European Souvenirs artists Karol Rakowski, Barış Gürsel, Farah Rahman, Malaventura and Noriko Okaku © Ricardo Barquín Molero

During the next few months, the artists will be taking up residencies in Seville, Istanbul, Warsaw and Amsterdam, where they will work with audiovisual materials from different European archives, looking into a more inclusive and complete idea of Europe. By re-mixing this media, they will review, re-investigate and re-consider prevailing imagery of (im)migrants in European societies and re-map Europe visually, geographically and mentally.

The artists work with audiovisual material from leading European institutions who have opened up their archives for this project: Eye Film Institute (Amsterdam), OVNI Archives and Filmoteca de Andalucía (Seville), Digital National Archive (Warsaw), SALT (Istanbul) and the British Film Institute (London).

The first residency took place from 17 to 22 April in Seville, with Spanish artist Fernando Malaventura coordinating the process. European Souvenirs will come together in a unique live cinema performance, premiering at ECF’s Imagining Europe event in Amsterdam in October 2012.

To check out what the five artists are doing, go to europeansouvenirs.eu to see their progress and results!

Trailer European Souvenirs - click to view

This work programme has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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More info http://planetedocff.pl/index.php?page=page&i=98

Commissioned by the European Cultural Foundation in its quest for new European inspiring narratives, ZEMOS98 (Spain) has designed with its partners in the Doc Next Network an independant, process-oriented, investigative, collaborative, innovative and high quality multi-media project that will shake up our minds and our prevailing imagery of the places we live in.

For more information: http://www.europeansouvenirs.eu/

“COPYLOVE: commons, love and remix” is intended to be an open and collective journey in which to propose reflections on the role of taking affects and management of common resources within communities.

All the programme is available in Spanish here.

Some activities will be available online via streaming.

The key of our thinking about modern media education is parallel activity for the professionalisation of cultural workers and investing in young artists who can combine their artistic potential with social mission, who can share their skills with younger generations. Film and photography are currently two of the most popular media used by young people to learn and describe the world. Cell phones are used as photographic cameras, and cameras provide video and voice recording functions. The recorded images can be published right away on Vimeo, YouTube or on social networking platforms and thus shared with millions of viewers.

Every year organisations, community centres and common rooms invite us to conduct workshops. Each of our film and photography projects has several hundred applications a year. The application and evaluation forms show us that young people need and look for modern media education. In the 9 years of our work we have observed that this kind of education is created and realised by community centres, common rooms, libraries or independent artists and animators. At the same time our experience shows that Poland still lacks animators and educators who consciously work with film and photography.

That is why we have created the Polska.doc programme in which young DIY artists get the opportunity to develop their skills trained by professionals. They go through the project process (form the idea to the finished project) and realise their own (often their first) documentary projects (film, photocasts, photographic series) with the support of experienced tutors. The first year of the programme gave us 13 finished productions. All are accessible on our website (www.polska.doc.e.org.pl). They can also be seen during shows and events initiated by the international Doc Next Network in which we partner.

Within Polska.doc we have also conducted a very important educational path called „Animate on your own!”. Our participants could not only master their talent and make their imagination roam freely but also try to work as a cultural animator. With theoretical and practical knowledge they went to places all around Poland to voluntarily assist experienced tutors and co-conduct multimedia workshops for less experienced friends. Good practices gathered throughout the project are presented on our website in the Inspiration section.

We believe that visual media prove useful in unravelling history and the local identity, in engaging young people in actions for the local community or in integrating neighbours. We want the world to be described by grassroots initiatives, by the members of local communities and with the assumption that the artists want to dig into reality, not slide on its surface.

Association “ę”

www.polska.doc.e.org.pl

 “Glued” by Benoit Detalle (Belgium) – 5’42″
 “Rock the Caucuses” by Smearballs (Canada) – 3’22″
 “Now, Listen!” by Dominik Dušek (Czech Republic) – 3’
 “Subasta II” by Smalouli (Marrocco) – 2’51″
 “The Manufacture Of Consent” by Enrico Argento (Portugal) – 2’22″
 “WakeUpArtists! (Dedicated to Malish)” by SpriteHat (Italy) – 4’
 “Mutantes” by Duplex Corporeition (Spain) – 4’24″
 “A mi tío” by Lacasinegra (Spain) – 1’33″
 “Our Dangerous Demands” by Malaventura (Spain) – 2’
 “Live Free or Die Hard (Project 12, 8/12)” by Diran Lyons (USA) – 1’12″
 “Abra la boca (Open Your Mouth)” by Montserrat Santalla Gasco (Spain) – 3’31″
 “Rap News X: #Occupy2012 (feat. Noam Chomsky & Anonymous)” by Hugo Farrant and Giordano Nanni (Australia) – 7’48″

Apart from this programme, two works produced by ZEMOS98 in the framework of Doc Next Network remix workshops will be premiered the same day:

 “Cuentos ilustrados” by Pablo Domínguez (Spain) – 12’07″

 “Esperanza Umbridge y la Marea Verde” by El Ejército de Dumbledore (Spain)- 2’48″

This Political Remix Video international call has received 124 audiovisual works in a month time. The selection committee has been formed by Felipe G. Gil and Pedro Jiménez de ZEMOS98, Joan Carles Martorell (Yerblues.net) y Alberto Tognazzi (Movil Film Fest).

This committee highlights the fact that all these works go beyond the simple technique of «remixing the contraries». They (together with Jonathan McIntosh at PoliticalRemixVideo.com) understand political remix videos as an audiovisual genre which puts into practice the «situationist detournement», using the media to criticize power structures, to deconstruct social myths and defy the mass-media via «re-cutting» and «re-framing». This remix is done from media fragments mixed with pop culture. Could this way of understanding audiovisual remix be a new kind of documentary? How are we going to access the collective memory if it’s already remixed? Aren’t the media using remix techniques as a sort of aesthetic of social reality? Let’s carry on researching into this path and learn from our community.