Inner Voices - They Speak for Themselves
A videoprogramme reflecting war and genocide presented and discussed at the '13th International Congress of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences'. Mexico City 1993.

Project description
Published in the Newsletter of the Commission on Visual Anthropology (CVA), 2/93-1/94. Denmark 1994.

INNER VOICES - THEY SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
Subjective perspective and personal narrative style in Visual Anthropology.
A video programme reflecting war and genocide.


Audiovisual research into war and genocide

Wars and genocides continue to impose their destructive effects on cultures long after the generation having directly experienced a war catastrophe has vanished. In the aftermath of war and destruction the traumatic experiences of the survivors are passed on to the individuals born afterwards. Putting together the videoprogramme "Inner Voices - They Speak For Themselves" (Duration: 93 min.) is an attempt to represent the experiences of individuals born in the second and third generation after the Second World War. Included is also the voice of a contemporary Palestinian woman reflecting her existence in exile as well as the analytic view of a video artist from the United States deconstructing in her work the propaganda output of US-television networks to stir an international conflict (Gulf War 1991). By bringing together five voices of individuals with different cultural backgrounds telling us how they have experienced their own encounter with war and genocide we are able to look more closely on the effects of human catastrophes on the personal and cultural identity of its victims and their descendants.

Because of the omnipresence and conformity of the electronic media, people interested in authentic information about the repercussions of wars on people's lives and cultures must find new or alternative channels for the dissemination of first hand information. Only watching mainstream television is putting audiences to sleep or keeps them worrying about the state of the world without any perspective for change. We get so horrified by the bloody pictures presented in sensational newsshows that we either turn off the telly or switch to more relaxing programmes. Visual Anthropology could fulfill a useful role in researching, collecting, producing and distributing specific film and videoprogrammes on war and genocide that do represent reality from the subjective perspective of the people involved. Visual anthropologists could offer to the academic community as well as to the general public a wealth of audiovisual background information on regional and international conflicts that have resulted in military violence and the suppression of basic human rights. The videoprogramme "Inner Voices - They Speak For Themselves" is a step into this direction. It can be used in different settings - for film, art and college audiences. It can serve as an input for writing workshops as well as for interactive audience participation research in order to collect data on attitudes towards war and racism, as well as for the initiation of new projects for the development of intercultural understanding.

Five individual voices

Rea Tajiri's tape "History and Memory" (32 min.) shows how important it was for her to dig up the history of her Japano-American parents who never were able to speak to their daughter about the deep humiliation they had experienced in US-concentration camps where thousands of Japano-Americans were locked up after the attack on Pearl Harbour. The personal history of Rea Tajiri's family is represented through interviews with family members and old photographs, and is woven into a documentation of that time in newsreels, propaganda material and excerpts from Hollywood movies. Reconstructing the past of her parents and of the society they lived in helped Rea Tajiri to find out who she is and where she has come from. Her mother's motives for forgetting that traumatic experience are seen in another light. The video is dedicated to her.

Shalom Gorewitz, New York, commemorates in "Damaged Visions" (9 min.) the tragic fate of his grandparents who were killed in Auschwitz. He collected images in Sighet, Romania, where Gorewitz's grandparents lived and his mother was born, and in the Auschwitz conzentration camp in Poland. Using special video effects to edit his footage he suceeded in expressing a powerful outcry against the extermination of people which unfortunately has become as valid today as it was when Gorewitz grandparents together with millions of other Jews were "ethnically cleansed" from the map of Europe. By this unconventional approach to the past Gorewitz shows that each generation has to find its own ways and means to keep the memory of the holocaust alive. History is not once and for all written. Each generation interprets the past from its own angle in time and space. Shalom Gorewitz has done it in an audiovisual form of great attraction.

Heinz Nigg's video "Cold Spring. Visiting the Berlin of the 1940s. A video diary" (27 min.) is another travelogue into the past, trying to come to terms with Swiss prejudice and fears of "the Germans". The author shows how these xenophobic feelings of mistrust and anxiety are rooted in the Second World War when the Swiss were threatened with military invasion by the Nazi government in Germany. By visiting the historic sights of the Berlin of the 1940s and by talking to young Germans about how they come to terms with the legacy of the war he tried to open up a dialogue between Swiss and Germans interested in examining stereotype images they have of each other. He also reminded himself of the close and hidden historical links between fascist Germany and so called neutral and humanitarian Switzerland. In actual fact the Swiss government of that time followed a restrictive policy towards fugitives - predominantly of Jewish origin seeking asylum in Switzerland. Refugees were refused entry into the country and instead sent back to Germany where many died in the concentration camps.

With "Measures of Distance" (16 min.) the video artist Mona Hatoum, Beirut/London, brings us back into the present time. The author who lives in exile in the UK and in Canada explores her feelings of seperation from her Palestinian family by presenting a series of letters sent to her by her mother from warstricken Beirut in 1981. How these two women communicate with each other over the long distance between home and exile gives an accurate picture of the mental hardships and feelings of alienation that many fugitives and asylum seekers in the world of today are confronted with. That Mona Hatoum succeded in communicating with her mother also about such intimate issues as sexuality and what it means to be a woman in the arabic and in the western world makes her tape unique and exciting. But war is omnipresent throughout their communication. In the end Mona's mother cannot send her letters anymore by mail because a car bomb had destroyed her nearby postoffice.

"Involuntary Conversion" (9 min.) by Jeanne C. Finley, San Francisco, is the only tape without an autobiographic set up. It has been included in this programme because Finley has managed to give an excellent critique of how the media, especially television, are handled by the welders of political power to camouflage or cover up vested interests. When the US government intervened in the Gulf with military action CNN talked about a "peace keeping operation". War as a clear term was avoided as much as possible. It is this kind of polished media speak that video artist Jeanne C. Finley has analysed so brilliantly in an experimental audiovisual form. The analysis of the role of the media in reporting about war and "ethnic cleansing" is without doubt of greatest importance because it is through the media that most of us are informed and manipulated about what is happening in the world.


Discussion

The following edited transcript is an excerpt of a discussion which took place after the presentation of "Inner Voices" at the 13th International Congress of Anthropological Sciences in Mexico City . It deals with the first two tapes by Rea Tajiri and Shalom Gorewitz. The participants of the discussion were researchers, students, and filmmakers from Mexico (Me), the States (US), Switzerland (CH), Norway (N) and Finland (F). Some are mentioned by name and function, others appear anonymously under (P) participant.

Heinz Nigg (CH): What do the tapes we just have watched communicate about war and racism in comparison to a written text? And what does it mean to view these tapes within the framework of Visual Anthropolgy?

Nold Egenter, cultural anthropologist (CH): 'History and Memory' was interesting because its structure is built upon different elements: images, text, sounds. And there is this reappearing strange image of a desert and a canteen being filled with fresh water. How Rea Tajiri was able to collage this sequence into her stream of consciousness was very impressing and touching.
The second tape, 'Damaged Visions', was a chaotic outcry against the holocaust which I can understand. But the message got lost in it. So I prefered the first tape.

Marie Christine Yue, student (US): To me the second tape was more like a poem. I liked the speed of the passing images because I am more or less familiar with the pictures of that period in history anyway. They were not new to me. So it was more this overall impact of Shalom Gorewitz's fusion of different images, sounds, and texts which was important to me.
Nold Egenter (CH): Maybe it's because I belong to an older generation which is not so familiar with fast moving audiovisual information which made it difficult for me to follow this tape. I was much more open to the quiet and sensitive way of how Rea Tajiri was handling picture language. In the beginning she showed photographs from an album and she moved the pages just a tiny bit which added to these photos an intimate touch inviting me to look at them not so much as objective documents but as coded symbols standing for the tragic fate hidden in these people's lives.

W, student (N): Rea Tajiri's approach is so succesful because of its personal narrative style. Sometimes I thought that also in some parts of her tape there was too much information in too short time for my liking. What both tapes have in common is that the verbal expression in sound and written text is very important. It seems that for both authors verbal language is a necessary prerequisite in dealing with emotionally painful experiences.

Heimo Lappalainen, visual anthropologist (F): As conservative as I am I have problems with watching these tapes within the framework of Visual Anthropology. To me they would fit more easily into visual psychology or visual therapy. This work has not so much to do with translating an experience from one culture to another but with translating personal experiences to other people. I can give you an example. In one of Ingmar Bergman's short films "Letter to a mother" he talks about his mother. No one would call this Visual Anthropology, it's a psychological film.

W, student (N): Maybe these videos are not a translation from one culture to another - although this is debatable because in both tapes different cultures are shown in violent conflict with each other - but they are translations from one period of history into another - into the present time. Surely, they treat the experience of war and racism on a psychological level. But this to me has very much to do with Visual Anthropology.

Heinz Nigg (CH): "History and Memory" represents the experience of a single family as being tightly interwoven with the historical development of a society. In case of Rea Tajiri's tape it is the history of the US during the Second World War and how US society of that time had managed to expatriate its Japano-American citizens by framing them up as potential "ennemies" and deport them into concentration camps. Maybe by watching this video made from an inside perspective we can learn more about Japano-American culture than from so called objective historical and anthropological accounts.

M: I think it is difficult to draw boundaries between the different disciplines in the human sciences. If for example you take the research method of recording life stories you can look at the resulting material from the viewpoint of anthropology, history, as well as of psycholgy. Let's open up the boundaries between the disciplines.

Toni Kuhn, filmmaker (Me): As far as I understand my friend Heimo Lappalainen who has made this ethnographic filmseries about the Evenki of Siberia ('Taiga Nomads') he would never allow himself to get into this kind of analyst filmmaking as this Japano-American woman. She departs from a very specific sequence in her and her mothers life in order to make a film about her family. Because she is the daughter she has a right to expand on a deeper psychological level than Heimo could ever do with his acquaintances of the Evenki in Siberia. So in her case it is completely understandable how and why she brings a very personal involvement into her film. In the case of Heimo it is obvious that he is not an Evenki, he has not lived all his live in Siberia, so he can only approach the Evenki from the outside and cannot go into depth as the Japano-American woman could do.

Francisco Gomez-Mont, lecturer in communication studies (Me): For me as a Mexican both tapes we have seen so far represent individual experiences of persecution in cultures that are foreign to me. I am not a European Jew or a Japano-American and therefore these tapes communicate something to me which I had not seen in this light before. They give me a glance into other cultures and how they go about dealing with traumatic historic experiences. This is a valuable contribution for comparative studies.
But I also think that these tapes are very interesting because of their complex and imaginative audiovisual language. I am a neurobiologist involved in communication studies, and I am particularly interested in how the human brain processes information, how it processes colour-, movement-, and sound information. The brain has different centers - for music, language, visual information, etc. So if you are able to present documents like these videos which integrate a variety of these modalities you are provoking activity in widely different areas of the brain which means that you have to do it with a very powerful stimulus. So I congratulate you of having put this show together. Research into war and genocide has to move people in order to wake them up from indifference. For me it would be very interesting to study the audiovisual language of these tapes from the perspective of brain research. This could be a contribution to understand more precisely how and why these tapes are so effective on the different levels of perception.