21 Museums that travel powerment of women”. Aleksandra Kubica WACC Members and Subscribers to Media Development are able to down- 25 The political economy of load and print a complete PDF of each historical digital games journal or individual article. Emil Lundedal Hammar

29 It’s Time … a speech that shaped a life and Australia Asha Chand

33 Rights at Risk: Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2017

3 Media Development 4/2017 “A shift in power relations is occurring, such EDITORIAL that the powerful archiving force of the institution (museum, government, church, law or Memory is power and power is politics. mass media) and corporations that may seek Traditional newspapers are often con- to preserve knowledge and history on their sidered “journals of record”, because they try to own terms seems to be challenged by the pres- maintain rigorous ethical standards in terms of ent archiving power of increasingly popular veracity, balance, and accountability. Their edi- and easy-to-use digital media.”1 torial independence is a mark of their integrity. Consequently, newspapers have been seen as re- It is important, therefore, to test some of positories of factual narratives on which national the assumptions made about digital media and, in and cultural histories and identities can, in part, particular, to tease out potential implications for be built. the way society sees itself, records itself, and re- At the same time, there are newspapers of members itself. That is the theme of this issue of the tabloid variety, whose ethical principles (if Media Development. any) are subservient to profit and, therefore, to the It is well known that when oral communities need to attract readers and advertisers. They have made the long transition to writing, it impacted become “shows” similar to those popular news how they were organised, how they recollected channels on television that mix news tidbits with the past, and how they viewed the future. They dollops of “entertainment”. Tabloid newspapers, were able to keep tallies and records and lineages, of course, are useful as indicators of the directions which cemented social bonds and commercial popular culture is taking at a given time, but that relationships, establishing what directions they may be their sole worth. might take next. Writing marked a settled com- In the heyday of public service broadcast- munity with a sense of its own place in history and ing, media corporations such as the UK’s BBC, a sense of its own importance. In terms of polit- Germany’s ARD, the Dutch NPO, and the Japan ical and social control, therefore, the need arose Broadcasting Corporation, were neither commer- to monopolise and/or control public “statements” cial nor state-owned. Free from political inter- relating to political and social entities. And, as ference and commercial pressure, they embod- Michal Foucault points out in The Archeology of ied the words of UNESCO, that with “pluralism, Knowledge: programming diversity, editorial independence, “Instead of being something said once and for appropriate funding, accountability and transpar- all – and lost in the past like the results of a ency, public service broadcasting can serve as a battle, a geological catastrophe, or the death of cornerstone of democracy.” a king – the statement, as it emerges in its ma- In this sense, public broadcasters also be- teriality, appears with a status, enters various came repositories of historical facts: what was on record was assumed to be true and reliable − even networks and various fields of use, is subjected though thorny issues of inclusion and exclusion to transferences or modifications, is integrat- were often ignored. From the 1960s onwards, the ed into operations and strategies in which its rise of alternative media gave public representa- identity is maintained or effaced.” tion and voice to some of those omissions. Today, public statements that lay claim to a Today, traditional media and other social particular status or existence, and the public forms institutions are giving ground to digital technol- of communication that maintain them, have been ogies and social media with a consequent revalu- appropriated by digital technologies that seem to ation of how public memory is represented and be shifting the nexus of power from the monopoly conserved. As Joanne Garde-Hansen has noted: of authority (political or social) to that of the social collective or, indeed, of the ordinary person,

4 Media Development 4/2017 either of which can effectively challenge, make counter-claims, and organise in opposition. Go-ogle: Gender Yet, as the draft report of the International Panel on Social Progress “Rethinking Society for and memory in the the 21st Century” warns in its Chapter on “Media and Communications”: “globital” age “As media infrastructures become more per- Anna Reading vasive in everyday life, they increasingly mediate the human experience of the self, the For millennia humankind has given future other, and the world. As they connect indi- generations access to the past by making viduals and communities, they also structure records of events and genealogies. Now we the universe of information and personalise go-ogle the past through the internet. informational exposure… Since individual au- tonomy is a necessary element of any form of istorically, humankind has mediated mem- social progress, it is essential to consider the Hories of the mundane and the extraordinary, implications of such large-scale media-based inventing mnemonic technologies and practices developments for the ongoing goal of social from rock art to stone circles, from singing songs progress.”2 to telling stories from everyday rituals to special- ist dances. Mnemonic technologies have changed In relation to the politics of memory, medi- from hand written manuscripts to the mass print- ations of both individual and collective memory ing of books, from the carefully etched drawing are likely to be heavily influenced and profound- to the mass produced film. With computer tech- ly changed by the way digital infrastructures and protocols are designed and implemented over the nologies mediated memories are being shaken up next decade. It is already clear, as Anna Reading again with the capturing and sharing of private has pointed out, that digital media technologies, in and public memories through mobile devices and combination with other political, economic, social social network sites. and cultural shifts “are changing human memory All technologies, as Canadian media theor- practices both individually and collectively.”3 ist Marshall McLuhan observed, extend the hu- What is less clear, and will require consider- man body: the bicycle extends the legs, the axe able interdisciplinary study to elucidate, is how extends the hand. Mnemonic technologies extend digital media technologies are transforming hu- our memory: the technology of the shaped flint man relationships, human behaviour, and human enables visual reminders, the technology of the beings themselves. n Internet extends the human brain. At the same, mnemonic technologies and Notes memory practices are socially situated and are far 1. Garde-Hansen, Joanne (2009). “MyMemories?: Personal digital archive fever and Facebook”. In Save As…Digital Memories, from gender neutral. Many women in the 1930s edited by J. Garde-Hansen, A. Hoskins, and Anna Reading. were “human computers” employed to do ac- Palgrave Macmillan. curate calculations, their work long since trans- 2. https://www.ipsp.org/ 3. Reading, Anna (2011). “Six Dynamics of the Globital Memory formed through networked machine computers. Field”. In On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media But while digitisation is transforming gendered Age, edited by Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers, and Eyal Zandberg. Palgrave Macmillan. memory through digital games, virtual memorials and digital archives, the main thrust of changes to mediated memory worldwide arises through the mobile phone. While other areas of digitization are revolu- tionary for human memory it is through the rapid

5 Media Development 4/2017 take up of mobile and social technologies that we personal one-off diary is now the publicly shared see the greatest changes occurring for the greatest blog; the discrete letter is an email chain; the numbers. Mobile and social technologies are now photograph album is a mobile and social gallery at the heart of everyday life with greater take-up on our mobile phone. Atrocities once unrecorded per capita worldwide than the personal computer. are witnessed through mobile phones and made The mobile phone has enabled poorer commun- public through the Internet. Globital memory has ities to leapfrog legacy technologies such as the become a field of action which enmeshes us with- land-line phone and cumbersome ICTs, acting as in patriarchal capitalism. This “globital” memory a portable personal memory prosthetic. field reaches inside our bodies through medical Global-digital memory or “globital” memory and security imaging and extends to the far reach- means memories travel rapidly and easily from es of the universe sending back recorded sounds the individual to the collective and from the local and images of a universe long past. to the global. Such mediated memories confound In the globital age, wherever we are on the conventional binaries of the public and the pri- planet, we are born, live and die within, painful- vate and of the body and the machine. Historically ly astride or outside of an unevenly wired world: we know that changes in mnemonic technologies where once museums and archives were locked also mean new challenges and opportunities for within buildings for the privileged few, and me- gender inequalities. morials were made to stay in their commemora- As the Dutch academic Gerdien Yonker has tive place, with the Internet, mobile phones and shown in her study of ancient Mesopotamia, with social media our mediated memories are captured the shift from oral technologies to the written and mobilized to travel, mutate, and stick our past word, women’s memories and genealogies were together in new ways. increasingly marginalized. The US based literary scholar Harold Weber has also demonstrated how Pregnancy and birth with the technological shift from the manuscript The memory of gender and gendering of mem- to the printing press, women’s literary works be- ory has changed through the impact of medic- came side-lined. So too the globital age changes al imaging, particularly the obstetric sonogram. memories of gender and the gendering of mem- Since the advent of the sonogram in the late 1950s ory. feminists have critiqued how the technology pro- Throughout history the cultural memory motes a Hobbesian view of humankind in which of women and girls is often erased, side-lined. the foetus is isolated from the rest of humanity Whether it is through the genealogical sinecure with women and the womb simply background of female ancestors through patriarchal retention noise. Medical facilities now sell the image of the of the male surname with marriage or the gender foetus to parents who then mobilize her or him privilege of being written into history books and through their social networks. national cultures, the achievements, activities and Where once a gender neutral foetus could exploits of boys and men are routinely mediated snug-up in the dark for nine months in a moth- into private and public memories in ways that er’s womb, it is now routine for the sonogram to those of girls and women are not. Museums, me- make visible the foetus, including their biological morials and a mass media record, commemorate sex which then begins pre-birth the human’s gen- and archive the exploits, artefacts, images and dered life story through a social birth witnessed voices of men and boys. But with digital media, on-line with family and friends. At the same time how and by whom human memory is captured, studies show that it is now at the point of the ob- stored and circulated is changing and so, too, the stetric sonogram that male partners in heterosex- gender of memories, and memories of gender. ual relationships feel for the first time a palpable Mediated memories are now made, stored connection to their offspring, with the visual im- and shared through “globital” memory. The once age forming a keystone in their remembered fu-

6 Media Development 4/2017 ture narrative of the gendered baby, overriding trips of the mother or father to the park as well as the physical organic memory of the mother. signifying the privileged place of peace and secur- Digital technologies also change how par- ity in which that particular child is being raised. ents remember pregnancy loss. The experience Such imaged memories before mobile of miscarriage − marked historically by a notable phones were rare: most domestic photographic absence of memorialization in Western culture in images figured around important events – holi- comparison with East Asia − is now often shared days, namings, weddings – not the everyday and through the digitization of the foetal image. There ordinary. Where once the mundane repetitive do- are now on-line memorial websites dedicated to mestic and emotional labour done largely still by the babies that died before term or who were still women worldwide went unrecorded, we see new born. The organic, embodied, felt memory and memories of gender on record. grief of the parents during the pregnancy has for many become a networked fixed image on screen Public death in which grief is socially networked and shared. Mobile and social technologies have also changed Yet, the mnemonic resource of the net- public witnessing and news gathering. Atrocities worked, digital memory of the unborn is like all can be casually witnessed through bystanders using world resources unevenly distributed and un- mobile and social media, with images of terrorist equally accessed. Ultrasound is a routine part of attacks and state repression being circulated from obstetric care in early pregnancy for women in the local to the global in a matter of minutes and the global north, but in the global south, especial- hours. We also see the use of the phone for collect- ly in rural areas, access to obstetric ultrasound is ive live witnessing: Machsom Watch, a women’s poor. Even within the richest countries access to organisation uses mobile and social technologies ultrasound is uneven: African American and Lat- to witness and monitor the challenges faced by in-American women are twice as likely as white Palestinians going through Israeli checkpoints. American women to receive late prenatal care Women and girls are also able to gain a with no ultrasound in the third trimester. Such foothold in the world’s media through micro and gendered narratives of the unborn are thus glo- social media. Bana Alabed, known as Aleppo’s bital – digitally mnemonically uneven – as a result tweeting girl, who was seven when she started of economic inequalities. tweeting about her experiences of the bombing in Syria, had her story picked up by mainstream press Everyday life around the world. Farah Baker, a young women Social networking, on-line photo sharing sites and in Gaza who tweeted her thoughts and emotions the mobile have unevenly changed the recorded during bombing raids by the Israeli Defence Force story of a family’s everyday life. The mobile phone on her home was interviewed by NBC and num- in late capitalist society enables the human body erous newspapers. to be “clothed” in networked digital memories carried in pockets, in the hand, in a handbag. Such Actions – feminist memory technologies provide new possibilities for what The globital age while reproducing gendered div- is remembered of our everyday lives: in research isions and social inequalities also enables new I conducted in a London primary school women kinds of feminist memories to mobilise action used their phones to capture and share with part- around injustice. The Parramatta Female Factory ners seemingly prosaic moments of life. Yet an Precinct Memory Project in Sydney Australia, ordinary image of an empty plate may be read which I have followed for some years, has drawn as a metonym for the labour of a meal planned, attention to the injustice and abuse of girls that shopped for, cooked and fed to the baby or tod- took place at Sydney’s longest standing site of fe- dler. An image of a child in a seemingly ordinary male containment. Over more than 150 years girls playpark is a metonym for all the daily routinized were raped, humiliated, abused and used as forced

7 Media Development 4/2017 Raw Europium in a lab. Image: Alchemist-hp Wiki- media Commons.

miles to “special economic zones” to be processed, which causes radioactive waste that if not properly managed leaks into water systems destroying communities’ livelihoods and damaging the DNA of future generations. It is also worth remembering where all our digital memory gadgets go when they die. The bulk of the world’s e-waste is pro- labour at the site in its various Church and State cessed in China mostly by women and children. run guises as a female factory, asylum, orphanage As they work they breathe in toxic chemicals re- and girl’s home. leased as the plastics are burnt off from our digital Part of the work of the “Parragirls” surviv- gadgets so that the labourers can retrieve for low ors of the time when it was a girls’ home in the pay the precious metals within. Those women 1970s and 80s has involved using digital media to will not remember our Facebook “like” of a meal remember, archive and campaign, thus drawing about to be eaten and to remember them in our national and international attention to the human Facebook post or this article is already too late. rights abuses that took place at the site. The site is Digitized and globalised technologies medi- now recognized as a member of the International ate and implicate human memory in important Sites of Conscience. ways. This creates new challenges for gender There is a darker side to global-digital or equality and for media development. It also cre- globital memory. For every wifi connected iphone ates new possibilities for different kinds of gen- there is a global supply chain involving materials dered memories to be activated and mobilized to mined from the earth, transported and wran- make a difference. n gled into the parts that go into devices and infrastructures that make our digital memories possible. Anna Reading is Professor of Culture and Creative Industries The commercial rhetoric of the “cloud” obfuscates at King’s College, London, UK. She has a BA Honours (First Class) in English and Politics (1987) and an MA in Women’s the fact that digital memory is not cheap, green or Studies (with Distinction) both from the University of York, UK abundant. It comes at a cost to the world’s poorest (1988) and a PhD in Communication with a thesis on “Socially and at a cost to the planet. inherited memory, gender and the public sphere in Poland” from the University of Westminster, UK (1996). Her most recent To see that vibrant red colour on your com- publications include: Gender and Memory in the Globital Age (2016) puter screen requires the rare earth Europium, Palgrave; Cultural Memories of Non-Violent Struggles: Powerful Times mined by companies that are frequently situated (2015) with T. Katriel T (eds.) Palgrave; Save As... Digital Memories (2009) with J. Garde-Hansen and A. Hoskins (eds) Palgrave; and on indigenous people’s lands. In Western Aus- The Social Inheritance of the Holocaust: Gender, Culture and Memory tralia, despite regulation, the living memories of (2002) Palgrave. rock forms and rock art sites many thousands of years old are being destroyed through the mining of rare earths. The mineral is shipped thousands of

8 Media Development 4/2017 asylum seeker’s request to be recognized as a refu- Asylum seekers, gee, that stands at the heart of the asylum seekers’ plight wherever they may be. new media, and Alasdair MacIntyre, the Scottish philoso- pher, has already stipulated that human beings society’s memory are above all “storytelling animals” (MacIntyre Noam Tirosh 1984). According to him, being able to construct, reconstruct and mediate unique memories and More than 60 million people were life stories is an integral part of any individual’s forcefully displaced from their homes in well-being. This is even more detrimental when it comes to contemporary asylum-seekers and their recent years, making the contemporary quest to be recognized as refugees. Stories asylum refugee crisis the most significant human seekers tell are the data that is being used by host tragedy of contemporary times. At the country authorities to determine whether an indi- borders of “Fortress Europe”, in huge vidual is indeed someone who escaped from per- camps all through the Middle East, asylum secution for “reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or polit- seekers’ cry for help is reshaping societies’ ical opinion” as she or he is claiming. These stories politics. While the refugee crisis emerges are evaluated on the national level as part of the for a variety of reasons and materializes in “Refugee Status Determination” (RSD) process different ways − in the meaning of shelter, that should include a thorough and strict examin- the international human rights regime ation, which helps state official determine whether an asylum seeker is indeed a refugee. and its weaknesses (to list only few) − this The RSD process, however, is never con- article deals with a somewhat less explored ducted in a social vacuum. It is highly affected by relationship between the asylum seekers’ public perceptions about asylum seekers and the need to be recognized as refugees and its perceived truthfulness of their life-stories. In Is- relation with society’s memory in the new rael, for example, there is an intense debate regarding asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea media era. and their “refugeeness”. As part of this debate, ccording to the 1951 Geneva Conven- state officials refer to asylum seekers as “illegal in- tion, a refugee is a person that “owing to a filtrators” seeking work in a prosperous country. A No wonder Israel only recognized a handful of well-founded fear of being persecuted for rea- asylum seekers as refugees, even when the UN- sons of race, religion, nationality, membership HCR claims that most people coming from these of a particular social group or political opinion” two countries are indeed refugees. is forcefully displaced from his country of origin 1 As such, and as part of their attempt to be and is unable to return. Alongside defining who recognized as refugees, asylum seekers struggle is a “refugee”, the convention requires host coun- to have their life stories, narratives and collective tries to protect refugees’ livelihoods, and appoints memories acknowledged by respective author- the international community to supervise the up- ities and heard in the public sphere. Mostly, this holding of these obligations. Consequently, the struggle takes place in the media. Through media, term “refugee”, is not only a mere descriptor, but citizens of the host society encounter the stories rather it is an aspired legal status with normative of asylum seekers, and it is this encounter that and ethical implications, crucial to asylum seek- eventually shapes public attitudes towards asylum ers’ well-being. Indeed, it is the act of approving seekers and refugees. (or more commonly disapproving) an individual

9 Media Development 4/2017 Asylum seekers, media and memory of traditional media’s inherent characteristics, and Among other institutions, the host society’s media might be solved with the unique affordances of serve as a crucial arena in which asylum seekers’ contemporary media. stories are evaluated by other actors. Within the Israeli media sphere, both the asylum seekers and About “old” and “new” media the Israeli government try to influence what Is- Traditional media have been mostly interper- raeli society knows about local asylum seekers and sonal, unidirectional, stationary, and limited in their past. Indeed, when asylum seekers claim that their capacity to carry information. Most import- they have survived genocide and escaped to Israel antly, it is the media owners, and those serving as due to the risks they faced in their home countries, “gatekeepers” on their behalf, that grant access to they are telling Israeli society a story according to the media. In the case of asylum seekers this access which they are entitled to be recognized as refu- is limited and insufficient − as their voices are sub- gees by the Israeli government. verted and weakened. Yet, contemporary media Conversely, when the Israeli government may potentially change this unequal playing field. claims that they are in fact “economic migrants”, Contemporary media contain novel charac- who have illegally crossed the Israeli border, it tells teristics (Schejter & Tirosh, 2016). In contrast to Israeli society a very different story – a story that traditional media, contemporary media are char- may include financial deprivation or other forms acterized by their mobility, abundance, multimed- of injustice, but is insufficient for granting African iality, and interactivity. They enable communi- asylum seekers official recognition as refugees. cating at will from a variety of locations; there The story of the infiltrator is indeed a totally is an abundant amount of information available different story from the refugee’s. While a refu- through them, virtually an infinite number of gee’s identity is constructed as such through ex- “channels” to access this information, and a wealth periences that begin in their home countries, an of space to store it; an individual can mediate a infiltrator’s identity is constructed through a story message utilizing any or all of a variety of forms of that begins at the moment of crossing a host coun- expression, including text, still photos, graphics, try’s border. The “infiltrator’s” former life-story is sound and video, or any combination at will; and not relevant any more. In this case, a new and un- their interactivity enables users to contribute to the wanted identity is imposed on the asylum seeker. content of the communication process in which These clashing narratives operate within a they are involved, and to create and design their mediated scene that is not neutral. In recent studies own mediated environment. (Tirosh, forthcoming; Tirosh & Klein-Avraham, Evaluating how these new characteristics forthcoming), we demonstrate that local media may have already altered society’s memory, prom- outlets actively engage in the debate about asylum inent scholars have claimed that contemporary seekers’ and refugees’ rights. While using intrinsic media changed the whole meaning of memory and professional capabilities (textual and visual fram- created new ways to operate within society’s mem- ing techniques, in our case) media cause harm to ory field. The question, then, is: if asylum seekers the asylum seekers’ attempt to be recognized as are in need of having their life stories shared and refugees by the authorities. The way newspapers heard in society’s memory sphere, how can new report about refugees and their protests, we dis- media contribute to their struggle? covered, diminishes, alters and often negates the refugees’ narrative. Asylum seekers, new media, and memory We reveal that while traditional media may Asylum seekers use contemporary media through- be an important arena in which society engages out their migration process. These technologies and debates asylum seekers’ narratives and rights, enable them to intermingle within the new world asylum seekers themselves stand in a weaker pos- that they are joining. They search the internet ition at this encounter. This is a direct outcome for information, communicate with their friends

10 Media Development 4/2017 An Eritrean family in Israel. Photo: Steven Wilson courtesy of +972 Blog. using social media and use their smartphones to While traditional media may subvert these navigate in new and unfamiliar locales. narratives, contemporary media grant asylum Alongside these daily mediated practices, seekers with new powers and capabilities to share asylum seekers may use contemporary media as their stories and to gain “voice” in the public part of their struggle to be recognized as refugees. sphere. Contemporary media’s capability to voice For example, an individual asylum seeker from individual asylum seekers blurs the distinction be- Eritrea, seeking shelter in Israel, can use his Fa- tween individual memory and “collective” or “cul- cebook account, the most prominent social media tural” versions of society’s memory. platform in Israel, in order to detail his life story. In In the mediated environment of the past, many cases, these stories are comprised of forced reaching out to mass audiences when offering so- recruitment to the Eritrean army for an unknown ciety a historical narrative was a privilege reserved period of time and life-threatening attempts to es- for those already powerful. In the new media en- cape such constraints. vironment, new agents operate in society’s new Others say that they were regarded as polit- memory sphere – which is accessible to society ical opponents of the Eritrean dictator, Isaias Af- at large. In other words, when many more indi- werki. As Eritrea is constantly considered one of viduals, also those less powerful, can share their the countries that systematically infringe its cit- personal narratives and life stories with their re- izens’ human rights,2 fleeing the country after be- spective society, while using new media outlets, ing labelled an opponent of the regime is a valid they turn individual historic narrative into an in- reason to be recognized as a refugee in a shelter tegral aspect of society’s memory. state. As such, through contemporary media, and

11 Media Development 4/2017 asylum seekers’ ability to turn them into public American Behavioral Scientist. Tirosh, N. & Klein-Avraham, I. (forthcoming). ‘Memoryless’: The arenas where they can share their stories, host so- Visual Framing of Refugees in Israel. Journalism Studies. ciety citizens can encounter often negated asylum seekers’ narratives. This encounter, as already dis- Noam Tirosh, PhD, is a lecturer at the department of Communication Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His cussed, can potentially impact what society thinks research focuses on the relationship between memory, media, and about asylum seekers and may increase their chan- justice. His work has been published in the journals Media, Culture ces to be recognized as refugees. This, I believe, and Society, The Communication Review, Telecommunication Policy, Critical Studies in Media and Communications, The Information Society, demonstrates how contemporary media may be International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, and others. He used as tools for those dealing with memory ethics has participated in various international conferences and his 2015 article “Revisiting the Right to be Forgotten” was awarded “best — the normative aspects of how society remem- student paper” by the Research Conference on Communication, bers, what society forgets, and who are the actors Information and Internet Policy (TPRC). that may influence these delicate process. In this article, I argue that there is an inherent connection between asylum seekers’ nar- Recent back issues of ratives, their ability to share these narratives and their recognition as refugees. Contemporary Media Development media have the potential to be a fundamental tool at the hands of asylum seekers when they struggle to obtain this recognition. Taking this perspective 3/2017 Changing Media, Changing into account, asylum seekers and activists who Perceptions struggle for their well-being should start thinking about asylum seekers’ media and communication 2/2017 Reforming the World rights, and to consider them as an integral part of their demand to be recognized as refugees. Face- 1/2017 Digital Futures book is not only the virtual arena where asylum seekers spend their free time; it is where they can 4/2016 Media and Mediated Memory influence discussions about their rights and legal status. 3/2016 Local vs. Traditional Media As such, those who wish to help local asylum seekers should demand a new media policy 2/2016 Islamophobia and the Media that addresses the question of asylum seekers’ access to media and their ability to use media in their 1/2016 Communication Rights... daily life. This may assist asylum seekers in realiz- joining up the dots ing their “right to memory”, overcoming bureau- cratic obstacles that deny them the protective legal 4/2015 Invisible Walls and Barriers status they aspire to: that of refugees. n

Notes 1. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html Media Development is provided free to 2. See the Eritrea page on the Human Rights Watch’s website. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/africa/eritrea WACC Individual and Corporate Members and is also available by subscription. References Maclntyre, A. (1984). The Virtues, the Unity of Human Life, and the Concept of a Tradition. In: Sandel, J.M. (ed). Liberalism For more information visit: and its Critics. New-York: New York University Press. http://www.waccglobal.org/resources/media-de- Schejter, A. & Tirosh, N. (2016). A Justice-Based Approach for New Media Policy: In the Paths of Righteousness. London: Palgrave- velopment McMillan. Tirosh, N. (Forthcoming). Dominant News Frames, Collective Memory and the African Asylum seekers’ Protest in Israel.

12 Media Development 4/2017 calling playing Asteroids relentlessly with my sis- Video games, ter’s then boyfriend and my future brother-in-law. The game itself is constantly remembering transmedia, and too: remembering where the player is on the screen, what weapon the avatar is carrying, how cultural memory many enemies have been dispatched, when to play Colin Harvey a particular sound effect of piece or music, the list is extensive, because contemporary video games I’ve played video games for as long as I can are such complex ecologies. remember. From the electronic games like But memory comes in many guises. Sub- jective memory is constantly shaped by collective Munchman and Astro Wars developed by memory, so much so that it’s not always easy to the British and New Zealand manufacturer spot where one begins and the other ends. Ac- Grandstand in the 1970s and 1980s, cording to neuroscientist Steven Rose, at the root through my first Atari computer in 1983, of all memory activity are the biological factors de- to arcade games and consoles like Sony’s termining bodily remembering, from “circulating hormones, physiological processes, the immune PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox, games system”, all of which are engaged in an ongoing, have been a recurring feature of both my reciprocal state of interaction (2003:7). personal and professional life. Our bodies are energetic and material containers interacting with other energetic and ma- s well as playing games, along the way I’ve terial containers. Machines possess memories but Aworked in the games industry as a writer and they’re also memories themselves, of previous narrative designer for companies including Sony models, interacting with software that similar- and Rebellion, set up Britain’s first undergradu- ly remembers prior iterations. Processes of up- ate course in Game Cultures, written for leading dating, of patching, are often an effort to reconcile game industry magazines like Edge and Develop, remembering between technologies. and completed a PhD exploring the interrelation- The complexity of these interactions be- ship of story and play in video games using ideas tween different kinds of memory are hard to of affect and memory. underestimate. I remember the kind of game I I’ve grown with games as they’ve moved could play on my first home computer – an Atari from cartoonish, abstract approximations with 800 I won in a national competition to design the simplistic levels of interaction to heavily realis- “House of the Future” – being heavily proscribed tic character and environments with increasingly by the amount of RAM (Random Access Memory) complex mechanics. When I became a man, I cer- the machine possessed. At the same time, the disc tainly didn’t put away childish things – instead I drive that I’d won never worked, meaning that chose to weave them into my life. I had no way of storing any of my work on my computer. This meant that if I typed in a program from a magazine, book or the document supplied Memory types Like any cultural artefact, subjective memory is a with the computer, perhaps to produce an image crucial component of how games are made, en- of the American flag or blues musical tune, there gaged with and perceived. This can range from was no way of saving my work. remembering where a particular object is located Operating my computer, situated in the fug in the environment or a piece of advice given to of a family living room in which my disabled fath- the player by an NPC (Non-Playable Character) to er chain-smoked cigarettes, was a live perform- calling back to an event the player-character ex- ance. The computer couldn’t remember, meaning perienced in a previous adventure, to fondly re- we had to. Together these were such issues that I

13 Media Development 4/2017 lobbied my parents for the next generation of the which essayed fictional representations of the same computer, replete with 64K and a disc drive, epoch-defining events of that day, albeit in cine- knowing this would open up a vast array of new matic form. gaming opportunities, while also allowing me to Though cinema in its early days was con- save my own creativity. The recall of this itself sidered a vaguely pornographic, low-culture lingers, as one of my most powerful memories of medium, it has now developed into one evident- my late father. ly capable of dealing with difficult subject matter. Some theorists have suggested video games will History repeating undergo a similar transformation, though the as- In a peculiar inversion of the evolution of visual sociations of play and childhood inherent in the art, video games have largely eschewed the ab- word “game” may render such a transformation stract representation of their early years – Pong, more fraught than might be superficially assumed, Pacman, Asteroids – in favour of verisimilitude. if it happens at all. Video games, as a cultural form, This can even extend to remembering mistakes: are remembered as games first and foremost, and car racing games emulate lens flare, a flaw in how games are childish, at least for dominant discourse cameras process light, to make the immersive ex- in Western culture. perience more akin to televisual presentations of A mainstream World War Two game at- racing. tempting to portray and engage with the reality of The tension between video games as inter- the Holocaust remains difficult to envisage for a active stories and video games as recreations of variety of complex, interweaving reasons. Indeed, reality has been much discussed within the field French film-maker Claude Lanzmann found fic- of game studies, probably because the tension tional filmic representations of the Holocaust remains a pertinent and challenging one within like Schindler’s List objectionable, utilising witness the games industry itself. War games struggle to statements to an almost exclusive extent in his understand whether they’re simulations or play- own masterpiece Shoah to avoid using constructed able dramas, sometimes ill-advisedly attempting material such as archive footage. to be both. The moniker “game” suggests play, and play- Players seeking to recreate the exact specif- fulness – with its connotations of triviality – would ics of using a particular kind of weapon and seeing seem to make engagement with such horrors both the resultant havoc are not necessarily interest- an intellectual and humanitarian impossibility. An ed in being reminded of the human cost of their associated, though more fundamental commercial actions. At least this is often the assumption on reason for games not to engage with the Holocaust the part of game developers. With notable excep- is that some territories around the world classify tions, it’s assumed that players don’t want to see video games as Entertainment rather than Art, portrayals of the human suffering arising from and therefore forbid discussion of this particular war, of murdered or maimed civilians, especially topic. children, of displaced people, of genocide. Arguably, however, in an era in which Fake To some extent this arises from an ongoing News has warped dominate discourse to the extent issue of how video games are constructed by the that it’s producing political and economic results wider culture. 911 Survivor, a “mod” built using the inimical to the functioning of liberal democracy, Unreal Engine by a group of artists and game de- the need for a truly popular – populist – medium signers, attracted opprobrium for using the video like the video game to engage with historical re- game medium to engage with the terrorist attacks ality has become increasingly pressing. A number on America on 11 September 2001. In contrast, of mainstream and independently produced video similar criticisms were not levelled at either the games have engaged with issues of atrocity. Free- Oliver Stone film World Trade Center (2006) or dom Cry (2013), the downloadable content for the Philip Greengrass’ film United 93 (2006), both of fourth Assassin’s Creed game entitled Black Flag

14 Media Development 4/2017 and developed and published by Ubisoft, allows What these examples suggest is that video the player to personify the character of Adéwalé, games are eminently capable of remembering a freed slave from Trinidad, and explicitly engages accurately and engaging seriously with difficult with the brutality of the slave trade in the Carib- subject matter, if the subject matter in question is bean of the eighteenth century. appropriately handled. As the medium matures, This War of Mine (2014/2016), developed video games set in the geographical arenas and and published by 11 bit studios and inspired by the historical epochs in which atrocities occurred but Siege of Sarajevo in 1992 to 1995, deals explicitly which do not engage with the realities of those with the experience of a civilian population in a atrocities might start to be accused of a sin of omis- war zone, rather than the familiar gun-toting sion, of deliberately non-remembering, to adapt a action hero stereotype. term used by Anna Reading (2014), a fellow con- tributor to this issue of Media De- velopment.

Transmedia memory A further way in which memory studies understands video games relates to their increas- ing role in transmedia ecologies. “Transmedia” in its contemporary sense emerged in the work of Marsha Kinder, who explored children’s consumption of media, suggesting that young consumers move cheerfully between different kinds of media while simul- taneously remaining engaged with a consistent storyworld throughout (1993:47). Henry Jen- Above: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag: Freedom Cry (Ubisoft, kins extends the idea to postulate 2013). Below: This War of Mine (11 bit studios, 2014/2016). “transmedia storytelling” (2003), which he has himself subsequently refined on a number of occasions and which has been critiqued and redefined by a variety of successive theorists and practition- ers, including Christy Dena, Matt Hills, Jason Mittell, Andrea Phillips and myself. A transmedia network or ecology might comprise video games but also films, television shows, comics, novels,

15 Media Development 4/2017 short stories, audio plays and varieties of Us- are deemed “canon” by the Star Wars Story Group, er-Generated Content (UGC). Notable high-pro- established to identify which elements of the file examples include Star Wars, Doctor Who, and sprawling Star Wars franchise remain canon from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, tend to sit within the past and going forwards. To achieve the can- the science fiction and fantasy genres, as I’ve ex- on ending, a player must work through the game plored in my own academic book on the subject, in a specific way, since this is the ending that the Fantastic Transmedia (Palgrave-Macmillan 2015). collective memory of the franchise will recall in Arguably this is because the kinds of fans science the future; playful activity in the other elements of fiction and fantasy franchises tend to attract are the game, no matter the fidelity of the audiovisual also the kinds of tech-savvy people who enjoy elements involved, is not deemed canon and will tracking down the various parts of a storyworld be consequently forgotten. across multiple media. Additionally, expanding a franchise trans- Conclusion medially often results in contradictions in terms Memory is a central component of engagement of plotting, characters and timelines, and science with the video game sphere and manifests itself in fiction and fantasy material often provides in-built multiple ways. Games remember where a player ways of dealing with such contradictions, rooted is geographically located in an environment, what in time travel, parallel universes and magical pow- they’ve accomplished and what they’ve missed; ers. players remember these things too, using their In Fantastic Transmedia, I argue that entries experience to plan a way forwards through the within a transmedia network are effectively en- game. Games are intertextual, remembering other gaged in a process of “remembering” elements media, and sometimes the specifics of a transmedia from elsewhere in the storyworld in question. For network in which they operate. instance, in the case of Star Wars, the character Throughout the fifty-year history of com- of the golden robot C3PO is remembered from mercially available video games, they’ve been re- medium to medium, undergoing a process of peatedly called upon to remember real-life events. translation in each instance: the audiovisual image Like any fictional construct, they struggle to do from the Star Wars films is remembered textually this with fidelity. The supreme irony is that as words in a Star Wars novel, as a still graphic in games, which seemingly privilege the subjective a Star Wars comic, or as a heavily stylised comput- experience above all else, might offer a compelling er graphic in the Star Wars Rebels television series means of experiencing objective truth. That will (though in the latter example retaining the voice only happen, though, if we as players demand it of of the original film actor, Anthony Daniels, from games and game-makers. n the film series). The interactive nature of video games means Bibliography 11 bit studios: This War of Mine. 11 bit studios 2014/2016 that as a medium they tend to exist in a different Atari Inc: Asteroids. Atari Inc 1979 relationship to the rest of a transmedia network Atari: Pong. Atari 1972 than other, sequentially organised media such as EA DICE: Star Wars: Battlefront II. Electronic Arts 2017 Grandstand: AstroWars 1981 novels and television programmes. For instance, Grandstand: Munchman 1981 the forthcoming Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017), Harvey, Colin (2015) Fantastic Transmedia: Narrative, Play and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds. London: comprises a wide variety of levels set within the Palgrave-Macmillan milieu and extensive time frame of the Star Wars Jenkins, Henry (2003) ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ in MIT universe, but also tells a story intended to bridge Technology Review, January 15th 2003, available at https:// www.technologyreview.com/s/401760/transmedia- the gap between the events of Star Wars Episode storytelling/, accessed 27th August 2017 VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) and Star Wars Episode Kinder, Marsha (1993) Playing with Power in Movies, Television and VII: The Force Awakens (2015). Video Games: From “Muppet Babies” to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. London: University of California The events of the Battlefront II “campaign” Kinematic: 911 Survivor (Unreal Mod) 2003

16 Media Development 4/2017 Namco: Pacman. Namco/Miday 1980 Reading, Anna (2014) “The Journalist as Memory Assembler: Non Memory, The War on Terror and The Shooting of Digital narratives: Osama Bin Laden” in Zelizer, B and Tenenboim, K (eds) Memory and Journalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. me, us, and who Rose, Steven (2003). The Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind. London: Vintage Schindler’s List, 1993. Dir. Steven Spielberg, US: Universal else? Pictures. Shoah, 1985. Dir. Claude Lanzmann, France: New Yorker Films. Karen Worcman Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, 1983 Dir. Richard Marquand, US: 20th Century Fox. Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, 2015. Dir. JJ Abrams, “I’m here to tell you a little bit of my story, US: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. and I’d like you to please read to the end. Ubisoft Montreal: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag: Freedom Cry. Ubisoft 2013 My name is R, I’m 29 years old and I’m United 93, 2006. Dir. Paul Greengrass, US: Universal Pictures. World Trade Center, 2006. Dir. Oliver Stone, US: Paramount from a working class family - or perhaps Pictures. I should say from a very poor family. I’ve Dr Colin Harvey is a writer, narrative designer and academic fought long and hard to get where I am specialising in digital storytelling, video game narrative, shared storyworlds and transmedia storytelling. He is currently writer and today. narrative designer with To Play For, and has previously worked as a narrative designer for Rebellion Developments and for four hen I was just nine, my parents and I lost years undertook freelance story development work for Sony. His everything we had: they burnt our house work in other media includes tie-in material for Doctor Who and W Highlander, published under license from the BBC and MGM/ down and we were left with nothing. My moth- Davis-Panzer respectively, the novella Dead Kelly for Abaddon er, father and I all went out begging, then a year Books, set in their Afterblight shared storyworld, and comic stories for 2000AD and Commando. His gothic short fiction won the first after the fire my parents separated, and I went to Pulp Idol award, jointly conferred by SFX Magazine and Gollancz Ibirapuã, Bahia, north of Brazil, with my moth- Books. He has written and presented extensively on the subjects er. Once again I went out begging, because we of video game storytelling and transmedia storytelling and is the author of Fantastic Transmedia (Palgrave-Macmillan 2015), an didn’t have a penny. When we got to Ibirapuã, exploration of science fiction and fantasy-themed transmedia. He my grandmother didn’t want me in her house and is currently a Visiting Professor with King’s College London. sent me away to live with some people in Teixeira de Freitas, also in Bahia. I stayed at that house for a year; the woman beat me and I still have scars on my body because of the bad way she treated me. My grandmother took me away from there and gave me to a family that was well-known in the town. They played a big part in me getting to where I am today. My mother, poor thing, became an alcoholic and was in no condition to look after me, but even so, she got pregnant again. I was already 15 years old, and I couldn’t stand that way of living any more. I often thought about taking my own life, but God wouldn’t let me carry on with that way of thinking. When I was 18, I went back to Mato Grosso where my father was. He was very ill, but didn’t want any help. I had to change my life, I needed to study and make something of my life, so I decided to turn things around and dedi- cate myself to my studies. When I was 23, I took

17 Media Development 4/2017 the Enem [university entrance] exam in Apare- been created and shared by the community. cida do Taboado (MS). I passed and was awarded Among these, Valeria Tessari’s exhibition Fabrics, a full scholarship to study pedagogy. That same clothes, shoes, fashion: material memory, brought year I lost my father. I had to get over it and, three together nine life stories, six images, and a num- years later, on January 25, 2011, I finished univer- ber of videos selected from the Museu da Pessoa’s sity. On February 6, 2011, mother died, just when collection. Valeria described her exhibition as “a I thought I was in a position to provide a better collection of memories based on everyday objects, life for her... She was simply gone, leaving me and produced by people that produce human relation- 2 an 11-year-old child to take care of. Once again, I ships.” She indexed the collection herself, using came back to Bahia. These days I am living in Vila tags to allow searches by other Internet users. She Juazeiro, and a month ago my brother went to live also completed her collection by uploading some of her own stories. with an aunt of ours in Espírito Santo. I’m work- From the 18,000 stories of the Museu da ing at a company near to Vila Juazeiro.”1 Pessoa’s archive, around 4,000 were sent in via This is just one of the stories that forms part the Internet and 74% of the total number of 209 of the digital collection at the Museu da Pessoa, a online exhibitions were produced by the public. virtual and collaborative museum of life stories. When the entire logic of capturing a story is in- Since its founding in São Paulo in 1991, it has verted and the Internet becomes the biggest col- aimed to make any life story a source of knowl- laborator in the construction of the Museu da edge and connection between people and social Pessoa’s collection, it is obvious that the process groups. The Museu da Pessoas’s platform allows changes. But does the quality of the narratives re- anyone to become a museum curator by organiz- main the same? What do we lose and what do we ing his/her own “digital exhibition”. gain from this inversion? To date, more than 155 exhibitions have

18 Media Development 4/2017 From cabinets of curiosities to modern-day Story circles that are a traditional part of oral so- museums cieties have been revitalized as a basis for the pro- Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer awarded the duction of digital stories, a resource that is used Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote a manifesto for the mobilization of social groups throughout which, in his opinion, should be used as a guide the world. The same thing occurs with the pro- for museums in the 21st century. He points out duction of personal memories. These are new that, “the measure of success of a museum should forms of recording, preserving and, above all, dis- not be its ability to represent a state, a nation, a tributing memories. The different contents reflect society or a particular history. It should rather be different productions, and the question of how to its capacity to reveal the humanity of individuals” access all this material only gets bigger. But the (Pamuk, 2012: 58) most important question concerns the quality. The Internet and social networks have de- Joanne Garde-Hansen, Andrew Hoskins and finitively altered the individual’s role in the pro- Anna Reading (2009) explain that, during a large duction of content, which has, in turn, had an part of western history, the preservation of collect- impact on the collective production of memory. ive memory was carried out with enormous effort Blogs, books, television and radio programs have by society. From scribes to copyists, from painters started to include the experiences of individuals as to photographers, from cabinets of curiosities to part of their content. Though these facts can rep- big national museums, great efforts were put into resent a new opportunity for museums and mem- the conservation of memory. As such, museums, ory producers, it is important to think about the above all in the West, demonstrate what our so- quality of the new content. How can we guaran- cieties “understand” or “consider” to be of value. tee that the impact of the narratives - both in the It is a fact that this “effort” implies a process of se- collection process and in its dissemination - is not lection, registration and preservation. Naturally, lost or turned into practices that trivialize the pro- it also implies the need for resources and, as such, cess and turn the content into a set of data swim- that which is preserved in museums, books, and ming in a sea of information without any sort of historic monuments results from the vision of a criteria or hierarchy? certain group. Museu da Pessoa has started by taking oral In so far as new technology drastically re- history as its basic methodology. Oral history duces this “effort”, individuals have started to re- can have many approaches. The Museu da Pes- cord their own stories and to share them, be it on soa has worked mainly with life story interviews the pages of Facebook or in collective spaces, such (Thompson, 2000), taking as its starting point the as that of the Museu da Pessoa. Both as a society belief that each person’s narrative is, at the end of and as individuals, we were used to being spec- the day, an expression of their singularity. None tators of large events, great facts, whilst we were of the interviewees is treated simply as a source of simply actors in our own lives. We shared our “information” on the subject, but rather as a per- narratives with a small group of friends and our son who has experienced a part of a moment in family. The new means of digital production have history and personally taken something from that brought with them the idea that our small circle of experience. The interviewee is considered the friends and family can expand. It has modified our main author of his/her narrative, but the success concept of the group and territory. of the interview depends a great deal on the rela- In addition to being a common space shared tionship established between the interviewee and by a group of people, a territory carries meaning the interviewer. The focus is on the quality of the for a community in the sense that it acquires a his- listening. torical, affective and economic meaning for those It is essential that we evaluate the new that inhabit it. The new digital spaces allow us opportunities that the digital world has enabled to create new territories. Our communities have for the production and use of these memories. expanded. Therefore, the question that we have

19 Media Development 4/2017 to ask is: when individuals share their day-to-day is argued that such methods provide greater op- experiences in virtual spaces, do their opinions, portunities for the collective – and collaborative in fact, occupy what we have traditionally called – construction of new memories, along with new their narrative spaces of memory? Does this cor- spaces that challenge some of the established per- respond to what we used to do when we organ- ceptions and frameworks in society. Such projects, ized a photograph album? it is argued, create new horizons and possibilities for museums to reinvent themselves, not only in Museums and us the digital world, but also in the physical and sym- It would be a mistake to see all these initiatives as bolic spaces of society in the 21st century. a simple exchange of media. Should we therefore Such possibilities allow them to engage with ask ourselves what leads an individual to share and, if possible, to join in Orhan Pamuk’s vision their story at a museum? In a study conducted of museums as places for representing people and with Internet users in 2009 on what had led them their means of expression. n to use the Museu da Pessoa’s space, some answers suggested the main reasons. One of the answers Notes 1. Story sent in by an Internet user in April 2014. All passages perhaps summarizes and illustrates a large portion quoting Internet users cited in this article are in their original of them: form. We have only changed the names. 2. Free translation. “I think that everyone imagines that they are alone when they think about talking about Bibliography Garde-Hansen, J.; Hoskins, A. and Reading, A. Save as… Digital their personal issues, when, in fact, there is an Memories. London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. institution like this one where there are peo- Lambert, Joe. Digital Storytelling: capturing Lives, creating community. 3ed. Berkeley: Digital Diner Press, 2009. ple like you, who are a minority, who are in- Pamuk, O. The innocence of objects. New York: Abrams, 2012., p terested in the stories we have to tell.” 55-58. Thompson, P. 3ed. The Voice of The Past. Oxford, Oxford To what extent does the socialization of University Press, 2000. everyday events recorded by those using the Mu- Karen Worcman was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1962. She seu da Pessoa’s website result from reflections on graduated in History and has a master’s in Linguistics from the their own path through life? I believe that we are Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. She started working with still going through a period of transition. It is a oral history in 1997 on a special project about Jewish immigrants to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1992 she founded the Museum of the transition that includes our notion of time - past Person, a virtual museum that connects people and groups through and present - our notion of community and our their stories. There (and via all the social media connected with it) relationship with our own memory. It is essential every person can register his/her life story and create a thematic collection that can be publicly accessed. She has written many to understand that these new forms of narrative articles and edited many books on the issue like Social Memory indicate changes. Technology: Theory, Practice, Action (together with Joanne Garde-Hansen). She is an Ashoka fellow since 1999, a global The experience of the Museu da Pessoa, just institution that supports social innovative entrepreneurs in more as with many other similar initiatives in the digit- then 60 countries and a member of the board of many institutions al world today, is part of work-in-progress that is like the Center of Digital Storytelling (www.storycenter.org), Diversa and others. very much in its early stages but whose positive responses and active involvement by the community already allows us to envisage numerous developments in the future. There will be new possibilities for museums to expand their areas of activity by reversing the traditional institutional organizational logic still perpetuated by the majority of Western museums. By enabling members of the community to become curators of a museum’s collections, it

20 Media Development 4/2017 ences outside the museum building, and especial- Museums that ly outside of big cities. Over the past decades, the number of travelling exhibitions run by museums travel has gradually increased, in line with the richness of the educational and cultural offer accompany- Aleksandra Kubica ing these itinerant projects. As an example, the “New museology” is a notion which has Smithsonian Institution based in Washington DC launched its Travelling Exhibition Service in the been gaining popularity in museum 1950s, and in Sweden a national body for prepar- studies since the 1980s when Peter Vergo ing and managing travelling exhibitions was cre- (1989) proposed it in a book he edited. The ated in 1965. “novelty” of new museology concerns a The exhibition on tour takes the offer of the shift of focus in museum work: redefining museum out of the building to broader audiences. Mobilities, constituted by developments in tech- the institution from collection driven into nology and media, are key to how the itinerant audience-oriented (Hooper-Greenhill, 1994: projects are constructed. They also influence the 134). range of opportunities that the museums on tour can provide for the public, and the ways in which s museums’ scholars observe, the museums’ they can communicate or engage with audiences. Afocus is no longer on collecting, preserving In a broader context, advances in technology have and displaying artefacts and remembering for always influenced human interactions, mobilities communities what is significant in culture and and power structures, but especially since the 1990s science (Crane, 2011; Macdonald, 2011). It is in- onwards the pace of these developments has been stead about openness, participation and inclusive- gradually accelerating with the rise in accessibility ness of individuals and communities in museums’ and affordability of digital technologies such as, work (Arnold-de-Simine, 2013; Simon, 2010). among others, computers, digital cameras, mobile Focusing on community is among the key phones, e-readers, and navigation systems. aspects of museums’ strategies and it is perceived In scholarly investigations, such advan- as a means to include and give voice to the indi- ces have been especially crucial for the “mobility viduals and groups who have been formerly ex- turn”, which directed the interest of social scien- cluded or silenced (Crooke, 2011: 410). Museums tists towards analysing how communication and increasingly become, or represent themselves as, the physical movement of people, including vol- more accessible and democratic (Ross, 2004: 85). untary as well as forced migrations, can intersect Yet, although inclusiveness, openness and and merge through digitized flows (Urry, 2007). participation are among the most emphasized and Mobilities are various forms of transport, em- promoted values, museums are still perceived as bodied movement and communication involving vital social institutions responsible for converting people, objects and data. Studying mobilities in- “living memory” into “institutionally constructed cludes consideration of the infrastructures, or lack and sustained commemorative practices which of them, which enable individuals, things and data enact and give substance to group identities and to move, or which keep them static. foster memory communities” (Arnold- de Simine Itinerant museums are hugely dependent 2013, 1–2). on mobilities: of the exhibition which has to be designed in a way that makes it suitable to travel, and which requires vehicles and roads which Museums on the move Travelling exhibitions, which this article concen- make the tour possible; of people – employees trates on, are one of the ways in which museums of the institution which runs the travelling pro- reach out to various communities and engage audi- ject, but also of audiences which the museum at-

21 Media Development 4/2017 tempts to reach – who need to be able to travel to paring and managing new projects. Yet, there is wherever the museum stops, by car, bus, train, on little evidence for including the complexity of the foot, by bike or using other modes of transport. visitors’ experience in considering the “social rel- Furthermore, movement of data is crucial for cre- evance” which museums seek to achieve. ating, promoting and engaging with travelling ex- Often visitor numbers are one of the main hibitions. Even if the itinerant museum does not indicators of museums’ “performance” (Simon, rely on interactive elements, such as videos, au- 2010) and what remains underexplored is the ex- dio recordings or computers with touch-screens perience of visitors in the new museum (Kidd, with whatever relevant content, the internet and 2014: 8). Yet, researching visitors, so those mem- phones are usually used to communicate about the bers of the target audience who visit the museum, exhibition, at least to promote it on local media as well as users who engage with the museum vir- websites or social media platforms. tually through on-line platforms and participants However, including interactive elements who join activities organised by the museum, is and employing multimedia in an exhibition is an a growing field within museum studies (Hoop- increasingly popular practice in museums, not er-Greenhill, 2013; Lang, Reeve, and Woollard, only travelling ones. An active role of a visitor is 2007). implied – he or she is expected to make choices One of the ways in which travelling mu- and put effort into creating a personalized experi- seums seek to provide social relevance is by en- ence in the museum space. The experience and the couraging some form of participation among story that each individual visitor constructs for targeted audiences. The Anne Frank House in him or herself in the museum depend on which Amsterdam, which runs a number of international media they engage with (Jenkins, 2011). travelling exhibitions and projects, trains local youth to guide their peers through the exhibition. Changing the visitor experience In this way, locals are invited to contribute some The changing role of the visitor is on the one hand of their knowledge and perspective to the narra- rooted in the evolution of digital technologies and tive offered by the House and in this way make the media. Boundaries between consumption, produc- story more relevant to local audiences. tion and distribution are blurred and constantly The Swedish Travelling Exhibitions (STE) changing in museums (Kidd, 2014). Alvin Toffler initiative places high importance on “the develop- in the 1970s coined the term prosumption to repre- ment of better forms of collaboration regarding sent the interaction between production and con- joint projects” (Hjorth, 1994: 104), which should sumption in relation to digital media (Nightingale, begin at the planning stage. A travelling museum 2011). Prosumption, however, can also denote the run by the Museum of History of Polish Jews PO- fluid positions of visitors in the museum – who LIN, which is elaborated more in detail in the next consume but also produce: either by participating section, engages local activists in towns that the in the process of creating a museum exhibition or museum visits to help with logistics and to or- another project or, for instance, by contributing ganise accompanying events. to the museum’s social media profiles. On the other hand, the evolution of the Case study: Museum on Wheels understanding of the visitor experience is tied to Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews inclusiveness, openness and participation promot- POLIN, through its exhibitions, educational, cul- ed by new museology. Museums identify serving tural and research programs as well as outreach communities as one of their key aims, and among initiatives, seeks to re-shape how Jewish history the modes of implementing this aim is engaging in Poland is narrated both in the country and individuals from the given communities in various abroad. The declared mission of the institution ways. The engagement can involve co-creation or on its website reads: “To recall and preserve the sometimes supporting the entire process of pre- memory of the history of Polish Jews, contribut-

22 Media Development 4/2017 ing to mutual understanding and respect amongst in larger urban centres around the country. Poles and Jews as well as other societies of Europe The core of the project is a travelling exhib- and the world”(POLIN Museum 2017a). ition sited in a mobile pavilion (that can be dis- From the way the museum’s main goal is mantled and placed on a truck for transport) and stated, it is apparent that the social relevance of an educational program. Both are designed specif- the institution’s work and serving the public is a ically for audiences in rural Poland, where Jews for key concern for POLIN. The museum’s activities centuries formed from few percent to more than are shaped in the context of new museology – pro- 50% of the local population. During the Holocaust, moting inclusiveness, openness, giving agency to most of these Jewish communities were annihilat- the visitor, providing opportunities for participa- ed and at present there are no or very few Jews left tion in various stages of planning and preparing in these towns. The material remnants of Jewish specific projects. presence are often dilapidated and expunged from Museum on Wheels (MoW), the largest out- local memory politics. reach project of POLIN emerged in this context MoW started touring in June 2014 and by – as an initiative designed to leave the museum April 2017 it had visited 65 cities, towns and villa- building and the city to work with locals and pro- ges, ten to twenty each year. Its largest component vide educational content for audiences in small is a pavilion: a cube of 35 square meters. In order towns around Poland. Museum on Wheels seeks to host MoW in their town or village, interested to fulfil the institution’s primary mission in small local activists (usually NGO workers, teachers towns of up to 50,000 inhabitants, but it also trav- or employees of local cultural institutions) need els to certain festivals on Jewish culture or history to respond to the call for applications issued by

Museum on Wheels in Kępno (2015). Photo taken by Filip Basara for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN. Used with the permission of the Museum.

23 Media Development 4/2017 the POLIN. The activists have to propose a pro- and provide new ways for engaging with audi- gramme to accompany the three-day visit of MoW. ences. n When on tour, in each town or village, the Bibliography pavilion is accompanied by POLIN’s staff: one co- Arnold- de Simine, Silke. 2013. Mediating Memory in the Museum: ordinator, two educators, one technical employee Trauma, Empathy, Nostalgia. Palgrave Macmillan Memory and one watchman who guards the exhibition at Studies. Palgrave Macmillan. Crane, Susan. 2011. ‘The Conundrum of Ephemerality: Time, night. The exhibition in the pavilion consists of Memory, and Museums’. In A Companion to Museum Studies, “permanent” elements, such as a timeline of Jew- edited by Sharon Macdonald, 243–66. Chichester: Wiley. Crooke, Elizabeth. 2011. ‘Museums and Community’. In A ish presence in Poland or a 3D model of a Chris- Companion to Museum Studies, edited by Sharon Macdoland, tian-Jewish town from the early 20th century; and 385–414. Chicester: Wiley. location-dependent components, of which the Hjorth, Jan. 1994. ‘Travelling Exhibits: The Swedish Experience’. In Towards the Museum of the Future. New European Perspectives., central one is a local interactive map indicating edited by Roger Miles and Lauro Zavala, 99–115. Routledge. sites related to the Jewish community formerly Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. 1994. ‘Museum Education: Past, inhabiting the town. Present and Future’. In Towards the Museum of the Future. New European Perspectives., edited by Roger Miles and Lauro Zavala, The project aims to teach about the Jewish 133–46. Routledge. past and present in Poland as well as to support ———. 2013. Museums and Their Visitors. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry. 2011. ‘Jenkins, H. (2011) Transmedia 202: Further local leaders who are involved in promoting this Reflections. Accessed on 22/08/2016’. Confessions of an Aca- knowledge locally, and who engage in restoration Fan. The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. http://henryjenkins. or protection of Jewish material heritage (POLIN org/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html. Kidd, Jenny. 2014. Museums in the New Mediascape: Transmedia, Museum 2017b). Cooperation with locals is de- Participation. Routledge. clared to be one of the central elements of MoW, Lang, Caroline, John Reeve, and Vicky Woollard. 2007. The but the way it happens is subject to a structure Responsive Museum Working with Audiences in the Twenty-First Century. Farnham: Ashgate Pub. created by the itinerant museum’s curators and Macdonald, Sharon. 2011. A Companion to Museum Studies. Book, coordinators at POLIN. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Nightingale, Virginia. 2011. ‘Introduction.’ The Handbook of Media The role of local activists cooperating with Audiences. Blackwell Publishing. Blackwell Reference Online. MoW is for instance to help arranging the logis- POLIN Museum. 2017a. ‘Mission and Vision’. POLIN Museum tics and infrastructure for the MoW visit and run- of the History of Polish Jews. http://www.polin.pl/en/about- museum/mission-and-vision. ning accompanying events during the MoW’s stay ———. 2017b. ‘Museum on Wheels’. http://www.polin.pl/en/ related to Jewish culture and history. They also education-culture-jewish-cultural-heritage-project/museum- can provide photos, texts or video material to be on-wheels. Ross, Max. 2004. ‘Interpreting the New Museology’. Museum and presented on one of the screens in the exhibition’s Society 2 (2): 84–103. pavilion and they are consulted in the process of Simon, Nina. 2010. The Participatory Museum. Book, Whole. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0. creating the interactive local map. Urry, John. 2007. Mobilities. Polity Press. Local activists receive support and some Vergo, Peter. 1989. ‘Introduction’. In New Museology, edited by coaching from the educators as well as POLIN’s Peter Vergo, Colin Sorensen, and Norman Palmer. London: staff before and during the visit of MoW. Some of Reaktion books. the activists stay in touch with POLIN afterwards, Aleksandra Kubica is a PhD Student at King’s College London’s but the project is not about long-term cooper- Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries. Her project is funded by London Arts and Humanities Partnership. In her ation but rather a one-time intervention which thesis on the Warsaw POLIN Museum’s travelling exhibition, she provides a space for three days for exploring the explores how the itinerant museum is constructed and managed history of Jews locally and in Poland. as an educational outreach project and how it is received in small towns around Poland to which it travels. She is interested in the The approach adopted by POLIN is one connections between storytelling, agency, education and difficult among many that large institutions take in creat- memory. Aleksandra holds an MA (Hons) degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and an MA in ing travelling exhibitions. What connects these Nationalism Studies and Jewish Studies from CEU, Budapest. itinerant projects is the engagement of mobilities Before starting her PhD she was an Archival Fellow at the Center of people, data and objects which contribute to for Jewish History in New York and worked as researcher and educator in Poland and Germany. At King’s College London she is identifying the relevance of museums for society involved in running a Cultural Memory Reading Group.

24 Media Development 4/2017 War? What if Native North and South Americans The political had fought back and repelled the colonial invasion and the ensuing genocides? economy of Just at hinting at these questions, already our imaginations run wild with scenarios free of historical digital the grand histories we have been unquestioning- ly taught. No longer shackled by the history that games brought us to this point, our imagination wrests Emil Lundedal Hammar us from a hegemonic past that binds our societies in traumatic legacies. Perhaps it is even fruitful to The late science-fiction author Octavia emancipate ourselves from the grand history and Butler once wrote in her unpublished work its reliance on hegemonic victors, who decided how the past should be retold in the future. Thus, Parable of the Trickster that: “There’s we might follow Butler’s advice on new suns. nothing new / under the sun, / but there Yet, to imagine may require stimulation via are new suns.” communication − as literature and prose are used to stimulate our emancipatory imagination, so do ith this epigram, Butler was referring to film, monuments, archives, calendar dates, graph- Wthe imaginary of science-fiction and the ic novels, data networks, theatre plays, and games possible worlds that the literary genre provides help us imagine differently. And with the prolif- readers with. While our current Sun shines light eration of digital technologies among those of us on a world fraught with oppression, poverty, in- with sufficient income and our neo-feudal nation- justice, extinctions, we can use our imagination al identity, we can virtually imagine and play with to build abstract, metaphysical, immaterial worlds past suns. with different suns and different societal modal- This virtual historical imagination is evi- ities. It is through these new suns that we allow denced in digital games (colloquially known as ourselves to imagine a better world without pain video or computer games). There, people are able and misery, and thereby shift our present world to play histories and imagine new suns. While play towards a better future. Simply put, Butler’s words highlight the fact that another world is possible. But while Butler is referring to visions of possible futures, we can likewise attempt to imagine our past in different ways. What if History had turned out differently? What if, instead of South East Asia and Africa being colonized by European powers, the invaders had cooperated with and com- municated as equals with the colonies? What if capitalism in the US and West- In Attila: Total War (Creative Assembly, 2015), play- ern Europe had been dismantled and replaced ers are able to command armies to defeat other nations with a more just economic system during the Cold in the historical period 395-453 in Europe.

25 Media Development 4/2017 has always been part of culture and even animal patory new suns, which would be divorced from nature, it is also in relation to digital technology the oppressive conditions of our own sun. Yet, that games have been given a popular and highly despite the possibilities of virtual environments, commercial audio-visual form for some people to digital games are nevertheless still constricted by engage with. the context of production. Just as mass cultural In digital games, people are able to play his- films have to pass through a host of processes in torical scenarios where a past is usually depicted order to end up on the screen, so mass cultural for the pleasure and stimulation of players. For digital games require vast amounts of labour and example, they are able to command a mediev- approval through power relations. al army in the European Middle Ages, they can Thus, the context of production constrains build up Empires in the Middle East to conquer the meaning potential of historical games to the and dominate the known world, or they can tra- extent that these new suns are incredibly similar verse Italian renaissance architecture and encoun- to our own oppressive sun: Most mass cultural ter popular historical figures. Players are able to games are US- and Eurocentric depictions of the perform in these virtual environments where the past with largely hegemonic forces at large. To re- computer (console/phone/digital device) acts as turn to Butler’s quote: new suns are possible, but the mediator of the game rules and systems. only once they have managed to navigate the vari- Thus, the popular genre of historical digital ous power relations and material conditions in games gives players the opportunity to “play” with contemporary society. For example, before a game history, usually in either a bird’s eye perspective of even begins development, the decision-makers historical processes or in a one-character perspec- and those in economic power will doubtless ask: tive. In the former, players can establish empires Does it sell? Who are its main demographic audi- under the chronology of (Western) history and ences? Are there prior examples of such a title sell- change the direction their Empire will take when ing? Will it generate any backlash? it comes to the development and conquering of Another problem is that the majority of the other nations. In the latter, players play the past most popular and widely disseminated games are from the perspective of one or more historical characters, in which there is an emphasis on the The game Phone Story (molleindustria, 2011) high- audio-visual detail of the virtual environment and lights the four stages of production of game devices – its reference to the historical period. from extraction of conflict minerals via slave labour to The fact that these virtual worlds have to atrocious working conditions at Chinese labour camps be built entirely from scratch via software tools to the consumerist demand for these digital devices to ought to permit a wealth of creative and emanci- the toxic extraction of the dumped “obsolete” devices.

26 Media Development 4/2017 developed in North America and Europe with the injustices and silencing of other perspectives and (cheap) help of outsourced software development voices during the production and marketing of in South East Asia. The main development team historical games, they are faced with an organized will be comprised of similar identities across race, collective of enthusiasts who sustain their hegem- class, gender, nationality, and sexuality. This hom- ony, the multibillion companies, and the products ogenous composition of Western developers like- that they identify with. This ensures stability for wise ensures that the people in decision-making companies where they do not necessarily need to positions are young, white, male, and heterosex- engage with criticism from minority voices and ual – thus, working environments of your com- those at the periphery, and instead allow a hostile mon mainstream game developer primarily fos- and reliable hegemonic consumer group to main- ter certain life experiences and attitudes divorced tain the economically predictable status quo. from the realities of others. Thus, the possibility of creating and fos- In turn, such environments are conducive to tering new suns in the domain of digital games is fostering certain visions of the past, while those in a painful, terrorizing, and tough road that many the margins are forgotten or ignored. We see this have undertaken. This road to different pasts via repeatedly, where historical digital games always virtual environments is predicated on economics, centre on European or US-American cultures and on identity-norms, on power structures, and fun- viewpoints; the chances are that new suns are few damentally on the material and global networks and far between, if not non-existent. that allow those of us with access to the infra- Then, when resistant voices and marginal- structure to play in these virtual environments. ized identities highlight and criticize this state of affairs and propose historical games that are di- Signs of change? verse and multiple in the views and experiences At the same time, there are glimpses of games that they offer, they are met with lip service, denial manage to escape the political economy of the or opposition by decision-makers and investors. games industry and consumer culture. In Assas- Concurrently, they face a specific hegemonic con- sin’s Creed: Freedom Cry (Ubisoft Montreal, 2013) sumer culture that has been constructed and culti- players are able to take the role of a black freedom vated via marketing efforts in the 1990s and early fighter from Trinidad, who violently opposes and 2000s, where industry companies doubled down attempts to dismantle the 18th century French on assumed consumer preferences and fostered colonial transatlantic slave trade in the Caribbean, values, norms, and expectations in regard to who thus echoing the Haitian revolution and liber- gets a voice, who gets represented, and whose ation. viewpoint is important. In Mafia 3 (Hangar 13, 2016), players adopt In turn, enthusiast game consumers im- the role of Lincoln Clay in 1960s New Orleans plicitly identify their camaraderie, preferences, against the backdrop of the Civil Rights era in and values with multibillion companies. By ex- which systems of US white supremacy and black tension, any criticism of the games and the com- power movements are simulated and encountered pany that produced them, becomes a criticism of In 80 Days (Inkle Studios, 2014), players are pos- themselves. This combination of identity-specific itioned as the Other when they travel across the norms in the games (Western-centric white su- world and come across a multiplicity of identi- premacist heteronormative patriarchy) and cor- ties and cultures in a digital reimagining of Jules porate identification (consumerism via capital- Verne’s classic story. ism), means that the discursive environment is Such games offer a historical virtual space explicitly hostile to criticism of any kind, especial- that allows players to emancipate themselves from ly if it originates from marginalized voices. the usual hegemonic articulations of the past and So, whenever journalists, critics, commun- instead to play with the past in such ways that im- ity members, academics, etc. speak up about the aginations of new suns are made possible. While

27 Media Development 4/2017 Set in 1960s New Orleans, Mafia 3 (Hangar 13, 2016) let’s players fight against white supremacist law enforcement in the Southern USA with the help of a black liberation movement.

torical digital games, the optic of power relations still allows us to acknowledge the significance of allowing marginal positions to be enacted and per- formed via such digital games of Empire. If power fantasies different in budget and production scope, they are afforded to the hegemonic nevertheless indicate an occasional willingness Europeans and Americans, why should fantasies by creators and producers to break down the eco- of liberation and emancipation of the past not be nomic and demographic walls of hegemonic pro- promoted and available to those under the boot of duction structures. Although some of them might capitalist, colonial, and racist power? be criticized for having residues of contemporary Being able to play out and appropriate such power structures, they still allow players to play stories is predicated on their economic and ma- against History and offer individual and collective terial conditions – i.e. the question is not whether articulations of resistance via play. or not the subaltern can speak, but instead can it This means that players are able to individ- shop? Games like Empire: Total War, Mafia 3, and ually and collectively appropriate games for their Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry are produced in re- own pleasure and preferences, even if the de- lation to a number of factors, chief among them velopers never intended such forms of play. The whether or not it is financially viable for invest- literary game scholar Mukherjee exemplifies such ors to fund such games. Thus, our playing in new a strategy in the historical strategy game Empire: suns appears to be restricted by our own Sun and Total War (Creative Assembly, 2009) where Indi- the economic and historic conditions in which we an players play the Indian Empire and invade and are embedded. n conquer most of Europe and, more importantly, the United Kingdom. Emil Lundedal Hammar is a PhD candidate in game studies and coordinator of the ENCODE research network at the University Yet the possibilities in most major main- of Tromsø, Norway. He holds a Cand. IT. in Games Analysis from stream games are still those of Empire, i.e. while it the IT University of Copenhagen and a BA in philosophy from might be possible in a few instances of resistance the University of Copenhagen. His research project focuses on the intersection between digital games, memory, hegemony, and to take up the position of the subaltern or the his- race and he is currently co-editing a special issue on postcolonial torically oppressed as illustrated in the above ex- perspectives in game studies for the Open Library of Humanities. amples, players are still constrained by the mechanics of games to perform Empire in the sense that only invasion, conquest, and domination of other spaces are possible in these games. Players still murder other people, they still invade other countries, and they still suppress and dominate other cultures. Nevertheless, while this criticism is fruitful in identifying the one-dimensional actions in his-

28 Media Development 4/2017 It’s Time … a speech that shaped a life and Australia Asha Chand The following article is part of a memories project being carried out with a ;local council in Sydney, Australia, recording memories of senior citizens in a city that has changed culturally and geographically and in many other ways. Stories are recorded in video format and posted on the council’s website with other layers of investigation and research as well as full transcriptions of the interview.

he moved to Blacktown in 1971. A year later, ment. According to a June 15, 2017 news report SGough Whitlam delivered Labor’s policy by the Australian Associated Press, Dutton said, speech “It’s Time” at the Blacktown Bowman “English language was essential to economic par- Hall (photo above right). Kathie Collins has vivid ticipation and social cohesion.” memories of watching, in awe, this turning point Kathie’s comments came at a time when in Australia’s history. In this conversation with the Australian political arena was reeling with Asha Chand, Kathie, a household name in Black- the revelation that some of its 226-member par- town for her roles in politics and on social and liamentarians have dual citizenship in contraven- volunteer fronts, widens the lens of her experien- tion of section 44 of the constitution. ABC News ces in a city that is undoubtedly the lead contender reported that “this section disqualifies someone for Australia’s multicultural capital. from holding office” if they are entitled to the cit- Describing Australia’s citizenship test as izenship of another country. The cases of Deputy “ridiculous” for expecting migrants, particularly Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, Fiona Nash, Matt those who are fleeing their own country, to know Canavan, from the Nationals party and Malcolm about Australian history and sportsmen, Kathie Roberts, (One Nation) are before the high court says better questions could relate to the contribu- as they all have dual citizenship. Scott Ludlam and tions the newcomers could make to the country Larissa Waters from the Greens Party resigned they want to call home. Kathie maintains that the over their dual citizenship status. focus should be on how the newcomers can make Bloomberg journalist, David Fickling, in his Australia an even better place. August 17, 2017 article, called for Australia to re- Australia introduced tougher English lan- think its “out-dated citizenship restrictions,” fol- guage proficiency tests to ensure that “aspiring lowing the latest “blow” of Joyce’s NZ citizenship citizens are fully able to participate in Australian to the one seat majority government of Prime life by speaking English, our national language,” Minister Malcom Turnbull. The deputy prime Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Parlia- minister’s father was born in New Zealand in 1924, as a result, he is officially considered a Kiwi.

29 Media Development 4/2017 “In total, 13 senators and 11 House members ians seemed to have the fruit and vegetable shops. were born overseas, equivalent to about 17% and Catholics were the most prevalent faith group. 7.3% of the respective chambers. More may be There were also quite a few refugees or displaced caught, like Joyce, as a result of their parentage,” people from devastation of the 2nd World War. Flickling’s report said. This crisis could stymie the All of these newcomers to Australia were simply government’s ability to pass legislation as both the intent on making a home for themselves and con- House of Representatives and Senate are finely tributing to the country,” Kathie recalls. balanced between parties. Kathie was rostered on the night shift at Australia has one of the highest propor- the local Blacktown Library on the day Whitlam tions of foreign-born residents among democratic made his famous “It’s Time” speech”. She recalled, countries. Nearly half of permanent residents are “It was 7.45 pm and I had just finished my shift at first or second-generation migrants, with 28% work. I walked across from the library to Bow- born overseas and 21% having at least one foreign man Hall where a crowd had gathered. I heard the born parent, according to the 2016 national cen- speech and it had a life changing impact on me. sus count. Kathie, a Labor councillor for Ward 3, I realized then the value of political philosophies moved to Blacktown in 1971. and began my search for my place in politics. It’s time … I told myself.” Kathie continued working A country of inclusion and exclusion at the library, a job she says was easy to find, “given In 1800, when the first record was taken, Black- that there was almost full employment and I was town had a population of 16 people. This count the only applicant”. would not have included the Aboriginal popu- Even if you are not a true believer, Whit- lation. At the last Australian census in 2016, the lam’s speech stirs something radical in the polit- city recorded 350,288 people and is expected to ical space: “Men and women of Australia! The de- have 520,000 people by 2036. It is the second lar- cision we will make for our country on the second gest city in New South Wales by population and of December is a choice between the past and the has a land area of 247 square kilometres. The area future, between the habits of the past and the de- is steeped in indigenous history. Prior to 1788, mands and opportunities of the future”. Whitlam it was largely an Aboriginal settlement until 13 took his party to its first victory in 23 years at the people on the Prospect Hill were granted land by 1972 election and became Australia’s 21st Prime Governor Phillip in 1791. There was competition Minister. He was leader of the Labor Party from for land and resources as a result of white settle- 1967 to 1977. ment. Although the Aboriginal Darug’ population Spoken at a time when Australia was de- declined, there has always been a presence of the manding social change including gender and ra- community in the city which was originally named cial equality, Whitlam’s speech laid out a choice Blacks Town. between the habits and fears of the past, and the One of the country’s most culturally diverse demands and opportunities of the future. areas, Blacktown, 34 kilometres west of the Syd- Kathie gave up thoughts of pursuing a ca- ney CBD, is one of the fastest growing cities in reer in federal politics when she was described as Australia. The city has 37.6% of its population “too old” when she was around 50. It is an irony born overseas. The city also has the largest urban that during the week of this interview with Kath- Aboriginal population in Australia with 8,195 ie, Australia’s former Liberal Prime Minister, or 2.77%. With the real estate market soaring in John Howard and former Labor Prime Minister, Sydney, Blacktown’s physical landscape is also Bob Hawke criticised career politicians “with no changing dramatically. life experience”. “When we first moved to Blacktown the Reflecting on Australian democracy in con- population was mainly Anglo with quite a few versation with political journalist and commenta- Maltese who generally were farmers. The Ital- tor, Annabel Crabb, on 17 August 2017, Howard,

30 Media Development 4/2017 National Aboriginal and Islanders Day of Celebration (NAIDOC) in Blacktown. Kathie Collins is second from the left. The event represents a celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander cultures and recognises the contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as first Australians in various fields. who was the 25th PM and led from 1996 to 2007, ate dissemination. said, “We have too many people who enter Parlia- ment now, particularly at state level, who have had Empowerment through technology no experience in life other than politics.” Hawke, The digital age is making a huge impact on the way who was Prime Minister from 1983 to 1991, said, communities today engage with political decisions “My advice consistently to every young person and messages, Kathie says. She attributes much of who comes and asks me about (entering politics) this “empowerment” through technology to the is to make a life first.” mobile phone. “Young and old alike are adapting Paying tribute to the power of political to using the phone for anything and everything”. speeches in 2012, then Senator, John Faulkner, The level of connectivity in cyberspace challenges speaking at the 40th anniversary of Whitlam’s the physical meeting spaces, she laments. Despite “It’s Time” speech, at Bowman Hall in Blacktown, this, she says, “the world is much enriched because the site for the famous campaign launch, said, “We of this level of connectivity and information shar- may be cynical about politics and politicians, we ing”. may be sceptical of the motives of those men and Kathie believes that having information at women who aspire to represent and to lead us – your fingertips and carrying technology in the whether in Parliament, in community organisa- palm of your hands is power to individuals. High tions and campaigns, or in social movements – but speed interaction brings opportunities, cultural it is still their words which have the potential to change and appreciation of others. People share express our aspirations, our beliefs, and our deep- simple information about the places for best In- est sense of collective self.” dian food via social media and soon a particular He reminded the audience that political place tucked away in Quakers Hill in Blacktown is speeches are more relevant than ever in a techno- on everyone’s radar for curries. logical age that allows for their wide and immedi- Fashion, music and information have per-

31 Media Development 4/2017 meated cultural, ethnic, and physical boundaries for its diversity. Blacktown comprises 177 dif- in Blacktown. This is very different to when ferent nationalities and a similar number of lan- newcomers were so intent on making Australia guages spoken. The library now has collections in home that they allowed their own culture to dis- at least 21 different languages. appear, to some extent. There has been a remark- Kathie remembers how she stood in amaze- able change on this front with the city facilitating ment when she saw Aboriginal children for the numerous cultural festivals and social events, al- first time. “I was five then. I was playing near lowing multiculturalism and diversity to reign as the gate of our farm house which sat on 8,500 6 part of the city’s cultural fabric. acres outside Lake Cargelligo. A truck backed up In 1975, Kathie commenced a Degree in against the gate. On the back were children with Australiana at New England University. She “ab- much darker skin than mine. I was speechless.” In solutely embraced the history of Australia and hindsight, I guess I reacted very similarly to how much that was never taught in school about the the Aboriginal people would have reacted as they Aboriginal people. I was outraged by the treat- watched white people land on their shores. I used ment of the Aboriginal people.” This outrage has to constantly talk, especially to the farm hands my remained a constant for Kathie even while occu- father employed but this situation was something pied with other activities such as sporting activ- so different.” ities for her children. Kathie says that this scene was etched in In 1976 many refugees were seeking asy- her memory. She kept it filed away until she be- lum in Australia following the end of the Viet- came an adult and with education and an inquir- nam War. St Patrick’s Parish undertook to house ing mind, was able to learn and understand about two families. With many others, Kathie became other people, their cultures and ways of life, in- involved with settling both families. The good- cluding the Aborigines. will of the local community was inspiring. “Forty Kathie says technology has made learning years later we still keep in touch with one of the about others easier and faster. “I worked in the li- families. Again, the Vietnamese sought to be part brary when cards were issued for keeping records of the community and contribute to their adopted on borrowings and return”. She grew up in an era country,” she says. when religion and politics were never discussed. Then Deputy Mayor of Blacktown Cr Char- The current debate in Australia over same sex lie Bali talked Kathie into joining the Labor Party marriage is an example of how much change has in 1980. In 1983 John Aquilina, then Mayor of taken place. Same sex marriage will only become Blacktown and former speaker and member of law if passed through Australia’s parliament. The NSW State Parliament, persuaded her to run for government, however, is seeking public consent council. She was second on the Labor ticket for on The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, Ward 3 in the 1983 and 1987 elections but was says the Australian Broadcasting Commission. unsuccessful. The council elections in 1991 saw A fact-check by the news provider says that Kathie elected. the process is voluntary and non-binding. Unlike Kathie reminisces on how much she has other media reports, the ABC says the process is learned by being exposed to a variety of situations not a plebiscite which is a compulsory vote by cit- and diversity of people. The landscape of Black- izens on an issue of significance, but one that does town has changed into a United Nations on her not affect the Constitution of Australia, and has doorstep. The most common ancestries in Black- no legal force. Same sex marriage became legal in town in 2016 were: Australian 17.8 %; English: New Zealand and the UK in 2013 and the US in 16.2%; Indian 8.9%; Filipino 7.0%; and Irish 4.4%. 2015. A total of 48,551 residents in Blacktown reported “People from all sections of the local, nation- speaking a non-English language at home. This al and international communities have jumped multicultural melting-pot makes the city richer on the social media band wagon to have their say

32 Media Development 4/2017 on this important matter”, Kathie Rights at Risk: says. Commenting on women not be- Observatory on ing able to break the glass ceiling the Universality in the corporate and political world of Rights Trends Kathie says that the situation is created Report 2017 by men not willing Excerpt to give up the positions they believe The trend is unmistakable and deeply were created for men. “Women, for the most part, alarming: in international human rights are not feisty and don’t push the issue. There is spaces, religious fundamentalists are much to be done.” In 1996 Kathie (photo above) walked the now operating with increased impact, Milford Track in New Zealand. In 2001 she com- frequency, coordination, resources, and pleted a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of support. Technology, Sydney, while working full-time at Western Sydney University’s Penrith campus li- he worldwide rise in religious fundamen- brary. In 2006 she fulfilled a childhood dream by Ttalist actors is not happening in a vacuum. walking the Kokoda Track in New Guinea. That This growing phenomenon is inextricably linked tough walk was followed by walking the Sandakan to geopolitics, systemic and growing inequalities track in Sabah, Borneo in 2009 and a section of and economic disparities, conflict, militarism, and the Camino de Santiago in Spain in 2012. These other political, social, and economic factors. In travels opened her mind to other possibilities such turn, these factors drive religious fundamental- as being involved in charities and tackling social ists to regional and international policy spaces in issues like homelessness. search of increased impact. Kathie’s philosophy is, “Nothing comes easy. If you want to achieve something, you have to Civil society organizations work hard.” n In an unexpected shift in traditional dynamics at the UN, there has been a substantial increase in All photos courtesy of Blacktown City Council & Li- conservative religiously-affiliated non-State ac- brary Services records. for a video interview with Kath- tors involved in the international human rights ie Collines visit: https://youtu.be/W4mYdt-Owzw arena.1 This trend can be understood as a form of backlash against the gains of feminists and other Dr Asha Chand is Senior Lecturer and Journalism Area Convener in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western progressive actors. In what appears to be a con- Sydney University. She migrated to Australia from Fiji where she scious attempt to replicate the organizing methods worked as a journalist and was chief of staff on Fiji’s then News and level of engagement of feminist and progres- Ltd owned national daily newspaper, The Fiji Times. Asha’s PhD research is on “The Chutney Generation: Migration, Match-making sive civil society in transnational policy spaces, and the Media among Sydney’s Fiji Indians”. She has published anti-rights civil society organizations are moving some of her research in national and international journals. Her most recent community journalism work is focusing on Blacktown into New York and Geneva to further a very dif- Memories, a project involving her third year journalism students ferent agenda. using digital technologies to record the memories of senior citizens. In terms of economic and Social Council The works can be watched here: http://www.blacktown.nsw.gov. 2 au/Discover_Blacktown/Our_History_Heritage/Oral_Histories (eCOSOC) accreditation, the majority of such regressive civil society organizations are Christian

33 Media Development 4/2017 Photo courtesy of International Planned Parenthood Federation. evangelical or Catholic in orientation.3 Most of the anti-rights CSOs active in international human rights spaces were founded in or are based in the United States, although their rhetoric often claims to speak with the “collective voice” of the global South. In fact, the bulk of United States based religiously-affiliated conservative CSOs now operating at the UN have long been active on the domestic front 4 in U.S. “culture wars”, targeting regional coalitions received a boost during the women and individuals who are nonconforming George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) that in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual has yielded an ongoing effect. 5 orientation. Many in the network of U.S. anti-rights Ironically, given their tactical appropriation civil society organizations made the transition of anti-imperialist discourses at the United Na- from outsiders to insiders through President tions, a number of the CSOs highlighted below— Bush’s courting of the religious right at the inter- including the Family Research Council, World national level. Under Bush, Christian Right activ- Congress of Families, and United Families Inter- ists were included as official representatives on national—have been and continue to be involved U.S. delegations to UN conferences, such as the in attempts to export the United States “culture World Summit on Children.7 United States reli- wars” abroad, particularly in an attempt to shape gious right civil society benefited from increased national policies regarding sexuality and gender access, institutionalization, and lobbying power in identity in several African, eastern european, and negotiations on rights for women, children, and 6 Latin American countries. individuals with non-conforming gender identity,

In the Latin American context, these ac- expression and/or sexual orientation. tivities coexist with a longer history of struggle In the same period ultra-conservative actors between ultra-conservative and emancipatory in the U.S. built relationships with counterparts discourses around sexuality and gender with the abroad. For instance, at the 2002 UN Special Ses- Vatican/Catholic Church significantly influen- sion on Children, the U.S. led a coalition of ma- cing outcomes. jority Catholic and Muslim countries, including Sudan, Iran and Pakistan, to oppose draft language Cross-denominational conservative recognizing “various forms of the family” and re- coalition productive health services for adolescents.8 [As the section below highlights,] religious right The relationships initiated then form the civil society organizations working at the United basis of today’s ongoing strategic alliances with Nations increasingly join forces in a cross-de- conservative allies on the State level and across nominational conservative coalition that hopes religious lines.9 With the new U.S. administration to achieve common goals related to “life, family, under Donald Trump and Vice-President Michael and nation”. For U.S.-based organizations, their Pence – who describes himself as a “devout evan- capacity to organize, influence, and build cross- gelical” – it is highly probable that U.S. anti-rights

34 Media Development 4/2017 CSOs will be again endowed with greater access, attendance and dissemination are not externally corroborated and may be inflated. power, and inclusion in the determination of 2. At present, 4,507 NGOs worldwide enjoy consultative status United States foreign policy. with eCOSOC, which coordinates the work of the United At the time of writing, the new adminis- Nations. NGOs which receive eCOSOC accreditation may engage in formal UN proceedings. For more information, see tration had already reinstated and expanded the http://csonet.org/index.php?menu=134 “Global Gag Rule”, a policy that prohibits U.S. 3. Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), funding from going to any international organ- Lobbying for Faith and Family: A Study of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, 2013, https://www.norad.no/ ization that administers, counsels on, advocates globalassets/import-2162015-80434-am/www.norad.no-ny/ for, or mentions abortion; and it has defunded the filarkiv/vedlegg-til-publikasjoner/lobbying-for-faith-and- 10 family.pdf United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 4. The term was introduced in the U.S. domestic context in Traditionalist civil society actors working “Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America”, by the to influence international human rights today are sociologist James Davidson Hunder. It refers to the ongoing pronounced polarization between ideologies, often played out also more unified at the international level than in the political sphere, and frequently focused on such issues the domestic. While the relationship between the as abortion, immigration, LGBT rights, and the separation of Protestant and Catholic Right is uneasy within the church and state. 5. See for example, Jennifer S. Butler, Born Again: The Christian 11 United States, in UN venues Catholic, Mormon, Right Globalized, 2006. and evangelical organizations and individuals now 6. See for example, Public Research Associates, Colonizing African Values: How the U.S. Christian Right is largely act as a unified bloc. An ongoing project, Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa, 2012, http:// antirights CSOs increasingly focus on coalition www.politicalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/ building and training as part of their operations. downloads/2012/10/Colonizing-African-Values.pdf 7. Doris Buss and Didi Herman, Globalizing Family Values: The In turn, networks are developed to further collab- Christian Right in International Politics, 2003. oration at the international, regional, and national 8. George Archibald, U.S. to help UN redefine “families”, levels. Washington Post, April 2002. 9. Strong interlinkages amongst anti-rights CSOs continue. The [In the following section,] we examine Board of the U.S.-based World Congress of Families, for several of the most active ultra-conservative re- example includes the founder of the Spanish conservative ligiously-affiliated civil society actors engaged in online petition platform HazteOir, the founder of the Russian CSO FamilyPolicy, the director of La Fundacion in Mexico, international human rights advocacy over 2015 and the founder of the Italian Novae Terra Foundation. and 2016. Given the results of the recent U.S. elec- 10. For more on these and likely future developments, please see Françoise Girard, Implications of the Trump Administration tion, it is likely that their influence and impact will for sexual and reproductive rights globally, Reproductive Health rise sharply in the near future; indeed, as of early Matters, 25:49, 2017. 12 11. Bendyna, M., Green, J. C., Rozell, M. J. and Wilcox, C., 2017, we have already seen their impact. n Catholics and the Christian Right: A View from Four States. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 39: 321-332, 2000. The complete report is available here. The Observatory 12. We have already seen their effect on the current U.S. administration in early 2017, with respect to the regressive on the Universality of Rights (OURs) is a new collab- positions on SRHR taken by U.S. representatives at the CSW orative initiative that aims to monitor, analyze, and and CPD, the inclusion of the anti-rights CSO C-Fam (and share information on initiatives that misuse religion, the Heritage Foundation) on the U.S. delegation to the CSW, and the administration’s defunding of the UNFPA. culture, and tradition to undermine the universality of human rights. Grounded in a feminist framework, the OURs initiative works across regions, issues, and human rights spaces towards the advancement of social justice. The OURs Working Group is made up of organizations and activists who work to protect and promote the universality of rights.

Notes 1. While there is a documented increase in numbers of ultra- conservative CSOs active at the United Nations, it is also important to note that many of their claims in terms of

35 Media Development 4/2017 a lecturer in practical theology in the Netherlands. The Meaning of Four of us have finished doctoral work in theology and film, and two have had long standing involve- Life: Locarno Film ment with film and the church. As one might ex- pect from such a group, discussion of each film in Festival 2017 the competition was both spirited and insightful. Robert K. Johnston We learned from each other. In a ceremony on the closing day of the fes- The 70th Locarno film festival − held tival, we awarded a prize of 20.000 Swiss Francs during the first days of August on the (to be used to help with the film’s distribution throughout Switzerland) to the best film of the shores of Lake Maggiore on the border competition, as well as commendations to two of Italy and Switzerland − again proved other movies of merit that invited spiritual re- magical. But as Golshifteh Farahani, an flection on the nature of the human. The three actress staring in The Song of Scorpions films chosen could not have been more different, (d. Anup Singh, Switzerland/France/ whether in genre, tone, nation of origin, or focus. But what all three shared in their stories was their Singapore, 2017), one of the films that filmic excellence, their universal impact, their in- was screened to more than 6,000 outdoor ventive expression, and their spiritual depth in spectators on the Piazza Grande, said: “The portraying what it is to be human. power of the mountains, lake and rivers combined with movies and the best risotto Ecumenical Award for Lucky The prize for best film went to Lucky (d. John Car- in the world. What could be better than roll Lynch, U.S.A., 2017). An homage to Harry that?” Dean Stanton, one of America’s greatest character actors who is now ninety-one, Lucky (see still on s it has done each year since 1973, SIGNIS following page) winsomely explores the meaning A(World Catholic Association for Communi- of life given the immanence of death. Directed cation) and INTERFILM, the international, inter- by an accomplished actor himself, John Carroll church film organization of mainly Protestants, Lynch and including David Lynch in a memorable joined together to appoint an ecumenical jury to supportive role, the movie is set in a small, bleak choose a film in the festival’s international compe- desert town in the Southwest. Starring the 91 year tition that best portrayed “human experience that old Stanton himself as Lucky, the film follows this is in harmony with the gospel” or best sensitized elderly curmudgeon as he goes about his mod- “viewers to spiritual, human or social questions est life. Though angry, fearful and living on the and values.” What this award seeks to honour are edge of his community, Lucky also proves “lucky” cinematic works of the highest quality that bear enough to have others who help him move be- witness to the power of film to explore the spirit- yond himself. He is not alone. ual dimensions of our existence. Although Lucky refuses for much of the film I was privileged to be part of the Ecumenical to engage with others, a highlight of the film is Jury this year. Co-members of the jury included a Lucky coming to a birthday party thrown by the long-time organizer for a sister jury at Cannes, a waitress in the diner for her daughter. There he programmer for a non-commercial Christian tele- is cajoled into singing a song, something melan- vision station in Prague, a staff member for a Prot- choly and probably inappropriate for a young girl’s estant church-in-mission organization in Mont- party to be sure, but something loved by all in at- pellier (France), the director of a Roman Catholic tendance, nonetheless. It is his gift to the others. cultural centre in Frankfurt a/M (Germany), and As the Preacher says, “Two are better than one…

36 Media Development 4/2017 but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not ing. There is a larger spirituality to life, despite all have another to help” (Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10). that might seem to militate against it. The film notes make clear, as did the dir- I write this review while back at home in ector during his Q&A, that Stanton is an atheist, Pasadena, California. I have just gone to the gym himself. And the film is meant to be about Stan- to work out. There, I meet once again, Tony, an ton. But the film, despite itself, explores a spirit- elderly Japanese man who has had a stroke and uality of life that extends beyond surface reality. who barely can shuffle along with the help of a As John Lynch, the director, said in his response three-pronged cane. A former body builder, Tony to the award, “While ‘Lucky’ wears his atheism has been coming to this same gym for over twenty- on his sleeve, there is no doubt that the themes five years (I know for he was there the first day I of mortality and life’s meaning fall in a spiritual came.) Tony’s life is precarious, but not without realm. Even though Lucky (and Harry Dean for joy. For his community greets him daily, stops that matter) would disagree that there is a spirit- to chat briefly, even offers a helping hand before ual realm, or a soul for that matter. But regard- moving on. And Tony too, still shuffles into the less of one’s faith, we all have to face the truth of cycling class, or moves slowly back and forth in an our mortality and ‘Truth is a thing’,” [as the movie exercise class. Life is not much; but it isn’t ‘noth- says]. ing’. Again, to quote the preacher, “But whoever is Though the bleakness of the desert where joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog Harry lives is unrelenting, a slow walking tortoise is better than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4). by the name of Roosevelt symbolizes in the movie’s narrative life’s ongoing mystery and meaning. Commendations for two different films There is more to life than surface existence. Life A commendation for merit was also given by is precious, even given the spectre of death. As the jury to two other films, Qing Ting zhi yan/ the director said when commenting on the film, Dragonfly Eyes (d. XU Bing, China/USA, 2017), “Roosevelt steps slowly but surely into the future and Vinterbrodre/Winter Brothers, (d. Hlynur Pál- with his ‘coffin’ on his back, defying the bleak- mason, Denmark/Iceland, 2017). ness around him. As the movie closes, Harry faces Dragonfly Eyes/Qing Ting zhi yan tells the the audience directly and smiles. Perhaps for the story of Qing Ting, a simple young woman train- first time in more than 60 years of acting, Stanton ing to become a Buddhist nun. But sensing in her “talks” directly to us, his audience. The fourth wall spirit the need for something more, she leaves the is broken. The story is not one about death at all, monastery to work on a highly mechanized dairy certainly not about Lucky’s death. It is about liv- farm where the cows are perhaps treated better

37 Media Development 4/2017 than the workers. There she meets Ke Fan, who is life really is real, and what is fake? As the mov- smitten by her. Their relationship becomes com- ie states, “When you fake reality, reality is fake.” plicated however, Ke Fan ending up in jail for a How does outer appearance relate to inner reality? time after doing something he thought Qing Ting Both the film’s formal characteristics and its story- would like, and Qing Ting then having plastic sur- line raise such questions. Our panel of judges was gery and reinventing herself as an online celebrity. fascinated by this portrayal of spiritual longing in When Qing Ting dies, Ke Fan expresses his grief the midst of life’s ongoing absurdity. Though the by also having plastic surgery so that his face be- movie comes out of Communist China, the film comes hers, and he then joins the same monastery ends in a monastery where it also began, with a as we have seen at the film’s beginning. The mov- character seeking to mine the depth of China’s ie ends where it began, with Ke Fan/Qing Ting rich spiritual past, even while cognizant of the va- beginning his/her quest to find meaning in life. garies and secularity of present life, chief of which This story of a search for meaning in life by is death itself. two Chinese young adults might seem straight- forward, almost classic even if a bit quirky, except Focussing viewers’ attention on mining for one major factor. Rather than starting with At the Festival there were randomly several mov- a screenplay, the director, XU Bing, started with ies that focused viewers’ attention on mining and an image – actually lots of images. Fascinated by its consequences. Good Luck (d. Ben Russell, 2017, China’s ubiquitous use of surveillance cameras France/Germany) was a documentary in the com- (the average person in China is captured by sur- petition about the lives of miners first in Slovenia veillance cameras 300 times a day!), and aware and then in Surinam. Slow paced and largely with- that this footage was available for any to see from out a narrative arc, the rhythm of the film none- the internet cloud, Bing first culled images from theless ushered viewers into the extremity of life 10,000 hours of footage. Here was the genesis of for these workers. the movie. Bing then created a story line as he Viewers also had the opportunity to watch edited a bricolage of images. (To make his story Das Kongo Tribunal/The Congo Tribunal (d. Milo work with the images at hand, Bing said in a Q&A Rau, Switzerland/Germany 2017), a movie shown that he chose to use plastic surgery as a plot de- outside the main competition as one of seven vice, thus allowing different people to be used as documentaries selected by the Swiss Association the same person!) of Film Journalists to help festival goers engage In the movie there are, as might be expected new perspectives that might provoke debate. from surveillance cameras, few close ups. Instead, Documenting a unique civil tribunal concerning we as the audience are voyeurs of two lives, con- the war in Congo that has claimed six million lives, currently both proximate and yet also distant. The the film gives us a tragic portrait of the bloodi- movie’s editing is often frantic, even nonsensical. est economic conflict in history, centring on the We see buildings collapse and a woman senseless- rich mining deposits being exploited at present in ly fall into a harbour and drown (perhaps while Congo. not paying attention while being on her i-phone), But best, without question, was not a docu- and a cow fall out of the back of a truck. But we as mentary but a drama – Vinterbrødre/WinterBroth- viewers remain fascinated, despite the confusion, ers, (d. Hlynur Pálmason, Denmark/Iceland, 2017). for the footage is also real (think The Truman Show Stunning visuals that showed only faint light from which was one inspiration for the filmmaker). the miners’ helmets amidst overwhelming dark- What we might reject as poor editing if the images ness provided powerful “commentary” on the were simply constructed somehow seems genuine film’s intended meaning, and a riveting sound de- here. Life is chaotic. Stuff happens, and truth is sign demanded the viewer’s attention. The movie often stranger than fiction. tells the story of two young brothers (Emil and Jo- The film asks, given life’s mystery, what in han) who have no parents and who live and work

38 Media Development 4/2017 at an almost animal level in one of Denmark’s make liquor but to cause a delayed reaction for underground mines. Elliott Crosset Hove, who her to see, a reaction in which the liquid chan- plays the younger brother Emil (still above), was ges from clear to dark, viewers celebrate with awarded the festival’s golden leopard for best male this young couple their innocent joy. Though life actor, an award richly deserved. might be vain, it is also precious; though too often Emil and Johan seem reduced to life at its inhuman, it is also wondrous. The person who is most primitive – work, food, drink, sex. A scene arguably the least likely in the mine to discover his where they wrestle each other, animal-like in the true humanity, Emil, does so. The bleakness of the nude, shows rather than tells all we need to know first ninety minutes becomes joyous. Life has real about their condition. Emil also is involved with hope, however modest. making and selling moonshine to his fellow workers. Though some of the liquor is tainted causing Additional movies to keep in mind another’s death, he is unconcerned. The story’s During our eleven days in Locarno, my wife, byline seems appropriate for much of the mov- Catherine Barsotti, and I saw over thirty movies. ie – “a lack of love story”. But Emil unexpectedly These also included from the international com- finds a neighbour girl who loves him, even if Jo- petition: Wajib (d. Annemarie Jacir, Palestine/ han then has sex with her. Despite life’s amorality France/Germany/Columbia/Norway/Qatar/ and its overwhelming sense of enclosure, these United Arab Emirates, 2017) was a Palestin- young people, like the ninety-one year old Lucky, ian, father-son, road movie telling the story of a discover that “two is better than one”. son who is living in Rome who returns home to The girl’s love is life-giving to Emil, as is his Nazareth to join his divorced father in personally for her. When Emil shows her his card tricks, a handing out invitations to his sister’s wedding as new spark of humanity is evident. And as Emil is the local custom. This social custom brings the mixes two chemicals together, this time not to two estranged people together, as the conversa-

39 Media Development 4/2017 tion tests their fragile relationship. which showed the last days of a dying woman with As Boas Maneiras (Good Manners, d. Juli- Alzheimer’s disease. The men in the family go ana and Marco Dutra, Brazil/France, 2017) was fishing most evenings and stay largely unconnect- not only an excellently crafted Brazilian werewolf ed. The women stay in the room but talk about, movie, but a story of the sacrificial love of a black not to, the dying woman. There is almost no in- nanny who comes to live with the wealthy Ana terpretation of the event offered by the filmmaker and her soon to be child and ultimately becomes other than the editing. Rather, viewers are asked a Madonna-like figure. The film was awarded the to create their own narrative about its meaning. Special Jury Prize by the International Jury. If Dragonfly Eyes created the feeling of being Goliath (d. Dominik Locher, Switzerland a voyeur at times, Mrs. Fang does this throughout 2017) shows us a young man, David, small of its screening. Are we as viewers intruding? Would frame, who chooses to take steroids in order to Mrs. Fang have wanted her last moments to be bulk up so he can protect his girlfriend from the made public in this way? Is it enough in a docu- bullies they encounter. In telling its story, the mentary to leave interpretation almost entirely in movie uses the biblical story of David and Goliath, the minds of the viewer? Or is a dialogue between only in this retelling David chooses not five small filmmaker and viewer a rightful expectation? stones but attempts to become another Goliath Questions, both ethical and formal, caused with tragic results. this movie to remain stillborn for me. But, of Las cinephilas (The Cinephiles, d. María Al- course, that is the promise and problematic of a varez, Argentina, 2017) in the section “Semaine movie’s story. What is profound for one might de a critique” is a documentary which interviews do nothing for another. Perhaps. But a great film older women in Argentina and Uruguay who find might be expected to capture more of our interest. their joy in life watching a movie at the cinema I, together with my colleagues on the Ecumenical each day. Jury, remained mystified. n Finally Demain et tous les autres jours (Tomor- row and Thereafter, d. Noémi Lvovsky, France, 2017), the opening film on the Piazza Grande, tells interfilm a gentle, non-judgmental story of a single mother’s mental illness and her young daughter’s need is the international network for dialogue to take on the role of the adult, helped through between church and film. It participates in magical realism by the spiritual presence of a wise festivals through ecumenical, interreligious owl. or solely Protestant juries which award The Festival also showed in a retrospective prizes to outstanding films. a large number of films by the French director Jacques Torneur who made most of his movies Besides Berlin, Cannes, Locarno in the USA. We saw his classic Cat People (USA, and Venice, interfilm is represented at 1942) a superb, black and white film filled with numerous other festivals where church film suspense that uses suggestion and one’s imagina- juries award prizes to films which: tion (not high priced special effects) to create fear • are of high artistic quality in the viewer. • lend expression to a human viewpoint corresponding with the message of the The Golden Leopard Gospels, or stimulate debate with the Perhaps the biggest enigma of the festival for me Biblical tradition was the choice of its International Jury (president • make audiences sensitive to spiritual, Olivier Assayas, France) of outstanding film. It social and ethical values. went to the Chinese documentary Mrs. Fang (d. WANG Bing, France/China/Germany, 2017),

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