FIELD RESEARCH AND VISUAL RECORDING OF RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN THE SOVIET PERIOD (CASE STUDY OF THE FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVES OF THE ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM)

The article describes and analyzes film and video materials containing information on the topic of religious practices of the Finno-Ugric peoples in the Soviet period. The main sources of the research are archival audiovisual records created by the staff of the Estonian National Museum in the period from the 1960s to the early 1990 s, as well as field diaries of participants in the Finno-Ugric expeditions. This was the time when official atheism prevailed in the Soviet Union, the main blow of which was directed primarily at the churches. At the same time, this was a period when open persecution of traditional rituals was not observed, and the study of the worldview aspects of the traditional culture of different ethnic groups was strongly encouraged by ethnology. On the basis ofaudiovisual materials, the article analyzes which fragments of the religious practices of the Finno-Ugric peoples are reflected in the museum archives, and which methods were used by researchers to record different rituals. Much attention is paid to building the relationship between the ethnologist and the bearer of the tradition in the field, as well as the special role of the local mediator in the study of religious rituals through a film or video camera. The considered examples of collecting audiovisual material confirm that in the Soviet period, in contrast to today's digital technologies and the usual practice of photographing and filming various (including sacred) events, researchers with a camera were not always welcomed at prayers. In the audiovisual study of religious rites, the process of adaptation to the environment of the culture under study and the effect of building a first impression acquired particular importance for ethnologists, largely related to the authority of the local mediator who brought them to prayers.

Image–Music–Text: Operatic Experiments in the Age of the Audiovisual Essay

Emerging as a new tool and form of criticism and theorizing, the audiovisual essay has stirred many different opinions within the academy, with its many different outcomes. For scholarly purposes, combining it with text, reflection and commentary seems to be the most common and most accepted form of audiovisual essay, easily found all over the internet in well-known video archives such as YouTube and Vimeo. Towards a more poetic end of the spectrum, breaking both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of any work may deepen and reveal new possibilities, often resulting in the creation of new hybrid pieces. This paper aims to demystify these new for­mats and concepts, focusing on its potentiality as a tool for criticism and its creative possibilities regarding music and, more specifically, opera.

The character of Levin in the ballet “Anna Karenina” choreographed by John Neumeier Anna Karenina: the peculiarities of choreographic interpretation

The problem of choreographic interpretation of the novel “Anna Karenina” by L. Tolstoy in the modern ballet theater is relevant: in the past twenty years, several outstanding choreographers have selected this theme for their performance. The subject of this article is the interpretation of the character of Levin by John Neumeier. The goal consists in revealing the expressive elements and peculiarities of choreographic language used by the ballet master in staging this role, as well as in juxtaposing them with the original literary text. The article employs comparative and analytical methods, overt observation (in the process of working with Neumeier on the role of Kitty), Neumeier's lectures prior to the Moscow premiere of “Anna Karenina” (from the author's archive), and materials from video archives of the theatre. Detailed semantic analysis of stage direction and choreographic language of the role of Levin became the basic instrument for determining the traits of Tolstoy’s hero, which Neumeier derived from the literary source. Tolstoy’s reasoning on the topics that require in-depth philosophical reflection, which were inscribed into the artistic fabric of the novel, are instilled in the role of Levin. Creating the choreographic interpretation of this character, Neumeier did not pursue the original verbatim. However, the choreographer strongly emphasizes the difference between Levin and other characters. Determination of the staging techniques used for this purpose define the novelty of the research results, which can be applied in the further study of Neumeier's works. This includes explicit monologue, Stevens' songs as musical background, bare feet of the dancer, series of symbolic leitmotivs of bodily movements, arbitrary bodily movements that resemble improvisation, usage of costume details. Levin's monologues represent a performance within a performance, philosophical-symbolic choreographic meditation that is not connected with the overall plotline. Such solution, despite all apparent differences, conceptually brings together the choreographed character of Levin and the original text. Interpretation of this role is one of the key components in interpretation of L. Tolstoy's novel by J. Neumeier, which encompasses the author’s innovative staging solutions.

Scene Walk: a non-photorealistic viewing tool for first-person video

Scene Walk is a video viewing technique suited to first-person video recorded from wearable cameras. It integrates a 2D video player and visualisation of the camera trajectory into a non-photorealistic partial rendering of the 3D environment as reconstructed from image content. Applications include forensic analysis of first-person video archives, for example as recorded by emergency response teams. The Scene Walk method is designed to support the viewer’s construction and application of a cognitive map of the context in which first-person video was captured. We use methods from wayfinding research to assess the effectiveness of this non-photorealistic approach in comparison to actual physical experience of the scene. We find that Scene Walk does allow viewers to create a more accurate and effective cognitive map of first-person video than is achieved using a conventional video browsing interface and that this model is comparable to actually walking through the original environment.

How can community architects build socially resilient refugee camps? Lessons from the Office of Displaced Designers in Lesvos, Greece

PurposeThis paper explores social resilience through the lenses of migration. It specifically studies the role of community architects in building socially resilient refugee camps which are human settlements characterized by a transient and heterogeneous community with unique vulnerabilities. These settlements are managed through exceptional governance arrangements between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic humanitarian organizations.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical evidences are drawn from the Office of Displaced Designers (ODD), a design-focused creative integration organization active on Lesvos island. During one-month ethnographic research with ODD, empirical data were harvested through an extensive review of project archive materials including transcripts and audio files of interviews with project participants and collaborators conducted by ODD, architectural drawings and teaching materials, photo and video archives and administrative documents. The ethnographic research was complemented with semi-structured interviews with the founding members and former volunteers and partners of ODD; key site visits to the Moria Hotspot and the surrounding Olive Groves; as well as a desk study on European Union (EU) policies and legislative papers and legal information regarding the asylum seeker application procedure in Europe and Greece.FindingsReflecting on the potential and limitations of community architects in building socially resilient refugee camps, the paper concludes that in order for community architects to make long lasting improvements they must think holistically and design flexible structural solutions for the entire camp, leverage existing expertise within communities and assist other organizations through administrative, financial and design consultancy support. Community architects are also expected to take active roles in forming pro-equity governance structures and steering pro-resilient humanitarian trajectories by acting as mediators, lobbying their partners, advocating for inclusive practices and social spaces and documenting their projects to build an evidence base across practices and contexts and to strengthen their voice as a collective of community architects.Originality/valueThe role of community architects in building socially resilient human settlements in post-disaster place-based recovery processes has been widely discussed in the disaster scholarship. These studies have primarily emphasized permanent and in situ reconstruction efforts in disaster-affected areas. What remains limitedly discussed is the resilience-building potential of community architects in extraterritorial temporary human settlements characterized by displacement and temporality such as in refugee camps. In light of these observations, the aim of this paper is to push the boundaries of knowledge on post-crisis recovery by re-approaching the notion of social resilience from a migratory perspective and revealing the potential and limitations of community architects in fostering socially resilient refugee camps in new (national) territories.

Dance in Ethiopia: Traditionality and Contemporariness

Dance practices in Ethiopia remained vibrant, albeit transformed, as thecountry transitioned from feudalism to socialism (1974), and then to neoliberalcapitalism (1991). For centuries, a vast array of movement traditions has beenessential to religious and communal rituals in Ethiopia. Today, traditionalEthiopian dance is most visible in tourist restaurants or YouTube videos. Thetrajectory of dance from ritualised practices to commercialised performancespresents a seeming paradox: traditional Ethiopian dance as we know it today is,in fact, a modernised performance genre serving multiple functions: memorytransmission, ideological dissemination, and profit generation, among others.In the 1980s, the socialist state harvested dances from around the country toproduce “modernised” performances on the stages of government theatres,propagating the ideology of national unity amidst border wars and internaloppression. In the 1990s, as Ethiopia opened to the West, these dances continuedto be performed on restaurant stages, not so much to propagandise for thestate as to generate profit for the industry. The modernisation of traditionaldance continues in Ethiopia, under the auspices of neoliberal privatisation,which has also led to the westernisation of youth culture. Since the late 1990s,a group of young Ethiopians have devoted themselves to contemporarydance by adopting Western aesthetics and distinguishing their practice fromtraditional dance. Recently, they have grappled with the imperative to infuseEthiopian dance traditions in their work in order to be recognised in the globaldance field. Through dance ethnography, oral histories, and video archives,this paper illuminates both traditionality and contemporariness as historicalconstructs – categories of differential powers used to organise the currentdance field in Ethiopia. Keywords: Ethiopian dance, contemporary dance, traditional dance, multiple modernities, decolonizing dance

Bone in the Throat: Video archiving and identity building within the Montreal hardcore scene

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Montreal hardcore scene was a vibrant, thriving and dynamic subculture with a strong sense of community. The generational and cyclical nature of such scenes has led, over the past two decades, to a significant crowd turnover with older people leaving and newcomers taking over. However, through the emergence of an Instagram account created by a man named Andy Chico Mak, its past memories are resurfacing. The recent dissemination of the Bone in the Throat series on social media, along with other archives including flyers, interviews and never-seen-before footage from the era, sparks a series of questions regarding the role and impact of archiving subcultures. Since the archival turn in social sciences, archives are considered as a reflexive and constitutive process of identity building and collective memory creating. In the case of subcultures, often overlooked by official heritage institutions, the importance of understanding archives as a site of cultural production is paramount. The collection and preservation of self-produced documents is key to scholars in order to understand the social and political dynamics at the heart of those communities. This article analyses the impact of years of video archives, gathered and organized through the work of Andy Chico Mak, in the process allowing the creation of collective memory and the development of ‘scene identity’. By relating to contemporary conversations about archiving subcultures, it also provides insight into the impact of new technologies and the creation of ‘subcultural collective memory’.

Hysteroscopic Intact Removal of Angular and Caesarean Scar Pregnancy: A Novel and Markedly Less Invasive Surgical Treatment

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Ectopic pregnancy is the most common cause of mortality during the first trimester of pregnancy, and intrauterine ectopic pregnancies show significantly higher morbidity and mortality than extrauterine ones. Despite being less invasive, safety and effectiveness of the hysteroscopic treatment are still unclear. Moreover, such approach is not standardized. We aimed to evaluate safety and effectiveness of hysteroscopic intact removal of angular or cesarean section scar pregnancies, defining a novel and markedly less invasive hysteroscopic technique with a 5-mm Bettocchi hysteroscope or a 3.5-mm Versascope hysteroscope. <b><i>Materials and Methods:</i></b> Medical records and video archives were reviewed for all the patients with angular or caesarean scar pregnancies treated with hysteroscopic intact removal technique from January 2000 to December 2018 at our Department. Success and complication rates were assessed. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Four patients with angular (<i>n</i> = 1) or cesarean scar pregnancy (<i>n</i> = 3) met inclusion criteria. Case #1 was treated with bipolar resectoscope, cases #2 and #3 with 5-mm Bettocchi hysteroscope, and case #4 with 3.5-mm Versascope hysteroscope. Cases #2–4 did not require cervical dilatation. Before hysteroscopic treatment, cases #2–4 underwent unsuccessful medical therapy with multiple-dose methotrexate. Hysteroscopic treatment success rate was 100%, while complication rate was 0%. All patients were treated with a novel technique: hysteroscopic intact removal of angular or cesarean scar pregnancies. Such technique was described step-by-step. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> Hysteroscopic treatment of angular and cesarean scar pregnancies may be a safe and effective minimally invasive option. The novel technique of hysteroscopic intact removal technique may allow a markedly less invasive approach.

Conservation and curation

This article identifies and examines the research methods involved in curating a national collection of British music videos for the British Film Institute and British Library in relation to existing scholarship about the role of the curator, the function of canons in the humanities, and the concept of a hierarchy of screen arts. It outlines the process by which a theoretical definition of “landmarks” guided the selection of works alongside a commitment to include a regionally and socially diverse selection of videos to reflect the variations in film style of different music genres. The article also assesses the existing condition of British music video archives: rushes, masters, as well as documents and digital files, and the issues presenting academics and students wishing to study them. It identifies the fact that music video exists in the gaps between two disciplines and industries (popular music studies / the music industry and film and television studies / the screen industries) as an additional challenge to curators of the cultural form, alongside complex matters of licensing and formats.