Papers by John Vallier
ARSC Journal, 2021
John Vallier, Ethnomusicology Curator for University of Washington Libraries in Seattle, addresse... more John Vallier, Ethnomusicology Curator for University of Washington Libraries in Seattle, addresses community-based strategies for ethical management of ethnomusicology collections at his institution. Challenging traditional models of collection management, he argues for a collaborative approach to collection ownership and access that balances the needs of creators and users and emphasizes ongoing communications with an expanded community of cultural stakeholders. To elaborate his points, Vallier discusses two different collections that illustrate the range of materials maintained by modern ethnomusicology archives. For the first, a collection of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century Pacific Northwestern tribal recordings on wax cylinders and discs from anthropologist Melville Jacobs, Vallier shows how consultation with tribal members has impacted his archives’ strategies for digital access to collection materials. For the second, a collection of twenty-first century digital recordings of local music performances at Seattle’s Crocodile Café made by the club’s audio engineer, Vallier shows how outreach to represented performers similarly impacted his archives’ strategies for managing collection access. In both cases, he argues, ceding authority and control over collection materials, pursuing active dialog with groups represented in the recordings, and listening to the needs of both collection-creators and collection-users formed the foundations for an effective community-oriented audio archival practice.
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Ethnomusicology : A contemporary reader. Volume II (Routledge), 2018
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Like oil and water, rock music and archives appear insoluble. Archives are quiet. Rock is not. Ro... more Like oil and water, rock music and archives appear insoluble. Archives are quiet. Rock is not. Rock often stands in opposition to hierarchy and order. Archives and libraries embrace both. In what follows I describe an attempt to bridge this divide by making an archival rock music audio collection accessible in an academic archival setting. It’s a story of born digital collections, born digital fans, rights-related entanglements, conflicting expectations, and how sublimating discourses regarding libraries and music consumption collide with the reality of making such an archival collection available in an ivory tower setting. A fundamental question pervades my exploration: do the born digital nature of today’s music fans (and researchers) and their resulting expectations for free and online audio collections, collide with a deep rooted and culturally embedded fear of libraries and librarians, archives and archivists? In posing this question I also unearth tension between the ownership oriented, individual consumer minded listening landscape of today’s music fans with the outward, public, and commons-oriented setting of an in-archive listening experience.
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Notes, Jan 1, 2010
Music and sound-recording archives face a host of operational, preservation, and funding-related ... more Music and sound-recording archives face a host of operational, preservation, and funding-related challenges. While subject to these practical issues, ethnomusicology archives and collections also confront a threat that fundamentally undermines their very existence: their colonial legacy. In light of this history, the author critiques the role of archives (ethnomusicology archives in particular) by drawing on archival and ethnomusicological literature, and by describing his own experiences as an archivist. The author goes on to describe how he has attempted to ameliorate these challenges and threats by way of partnering with local communities in the development of regionally based music collections at UCLA and the University of Washington. Through "communal archiving" he argues that archivists and community members work together to diminish the impact of archives' colonial roots while building collections that are more relevant to both its traditional and emerging base of users.
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Library trends, Jan 1, 2010
What is the role of the academic media center in the twenty-first-century research library? Will ... more What is the role of the academic media center in the twenty-first-century research library? Will it be relevant or irrelevant? In this article the author attempts to answer these questions by first abstracting and summarizing recent reports from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Both reports offer guidance on how tomorrow's research library can be best prepared to meet future challenges and opportunities. The author then uses themes generated from this review, along with his own experiences as a media librarian and archivist, to frame a discussion of how academic media centers around the nation are already actively engaged in imagining and transforming their institutions into the research library's twenty-first century killer app. He ends by suggesting that research libraries look to media centers as models of how to be adaptive and innovative for twenty-first century academic environment.
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European Meetings in Ethnomusicology, Jan 1, 2003
Christian missionaries are refiguring music found within non-Christian communities—or "target cul... more Christian missionaries are refiguring music found within non-Christian communities—or "target cultures"—so they deliver salvation-oriented messages and, eventually, spiritual conversion. To accomplish their goals, this growing contingent of missionaries is drawing upon the discipline of ethnomusicology. By studying ethnomusicology's methods and techniques, they are better able to analyze a community's music. This then allows missionaries to compose new songs— with missionary-approved sentiments—in the style of the indigenous target culture, or subtly refashion already existing songs so they promote missionary values. For these missionaries the discipline of ethnomusicology is a tool that enables them to realize their agenda. As missionary Rick Wood notes, ethnomusicology is, for his purposes, "the science of helping every people worship Jesus through their indigenous music."[1] With this paper I will provide specific examples of how missionaries use ethnomusicology to refigure music so that it instills religious homogeneity while in a sense maintaining a facade of musical heterogeneity. I will also look at the long relationship secular ethnomusicologists and missionaries have had, focusing specifically on the ethical implications these issues raise for both groups.
Footnote [1]
http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/mf-behind-the-scenes19 (accessed June 9, 2011)"
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Conference Presentations by John Vallier
What I’m going to do in the next 15 minutes is, lucky for you, talk very little. I want to spend ... more What I’m going to do in the next 15 minutes is, lucky for you, talk very little. I want to spend the bulk of my time playing selections from films that were produced at or published by the University of Washington (UW).
For those of you who don’t know the UW, here’s a quick overview:
it was founded in 1861, which makes it’s the 2nd oldest public university in the West (after San Jose State);
it receives more federal research funding than any other American public university.
It currently has over 42,000 students;
And, as you will see, if has an esteemed tradition of research in anthropology, biology, medicine, ethnomusicology, engineering, and so on….
As the title of my presentation suggests, the range of topics covered by UW films is as broad: Bikinkis (as in Bikini Atoll), Marmots (it’s an animal, so I've learned), and Mexican marimbas. The snippets I’ll be showing will also feature Galloping Gurdies, hair pulling, Naxi dance, congenital heart malformations, sperm maturation, testicular dissection, Japanese potters, breast feeding management (where the managers are of course male), and so on.
I’ve arranged the clips in chronological order, and they are a bit rough: for example the audio is still only in one channel for some clips. As you will see, some of these films verge in the into the realm of academic kitsch, a world where authoritative privilege—what is almost always white male privilege—mixes with vulgar bad taste and righteous sense of progress being the one true good. On the other hand, other films—especially the early ethnographic and then ethnomusicological films of the 60s—attempt to document culture, be it a bit staged, as it was happening.
So, without further drivel, let’s roll it…
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The Educational Media Collection (EMC) holds 3,600 16mm films that cover a broad array of documen... more The Educational Media Collection (EMC) holds 3,600 16mm films that cover a broad array of documentary topics: from adolescence to zoology. Its earliest films date back to the 1920s. Many titles were produced by UW Press or in association with a UW program (e.g., fisheries, ethnomusicology, art, radio-biology). Many document regionally significant events (Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster), and local cultures (Quileute People), but most films have no regional connection. A significant slice of EMC tiles (about 10%) appear to be rare, orphaned, or—even if they were at one time distributed commercially—unique.
So what is Films From The Vaults? What is films from the vaults? Part part archival PR stunt and part serious effort to both digitize and create greater accessibility to films in the EMC. This is how it works...
Selecting: films are selected from the EMC based on a title’s rarity, orphaned status, and potential research value. Rarity is determined via WorldCat with priority given to films with fewer than 3 holdings. Orphaned status is determined by making an unsuccessful search for distributors and extant copyright registration. Research value is subjectively determined by archivist. Films are inspected to determine if they can withstand telecine.
Screening: selected films are loaded onto an Elmo telecine. AV signals are routed through external a/d converter and into iMovie. Composite output from converter are fed into venue’s digital projector & sound system. iMovie monitor screen and audio from the computer is live streamed to the Libraries’ ustream channel.
Post-Screening: iMovie .dv files are imported into FinalCut for editing. Edited files are back-up as high resolution .mov files. Edited and modestly restored files are burned to DVD and, at times, uploaded to www.youtube.com/uwmediacenter
Cataloging: DVDs are cataloged and added to Media Center’s circulating collection.
About 100 films have been digitized as a part of this project.
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Teaching Documents by John Vallier
What is the Seattle Sound? Most think grunge, that punk/metal infused and plaid donned alt rock g... more What is the Seattle Sound? Most think grunge, that punk/metal infused and plaid donned alt rock genre which bloomed here in late 1980s and early 1990s. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam come to mind. And while true--grunge and the Seattle Sound are used synonymously--Seattle and Puget Sound's music history is far more diverse and expansive.
With Seattle Sounds (UW Honors 242B), students and I investigate grunge but do so alongside the kaleidoscopic array of Seattle's many other musics, artists, and scenes. Each week we take a deep sonic dive into a different era, including Indigenous songs past and present; Settler colonial brass and string bands; Seattle Symphony, from founding to today; Music and misrepresentation at the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition; Impact of longstanding segregation of musician unions; Songs of labor activism and the avant-garde constructions of John Cage; Cantonese Opera, Chinese exclusion, and the Luck Ngi Musical Club; Music of Japanese Americans before, during, and after incarceration; Redlining, Jackson Street jazz, and the far reaching legacies of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones and Ernestine Anderson; Dave Lewis and his Trios's pioneering and segregation defying R&B stylings; Recording engineers, such as Joe Boles, Kearney Barton, and Jack Endino; PNW Rock, including proto-punks The Sonics, the growling Frantics, Tacoma's surf rock pioneers The Ventures; Jimi Hendrix, period; Ann Wilson and the Daybrakes, Heart, and East Side hair metal; Jazz visionary and educator, Joe Brazil; Funk and soul from Black on White Affair, Occupation Soul, Overton Berry, Pastor Pat Wright (aka Patrinell Staten); UW Ethnomusicology's visiting artist program; Queer performance art roots of Seattle's first punk band, The Tupperwares; Seattle's first rap groups, Emerald Street Boys and Emerald Street Girls; Tina "Godmother of Grunge" Bell and her band Bam Bam; Olympia's Riot Grrrl movement with Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Sleater Kinney; KFOX, KYYX, KAOS, KCMU, KEXP; Teen Dance Ordinance, passage and repeal; Ragamala and South Asian classical music stars; Rise and fall of grunge, from authenticity to Hype; SubPop, New York Times spoofing, and "world domination"; Sir Mix-a-lot, Blue Scholars, Thee Satisfaction, Shabazz Palaces and accession of progressive hip hop; Muzak, Zune, Amazon Music and the commodification of musicking; Black Cat Orchestra, Sun City Girls, Walkabouts, Reggie Watts, Death Cab for Cutie, Tacocat, Earth, Brandi Carlile, The Black Tones, Jimmi James, Black Belt Eagle Scout... You get the idea.
The class itself is an interdisciplinary mix, blending elements of local-musicology, music criticism, and history. We are also lucky to have local music experts, DJ's, recording engineers, and musicians guest lecture. Past visitors have included Laurel Sercombe, Paul de Barros, Paul Chihara, Daudi Abe, Charles Cross, Robert Garfias, Eva Walker, Jimmi James, Kelsey Smith, Overton Berry (RIP), Andy Kessler, Freddie Dennis, Alan Bishop, Scott Colburn, Hannah Levin, Mike Kohfeld, and Steve Fisk.
Connected to the class is the Seattle Sounds Archiving Project (SSAP), which includes a collection of local music recordings and other materials held by the UW Ethnomusicology Archives and other UW Libraries units. Founded as Puget Sounds over a decade ago, SSAP is home music and sounds across genres and styles, from folk to rock, jazz to classical, hip-hop to emo, Hindustani to nerd-core metal.
Since I first offered it in 2008, this UW course has been a work in progress that is subject to change. I strive to be inclusive and representative of students' interests. Questions? See my contact info to the right, and thanks for visiting!
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Syllabus/Schedule and Flyer, 2021
In this seminar students examine the field of ethnomusicology through the lens of its archives, t... more In this seminar students examine the field of ethnomusicology through the lens of its archives, those storehouses of field recordings that helped establish the field. Discussions and assignments will focus on:
- Extraction and "salvage" practices in ethnomusicology and its archives;
-Decolonizing archives through repatriation and collaborative practices;
-Traditional and evolving functions of archives, from collection and preservation, to access and community partnerships.
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Audio and video remixes have emerged as one of today’s most popular modes of expression. From DJ ... more Audio and video remixes have emerged as one of today’s most popular modes of expression. From DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a Nation” to DJ Earworm’s mash-up of the year’s top pop music videos, remixes have the power to convey a multiplicity of meanings. In this class we will explore the discourse and practice of remix culture while tracing its roots back to film collage, plunderphonics, video art, and Jamaican dub. We will ask what messages remixes convey and what cultural critiques they can deliver. This work will be grounded in a parallel exploration of audio, video, and film archives as sources for our own remixes. In this vein we will critique media archives as sites of privilege and control, while at the same time developing our audio/video/film editing skills and grasp of copyright law. Ultimately we aim to create archival remixes that can be engaging on both visceral and scholarly levels. Student remix projects will be archived in the UW Libraries’ permanent collections.
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Books by John Vallier
Remix has called our prosaic understanding of authorship into question. Through such practices as... more Remix has called our prosaic understanding of authorship into question. Through such practices as dub, deejaying, plunderphonics, fan vidding, music video mashups, and host of other remix infused activities, traditional notions of individual creation, originality, and ownership have been disrupted. This keyword entry moves to daylight key historical and theoretical underpinnings of authorship, showing how it has evolved through key eras and movements. With this the author aims to give a nuanced insight into what we mean by the keyword and how an unexamined understanding of the term may have a chilling effect on our efforts to create new, productive works.
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Drafts by John Vallier
and Goals Audio and video remixes have emerged as one of today's most popular modes of expression... more and Goals Audio and video remixes have emerged as one of today's most popular modes of expression. From DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a Nation" to DJ Earworm's mashup of the year's top pop music videos, remixes have the power to convey a multiplicity of meanings. In this class we will explore the discourse and practice of remix, paying close attention to those that successfully convey cultural critiques. We will trace the roots of remix to core concepts (e.g., imitatio and mimesis) and practices (e.g., film collage, plunderphonics, fanvidding, dub, and hip hop). In parallel, students will examine and create remixes that critique normative notions of politics, race, gender, consumerism, and more. This work will be grounded in an exploration of audio/video portals and archives as sources for these remixes. Student remix projects will be screened at an open, endofthequarter event, as well as archived in the UW Libraries' permanent collections. Goals and Learning Outcomes Develop an understanding of remix culture and a familiarity with the field of remix studies. Make remixes that employ radical juxtaposition and scholarly practices such as rhetoric, persuasion, and critique. Create remixes that question and/or resist dominant paradigms and privileged narratives. Analyze remixes, asking what they convey and what cultural critiques they deliver. Critique media sources and archives as sites of privilege and control. Develop audio/video/film editing skills and grasp of copyright law, especially fair use. Present and archive student remixes in the UW Libraries. What to Expect Content and Flow: In keeping with the theme of the course, class time will be a mix of presentations, screenings, guest
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Talks by John Vallier
N/A, 2019
Remix—the activity of sampling and appropriating content in support of making something altogethe... more Remix—the activity of sampling and appropriating content in support of making something altogether different—has an established history among musicians. However, as much as we may associate remix with music—from the analog dubs of Lee “Scratch” Perry to the digital mashups of Girl Talk—its application can also be found in videography, visual arts, rhetoric, and even in the classroom.
With this poster I share two variations of an audio/video remix assignment. One comes from my course “Remix as Resistance and Discourse” (Honors), in which I asked students to remix media in order to subvert or “culture jam” hegemonic narratives. The other comes from my course “Archival Mashup: Remixing Media Archives” (Cinema & Media Studies). In this context I asked students to research various archives for source material and then reutilize this content for new works. Selected student remixes from both classes will be featured alongside the poster.
A number of scholarly works have influenced my design of both the assignments and the classes. These include include Eduardo Navas’ Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling (Routledge 2012) and Keywords in Remix Studies (Routledge 2017), which includes my own chapter on Authorship. I plan to pull insights from these and other works, touching on issues of ownership, copyright, and ethics. I will also draw my own reflections: what worked, what didn’t, what I would change for next time? Ultimately it is my goal to show that remix assignments can be effectively adapted and applied across swath of transdisciplinary loci.
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Uploads
Papers by John Vallier
Footnote [1]
http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/mf-behind-the-scenes19 (accessed June 9, 2011)"
Conference Presentations by John Vallier
For those of you who don’t know the UW, here’s a quick overview:
it was founded in 1861, which makes it’s the 2nd oldest public university in the West (after San Jose State);
it receives more federal research funding than any other American public university.
It currently has over 42,000 students;
And, as you will see, if has an esteemed tradition of research in anthropology, biology, medicine, ethnomusicology, engineering, and so on….
As the title of my presentation suggests, the range of topics covered by UW films is as broad: Bikinkis (as in Bikini Atoll), Marmots (it’s an animal, so I've learned), and Mexican marimbas. The snippets I’ll be showing will also feature Galloping Gurdies, hair pulling, Naxi dance, congenital heart malformations, sperm maturation, testicular dissection, Japanese potters, breast feeding management (where the managers are of course male), and so on.
I’ve arranged the clips in chronological order, and they are a bit rough: for example the audio is still only in one channel for some clips. As you will see, some of these films verge in the into the realm of academic kitsch, a world where authoritative privilege—what is almost always white male privilege—mixes with vulgar bad taste and righteous sense of progress being the one true good. On the other hand, other films—especially the early ethnographic and then ethnomusicological films of the 60s—attempt to document culture, be it a bit staged, as it was happening.
So, without further drivel, let’s roll it…
So what is Films From The Vaults? What is films from the vaults? Part part archival PR stunt and part serious effort to both digitize and create greater accessibility to films in the EMC. This is how it works...
Selecting: films are selected from the EMC based on a title’s rarity, orphaned status, and potential research value. Rarity is determined via WorldCat with priority given to films with fewer than 3 holdings. Orphaned status is determined by making an unsuccessful search for distributors and extant copyright registration. Research value is subjectively determined by archivist. Films are inspected to determine if they can withstand telecine.
Screening: selected films are loaded onto an Elmo telecine. AV signals are routed through external a/d converter and into iMovie. Composite output from converter are fed into venue’s digital projector & sound system. iMovie monitor screen and audio from the computer is live streamed to the Libraries’ ustream channel.
Post-Screening: iMovie .dv files are imported into FinalCut for editing. Edited files are back-up as high resolution .mov files. Edited and modestly restored files are burned to DVD and, at times, uploaded to www.youtube.com/uwmediacenter
Cataloging: DVDs are cataloged and added to Media Center’s circulating collection.
About 100 films have been digitized as a part of this project.
Teaching Documents by John Vallier
With Seattle Sounds (UW Honors 242B), students and I investigate grunge but do so alongside the kaleidoscopic array of Seattle's many other musics, artists, and scenes. Each week we take a deep sonic dive into a different era, including Indigenous songs past and present; Settler colonial brass and string bands; Seattle Symphony, from founding to today; Music and misrepresentation at the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition; Impact of longstanding segregation of musician unions; Songs of labor activism and the avant-garde constructions of John Cage; Cantonese Opera, Chinese exclusion, and the Luck Ngi Musical Club; Music of Japanese Americans before, during, and after incarceration; Redlining, Jackson Street jazz, and the far reaching legacies of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones and Ernestine Anderson; Dave Lewis and his Trios's pioneering and segregation defying R&B stylings; Recording engineers, such as Joe Boles, Kearney Barton, and Jack Endino; PNW Rock, including proto-punks The Sonics, the growling Frantics, Tacoma's surf rock pioneers The Ventures; Jimi Hendrix, period; Ann Wilson and the Daybrakes, Heart, and East Side hair metal; Jazz visionary and educator, Joe Brazil; Funk and soul from Black on White Affair, Occupation Soul, Overton Berry, Pastor Pat Wright (aka Patrinell Staten); UW Ethnomusicology's visiting artist program; Queer performance art roots of Seattle's first punk band, The Tupperwares; Seattle's first rap groups, Emerald Street Boys and Emerald Street Girls; Tina "Godmother of Grunge" Bell and her band Bam Bam; Olympia's Riot Grrrl movement with Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Sleater Kinney; KFOX, KYYX, KAOS, KCMU, KEXP; Teen Dance Ordinance, passage and repeal; Ragamala and South Asian classical music stars; Rise and fall of grunge, from authenticity to Hype; SubPop, New York Times spoofing, and "world domination"; Sir Mix-a-lot, Blue Scholars, Thee Satisfaction, Shabazz Palaces and accession of progressive hip hop; Muzak, Zune, Amazon Music and the commodification of musicking; Black Cat Orchestra, Sun City Girls, Walkabouts, Reggie Watts, Death Cab for Cutie, Tacocat, Earth, Brandi Carlile, The Black Tones, Jimmi James, Black Belt Eagle Scout... You get the idea.
The class itself is an interdisciplinary mix, blending elements of local-musicology, music criticism, and history. We are also lucky to have local music experts, DJ's, recording engineers, and musicians guest lecture. Past visitors have included Laurel Sercombe, Paul de Barros, Paul Chihara, Daudi Abe, Charles Cross, Robert Garfias, Eva Walker, Jimmi James, Kelsey Smith, Overton Berry (RIP), Andy Kessler, Freddie Dennis, Alan Bishop, Scott Colburn, Hannah Levin, Mike Kohfeld, and Steve Fisk.
Connected to the class is the Seattle Sounds Archiving Project (SSAP), which includes a collection of local music recordings and other materials held by the UW Ethnomusicology Archives and other UW Libraries units. Founded as Puget Sounds over a decade ago, SSAP is home music and sounds across genres and styles, from folk to rock, jazz to classical, hip-hop to emo, Hindustani to nerd-core metal.
Since I first offered it in 2008, this UW course has been a work in progress that is subject to change. I strive to be inclusive and representative of students' interests. Questions? See my contact info to the right, and thanks for visiting!
- Extraction and "salvage" practices in ethnomusicology and its archives;
-Decolonizing archives through repatriation and collaborative practices;
-Traditional and evolving functions of archives, from collection and preservation, to access and community partnerships.
Books by John Vallier
Drafts by John Vallier
Talks by John Vallier
With this poster I share two variations of an audio/video remix assignment. One comes from my course “Remix as Resistance and Discourse” (Honors), in which I asked students to remix media in order to subvert or “culture jam” hegemonic narratives. The other comes from my course “Archival Mashup: Remixing Media Archives” (Cinema & Media Studies). In this context I asked students to research various archives for source material and then reutilize this content for new works. Selected student remixes from both classes will be featured alongside the poster.
A number of scholarly works have influenced my design of both the assignments and the classes. These include include Eduardo Navas’ Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling (Routledge 2012) and Keywords in Remix Studies (Routledge 2017), which includes my own chapter on Authorship. I plan to pull insights from these and other works, touching on issues of ownership, copyright, and ethics. I will also draw my own reflections: what worked, what didn’t, what I would change for next time? Ultimately it is my goal to show that remix assignments can be effectively adapted and applied across swath of transdisciplinary loci.
Footnote [1]
http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/mf-behind-the-scenes19 (accessed June 9, 2011)"
For those of you who don’t know the UW, here’s a quick overview:
it was founded in 1861, which makes it’s the 2nd oldest public university in the West (after San Jose State);
it receives more federal research funding than any other American public university.
It currently has over 42,000 students;
And, as you will see, if has an esteemed tradition of research in anthropology, biology, medicine, ethnomusicology, engineering, and so on….
As the title of my presentation suggests, the range of topics covered by UW films is as broad: Bikinkis (as in Bikini Atoll), Marmots (it’s an animal, so I've learned), and Mexican marimbas. The snippets I’ll be showing will also feature Galloping Gurdies, hair pulling, Naxi dance, congenital heart malformations, sperm maturation, testicular dissection, Japanese potters, breast feeding management (where the managers are of course male), and so on.
I’ve arranged the clips in chronological order, and they are a bit rough: for example the audio is still only in one channel for some clips. As you will see, some of these films verge in the into the realm of academic kitsch, a world where authoritative privilege—what is almost always white male privilege—mixes with vulgar bad taste and righteous sense of progress being the one true good. On the other hand, other films—especially the early ethnographic and then ethnomusicological films of the 60s—attempt to document culture, be it a bit staged, as it was happening.
So, without further drivel, let’s roll it…
So what is Films From The Vaults? What is films from the vaults? Part part archival PR stunt and part serious effort to both digitize and create greater accessibility to films in the EMC. This is how it works...
Selecting: films are selected from the EMC based on a title’s rarity, orphaned status, and potential research value. Rarity is determined via WorldCat with priority given to films with fewer than 3 holdings. Orphaned status is determined by making an unsuccessful search for distributors and extant copyright registration. Research value is subjectively determined by archivist. Films are inspected to determine if they can withstand telecine.
Screening: selected films are loaded onto an Elmo telecine. AV signals are routed through external a/d converter and into iMovie. Composite output from converter are fed into venue’s digital projector & sound system. iMovie monitor screen and audio from the computer is live streamed to the Libraries’ ustream channel.
Post-Screening: iMovie .dv files are imported into FinalCut for editing. Edited files are back-up as high resolution .mov files. Edited and modestly restored files are burned to DVD and, at times, uploaded to www.youtube.com/uwmediacenter
Cataloging: DVDs are cataloged and added to Media Center’s circulating collection.
About 100 films have been digitized as a part of this project.
With Seattle Sounds (UW Honors 242B), students and I investigate grunge but do so alongside the kaleidoscopic array of Seattle's many other musics, artists, and scenes. Each week we take a deep sonic dive into a different era, including Indigenous songs past and present; Settler colonial brass and string bands; Seattle Symphony, from founding to today; Music and misrepresentation at the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition; Impact of longstanding segregation of musician unions; Songs of labor activism and the avant-garde constructions of John Cage; Cantonese Opera, Chinese exclusion, and the Luck Ngi Musical Club; Music of Japanese Americans before, during, and after incarceration; Redlining, Jackson Street jazz, and the far reaching legacies of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones and Ernestine Anderson; Dave Lewis and his Trios's pioneering and segregation defying R&B stylings; Recording engineers, such as Joe Boles, Kearney Barton, and Jack Endino; PNW Rock, including proto-punks The Sonics, the growling Frantics, Tacoma's surf rock pioneers The Ventures; Jimi Hendrix, period; Ann Wilson and the Daybrakes, Heart, and East Side hair metal; Jazz visionary and educator, Joe Brazil; Funk and soul from Black on White Affair, Occupation Soul, Overton Berry, Pastor Pat Wright (aka Patrinell Staten); UW Ethnomusicology's visiting artist program; Queer performance art roots of Seattle's first punk band, The Tupperwares; Seattle's first rap groups, Emerald Street Boys and Emerald Street Girls; Tina "Godmother of Grunge" Bell and her band Bam Bam; Olympia's Riot Grrrl movement with Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Sleater Kinney; KFOX, KYYX, KAOS, KCMU, KEXP; Teen Dance Ordinance, passage and repeal; Ragamala and South Asian classical music stars; Rise and fall of grunge, from authenticity to Hype; SubPop, New York Times spoofing, and "world domination"; Sir Mix-a-lot, Blue Scholars, Thee Satisfaction, Shabazz Palaces and accession of progressive hip hop; Muzak, Zune, Amazon Music and the commodification of musicking; Black Cat Orchestra, Sun City Girls, Walkabouts, Reggie Watts, Death Cab for Cutie, Tacocat, Earth, Brandi Carlile, The Black Tones, Jimmi James, Black Belt Eagle Scout... You get the idea.
The class itself is an interdisciplinary mix, blending elements of local-musicology, music criticism, and history. We are also lucky to have local music experts, DJ's, recording engineers, and musicians guest lecture. Past visitors have included Laurel Sercombe, Paul de Barros, Paul Chihara, Daudi Abe, Charles Cross, Robert Garfias, Eva Walker, Jimmi James, Kelsey Smith, Overton Berry (RIP), Andy Kessler, Freddie Dennis, Alan Bishop, Scott Colburn, Hannah Levin, Mike Kohfeld, and Steve Fisk.
Connected to the class is the Seattle Sounds Archiving Project (SSAP), which includes a collection of local music recordings and other materials held by the UW Ethnomusicology Archives and other UW Libraries units. Founded as Puget Sounds over a decade ago, SSAP is home music and sounds across genres and styles, from folk to rock, jazz to classical, hip-hop to emo, Hindustani to nerd-core metal.
Since I first offered it in 2008, this UW course has been a work in progress that is subject to change. I strive to be inclusive and representative of students' interests. Questions? See my contact info to the right, and thanks for visiting!
- Extraction and "salvage" practices in ethnomusicology and its archives;
-Decolonizing archives through repatriation and collaborative practices;
-Traditional and evolving functions of archives, from collection and preservation, to access and community partnerships.
With this poster I share two variations of an audio/video remix assignment. One comes from my course “Remix as Resistance and Discourse” (Honors), in which I asked students to remix media in order to subvert or “culture jam” hegemonic narratives. The other comes from my course “Archival Mashup: Remixing Media Archives” (Cinema & Media Studies). In this context I asked students to research various archives for source material and then reutilize this content for new works. Selected student remixes from both classes will be featured alongside the poster.
A number of scholarly works have influenced my design of both the assignments and the classes. These include include Eduardo Navas’ Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling (Routledge 2012) and Keywords in Remix Studies (Routledge 2017), which includes my own chapter on Authorship. I plan to pull insights from these and other works, touching on issues of ownership, copyright, and ethics. I will also draw my own reflections: what worked, what didn’t, what I would change for next time? Ultimately it is my goal to show that remix assignments can be effectively adapted and applied across swath of transdisciplinary loci.