Recording traces of reality -...

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71 PART A: Videomuseums: the project & the partnership Recording traces of reality Mary Kaldi The Videomuseums project aimed to explore and record the culture of adolescents in our times. This aim coincided with their need to express their special identity and to project it by a modern means, like video, worthy of them. When this explorative journey began, the results were spectacular. We notice that as the children seek and photograph traces of their culture, at the same time they strengthen their identity and are emancipated in an extraordinary way.

Transcript of Recording traces of reality -...

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PART A: Videomuseums: the project & the partnership

Recording traces

of reality

Mary Kaldi

The Videomuseums project aimed to explore and record the culture of adolescents in our times. This aim coincided with their need to express their special identity and to project it by a modern means, like video, worthy of them. When this explorative journey began, the results were spectacular. We notice that as the children seek and photograph traces of their culture, at the same time they strengthen their identity and are emancipated in an extraordinary way.

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72 Videomuseums – recording traces of our subjective cultureAudiovisual Education for young people

Traces

We could summarise the dual essential characteristic of the art of cinema saying that it transforms reality into some-thing unreal, but at the same time gives essence and reality to this unreal.

Panagiotis Kondylis 1

During each day we see that the adolescents have the need to leave their traces on the world. On the wall or the desk with graffiti, on the tree with their sentimental slogans, even on their own face with the intense emo make-up, but also on their body with their peculiar clothing, in order to show who they really are and strengthen their identity.

Young people leave their traces on the environment at the exact moment that the film is shot. In this sense, the recording of reality through video simultaneously creates a reality in front of our eyes that is changing the environment.

In the film by the 3rd Gymnasium of Acharnes Rendez-vous at the Wall2 (2010) whatever the script wrote happened in reality. The protagonist learnt how to make graffiti in the shootings. Two graffitis remained on the walls for one year as

intensely by a German school that participated in the same project and made their film as an answer to this film to ex-press their disagreement with the basic idea. It is sure, of course, that the first film would not have been made if this group of friends did not truly exist.

In their third film, Running After Freedom-Welcome to Our World (2012), the children do whatever crosses their minds in front of the camera until the last scene when they engrave their feelings leaving their traces on a dreamy tree-totem, symbol of their wishes. Their traces remained there.

In the film by the 10th Gymnasium of Acharnes Non-art Teens (2011), students speak with passion about the traces painted on their school desks – poems, drawings, graffiti, smudges or ephemeral traces of chalk on the blackboard - and claim their right to express themselves freely on the pub-lic desk that is “theirs” until they leave from school.

traces–witnesses of his initiation to the mysteries of graffiti, of friendship, but also of cinematic art. The shootings were so “impressive” that members of the environmental team, that were accidentally glancing, were attracted by the “spectacle” and in the final scene they participated on the spot improvis-ing in real time in the role of the crowd that admires graffiti. The photographs of graffiti that existed at that time in the school and in the wider region constitute a documentary of this ephemeral street art - traces of how the region was then and also a “different” approach to what a local museum could be.

In their second film, The way I am3 (2011), the students reflect the way teenagers dress - tracing the fashion followed by adolescents at that time. According to the script, the dif-ferent way they dress does not prevent them from being in the same group of friends. This group existed in reality, ex-actly as it was presented in the film, but this was disputed

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In the beginning of the film by the 3rd Gymnasium of Pallini Think Colours (2011) the students describe an unhappy grey world, where the colours have faded and the dreams are be-ing censored, until one day two children change the whole school from black-and- white to colourful leaving their traces on walls, on benches, in the schoolyard, almost everywhere.

In the film by the Music Gymnasium of Pallini Scenes from our Future4 (2012), the teenagers – intimidated by the uncertainty of the present – are puzzled about their future. At the same time, however, they make dreams, as only chil-dren and adolescents can make and they find pathways for a better life through art, freedom and independence. They leave their dreams on the camera – traces of their future.

Individual versus collective

You should always use yourself as a point of reference. This is what I do…. Thus I make films about things that fasci-nate me… I try to make films that raise questions rather than give answers.

Sydney Pollack5

It is not accidental that common point of many films is the bipolar contradiction alone – with the other that is expressed differently in each one. The young heroes of the films claim their right to express their diversity freely either by paint-ing graffiti on desks and walls or by wearing the clothes of their choice or by escaping from fear in a fantastic free world. Nothing is obvious, since the team changes as the collective work is being created. In the same way, the theme of the film changes – more or less – as the children change while they grow up and learn.

In the beginning of Rendez-vous at the Wall (2010) by the 3rd Gymnasium of Acharnes, Themis is not welcome in the

football team, but in the end he draws graffiti on the school wall with others and this unites them all into a happy group. It is interesting that while the initial protagonist was absent in the first shooting of film, the team changed the script find-ing a new protagonist, but they also found a new role for the former protagonist including him in the film. (Theme: loneli-ness – friendship).

In their next film, The way I am (2011), two different groups of friends that wear different outfits and listen to dif-ferent kinds of music (emo versus hip-hop), join each other in the same park, where they sit on the same bench and play with each other without any problem. (Theme: diversity – company).

In their third film Running after Freedom (2012), the fear of Lena that wanders alone at night in the dangerous urban landscape is magically overcome by her being transported into a free universe, where she and her friends act crazy, chase one another and climb up in the trees that become symbols of freedom. (Theme: fear, loneliness, freedom of ex-pression with friends).

A different aspect of diversity is shown in the touch-ing film of the Special Needs School of Pammakaristos, All same… All different (2011), where the children with special needs express their agony to defend not their diversity but their similarity with any other child.

Lonely walkers

Because in certain films the rhythm of the traveller who walks, while looking at the landscape, plays an important role and can determine the whole atmosphere of a scene, we consider walking as one of the most expressive and par-ticularly cinematographic events.

Béla Balázs6

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74 Videomuseums – recording traces of our subjective cultureAudiovisual Education for young people

In many of the films, the atmosphere is given right from the beginning by the way the hero walks into the world that sur-rounds him. Most things are not said but are implied by the solitary, meditative, cheerful or anxious step of the protago-nist that also determines the rhythm of the images. And we walk along with him seeing with our eyes whatever he also sees - a very direct way to put ourselves in his place.

In the film Rendez-vous at the Wall (2010) by the 3rd Gym-nasium of Acharnes, Themis walks alone in front of the same wall with graffiti, where he discovers a spray, with which he will draw his own graffiti. In the final scene, he is not walking alone anymore, for he has made friends. His lonely walk not only gives rhythm to the movie but also implies his loneli-ness, making the spectator identify with him to a degree.

In the film Running after Freedom - Welcome to Our World (2012) by the 3rd Gymnasium of Acharnes, Lena is walking alone in the city, but as the night falls, she is terrified and starts running away in agony until she is suddenly trans-ferred to another freer world. There she will run in skates, she will chase her friends, she will climb the trees, claiming in every way the right of free movement and expression.

with dull colours and a static atmosphere as they reflect upon the future, which interchange with photographs full of move-ment that give a colourful sense of independence, while in the end they all embrace each other singing and moving in the rhythm of optimism, which finally predominates.

In the film Paradise City (2011) by the 12th Gymnasium of Acharnes, our guide is a young bicyclist, who winks to us carrying us with him into the corners and the small secrets of the Olympic Village neighbourhood.

In the film Nagging for Green (2012) by the 2nd Lyceum of Gerakas, the solitary walker is a snail, Akis Saligarakis, that walks on the cement pavements of Gerakas describing his adventures and complaining along with the students for the lack of green. At last the students transform their school making their life “greener”.

Music as a code of adolescents’ identity

Music always interested adolescents, a fact that is portrayed in all the films. It constituted the magic component that hid any sound errors or visual mistakes giving each film a single style that projected the code and the special identity of each team. It is very interesting to observe the many different ways in which music is used in each film and how this is de-veloped from year to year.

In the first film by the 3rd Gymnasium of Aharnes, Ren-dez-vous at the Wall (2010), the music of Sanjuro mc tied up all the film outshining the dialogues and attracted the spectators, projecting the Greek hip-hop style as the music code of the young creators. In their second film, The way I am (2011), music has a different connection to the images: it comes from a realistic source that can be clearly seen in the picture. It comes from the computer, from the phone, and in the end from the guitar. It functions as the code of each group and their musical identity. In the ending titles, two songs were combined in order to show the coupling of dif-ferent musical styles in the same friendly group. In their third film, Running after Freedom - Welcome to Our World (2012), the students successively compose a song by themselves as a domino of creation leads inspiration from one to another. This song had a more essential relation to the film’s theme, since the verses spoke about freedom. In this case music, functioned as a comment on the image, as a projection in the future7 expressing thoughts and dreams.

In the film Radio (2010), as we search for music stations on a radio, we travel into a musical kaleidoscope, following the camera that guides us to different places in the Music Gymnasium of Pallini, where children sing in chorus, others play the piano and others play in various popular, jazz or classic orchestras, seeking for music that expresses them. In their second film, Computer versus Environment (2011), the students of the Music Gymnasium leave the internal space of a room and the solitary games on the computer and meet in nature as a friendly group in order to play various musical in-struments, to have fun and to dance. It is remarkable that the music was composed by one of the team members, who also made the instrumentation. In the beginning of their third film, Scenes from Our Future (2012), the melody of the song

In Anna’s Train (2010) by the 10th Gymnasium of Acha-rnes, Anna wanders alone in the rails of trains and in the station discovering little by little pictures of a world outside school that is more interesting than the prison of the school class.

In the film The way I am (2011) by the 3rd Gymnasium of Acharnes, rhythm is given by the children’s footsteps that walk in a different way as each group is listening to its own music, until they all end up on the same bench in the park. In the ending titles, we can see only the children’s shoes as they roll down the slide - shoes that form a kind of identity, as the movie speaks about clothes.

The film Scenes from our Future (2012) by the Music Gym-nasium of Pallini, begins with footsteps of lonely adolescents

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Whistle Cheerfully, You Can is gently played by the guitar until in the end it becomes a song in the lips of all children that underlines the optimistic side of the future they dream of.

In the first film by the 1st Lyceum of Nea Makri, Adoles-cent Music (2010), we successively listen to many different music styles according to who is portrayed in the film shots in a fight of predominance of one music style over the other. In their second film, Violence in Another Way (2010), violence between the advocates and the opponents of a school oc-cupation leads to a musical break by a guitar that resolves every tension. In their third film of the same year The Day of A Teenager, the lively fast music in the beginning shows that a good beginning makes a good ending. A teenager wakes up and starts running, to the school, to the tuition centre, to the training centre… When in the end of the day we find him still alone studying by himself, the music becomes slower and melancholic saying to him, ‘You had a bad day’.

In the first film by the 3rd Gymnasium of Pallini, Think Col-ours (2011), the discrete soft music of a piano that describes the initially black-and-white world is escalates to a revolu-tionary dynamic crescendo as soon as the children jump the railings and invade the school changing it from scratch with their splendid colours. In their second film, As long as Friends Exist… (2012), three gloomy teenagers on a bench complain about their failure in dancing, in basketball and in painting. The fourth friend who passes by with his guitar drifts them all in a cheerful singing that dissolves all their fears.

In the film by the 12th Gymnasium of Acharnes Mad Vil-lagers (2012), the theme is the whole process of creating a musical group and its various phases.

Finally, in the film by the 1st Vocational Lyceum of Achar-nes Way of life (2012), we see in great detail when and why the children listen to music: “… when they are not so ‘up’… when they are depressed … in order to escape from the oth-ers” or “because it calms them down and it relaxes them …”.

Exploring space

By collecting photographs you collect the world… By pho-tographing, whatever is photographed becomes yours. It is as if you acquire a concrete relation with the world which resembles knowledge - and consequently power.

Susan Sontag8

Through the Videomuseums project the teenagers explore the space around them with a cinematographic point of view. It is no coincidence that in the beginning the themes of the films were very “school-ish”: we mainly filmed inside school, while the farther we could go was the nearby street. Progressively, each team opened up and became liberated in relation to space. Little by little, we went outside and filmed the children’s houses, the neighbourhood’s park, the forest, the city square, the non-built lot which has become extinct, the forgotten American base, the abandoned house… The more the children were emancipated, the farther we trav-elled with our camera, and the climax was our visit to Mona-stiraki, downtown Athens, during the seminars with the Ger-man students and teachers, where we filmed a very central street, Athena’s street.

So, in the film Once Upon a Time in Pikermi (2010), the Lyceum of Pikermi is portrayed with lots of love as a spe-cial school in the countryside, where the teachers buy the students soft drinks and play basketball with them, while the students sadly think how difficult it will be to leave this school.

In the film by the 1st Vocational Lyceum of Lavrio A Dif-ferent Lesson (2010), we also see the camera entering the school and showing snapshots from all the laboratories – mechanic vehicles, nursing, electricians and structural work. The same happens as well in the film by the 1st Vocational Ly-ceum of Acharnes Release Yourself (2012), where the camera records the teenagers as they train in running, in Tae Kwon Do and in football.

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While the first film by the Gymnasium of Kapandriti Routes (2011), describes the daily routes that the students travel to go to school and then back home, in their next year’s film Skipping Class (2012), the teenagers secretly leave the school. Why? Because they “…are fed up…they want to relax…they are bored with the lessons or the teachers…” and they ask for a more interesting way of teaching, without me-chanically learning by heart, but with humour and discussion about true life.

In the film by the Lyceum of Marathonas Waiting for The Break (2010), through imaginary daydreaming each student, in their own way, escapes from the classroom to the court-yard, to the playground for sliding, to the casino, to the bar for dancing, playing backgammon or having a massage and so on.

In the first film by the 1st Vocational Lyceum of Acharnes Escape the young boys and girls declare their need to escape from their strict school, so they occupy it and transform it into a place of amusement, relaxation and getaway from everyday’s routine, where they will speak with their friends, flirt with each other and be independent. In next year’s film Stories of Our Square (2011), they will go as far as the square in search of traces from their childhood memories to their strolls of the current days.

In the film by the 1st Lyceum of Glika Nera Where Are We Going Now? (2011), a company of teenagers wanders in the city searching for a hangout in vain. They wander from the school to the field where they could play football, but they find that a temple will be built in its place. Then, trying to avoid the pillars that are everywhere, they pass by the café of the grown-ups, but unsatisfied they will finally end up sitting on the steps in the street.

Τhe need for exploration leads the camera of the 1st Ly-ceum of Marathonas to the Abandoned House in the Square (2011), where they record their discoveries and fantasise what could have happened there. In the same year, in the film by the Lyceum of Nea Makri Our Base (2011), the explor-ing teenagers discover the abandoned base and transform it into a place for a concert. In next year’s film by the Lyceum of Nea Makri, The old factory (2012), the exploration of an old factory leads to a conflict. Two teams of children claim it for themselves as “theirs”.

Wandering in different places leads also in other types of themes that concern our cautious movement in space, as in the film by the Gymnasium of Keratea The Tree (2012). By playing with small and big cars (by animation, theatrical pic-tures, stop motion etc.) the teenagers point out that driving a car is not a game but entails great dangers. Relative with cars is also the theme of the film by the 1st Vocational Lyceum of Lavrio A Matter of Speed (2010) that shows the love of teenag-ers for races with go-karts.

We see, therefore, that, while in the beginning school is the basic place and theme of filming, little by little it is aban-doned either mentally (by daydreaming) or literally (by oc-cupation) or secretly (by skipping away) in order to discover new places, which the teenagers claim for themselves.

Students’ training, Athens 10/2011

While the camera enters the school laboratories, the students dream of a way to escape...

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Current events into the frame

Inevitably, the current events of each year intrude into the frame and are portrayed with the particular glance of young people, which in this case is not very different from ours. Some of the recorded problems are related to the environ-ment, while others are social and more than ever depressing. Thus, in 2010, the film by the 2nd Gymnasium of Artemida The Forest and The Fire shows the students’ distress for the burned forest.

Next year, in the film by the Gymnasium of Keratea Op-positions (2011), we see snapshots from the residents’ protest against the creation of a landfill in Keratea, a struggle that in-tensely attracted the mass media’s attention during that time and ended with victory of the people. The same year, in the film by the 1st Vocational Lyceum of Lavrio Beetle Troubles… the children discover the problem with the palm trees that are in danger because of the red beetle.

During the third year, in the film by the 1st Vocational Lyceum of Lavrio Changing Times (2012), we can see the un-pleasant results of the economic crisis. Young people with academic degrees search for work, but end up working as waiters. The same year, in the film by the Lyceum of Mara-thonas Tomorrow’s Fears, accompanied by the melody of the song “Don’ t Worry, Be Happy” and the unforgettable phrase “There is money…”, we see young people searching for work in classified advertisements, homeless people searching in abandoned buildings for places to sleep and young people with suitcases travelling abroad. In the film by the 1st Ly-ceum of Glika Nera Turn Off the Screens (2012), we see how teenagers are alienated because of the excessive use of mo-bile phones and their dependence on the modern means of social networking. In the end, a computer is thrown out of the window and the sign Turn off the screens is written on the wall, so that we open our eyes. Tragic irony?

Liberation of adolescents

There are two ways to make a film or, rather, two reasons. The first is to have a very concrete idea and try to express it; the second is to make the film in order to discover what you want to say. Personally, I’ve always felt divided between the two approaches.

Wim Wenders9

The idea of each film is not evident from the start, as each time we discover something new. One thing is certain, though, that adolescents want to say something. This is not easy and there are not many institutions that allow it. We daily see the students leaving ephemeral prohibited traces on their books, on their school desks, on the school walls and elsewhere. With the Videomuseums project adolescents re-corded their everyday routine achieving to observe it critical-ly, so they progressively conquered a new type of liberation: that of the individual who knows who they are and what they want and can express it freely.

A bottle in the sea

I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do – that was one of my favourite things about it.

Diane Arbus10

It was not easy to transform our school library into a cinema studio, but we did it. We always felt the others’ eyes look-ing curiously at us. Fortunately, at some point they left us alone, without asking what we were doing and why, so we maintained the mystery, because we knew that in fact it was a prank. When they saw the first film in our school, they all remained speechless. Soon after, it became wild on the Inter-net. In the second year, many students came to the team to imitate the triumph of the first year. In many cases, when the themes were at the limit of what was considered “legal” (graf-fiti - emo - hip hop - painting on desks – school occupation - violence…) we originally expected the spectators’ scolding rather than the final applause that we got while being im-mensely anxious.

As for me, I make my films for myself. I bear in my mind and I know of course that there is an audience somewhere out there.

Martin Scorsese 11

We followed the directions, but our basic motive was the need to express ourselves. In many cases, we went back and forth in the same things, the same place, the same subject, the same children, as if we were lost in improvising our own routes. The existence, however, of a public that would see our film and the expectation of its reaction was an exceptionally powerful motive. This became more intense each time the filmmaker visited us, because he represented our connection with the others, our relation to the network of schools and to the final objective. Then, we felt that the bottle thrown by us in the sea would be found by someone who would appreci-ate it.

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78 Videomuseums – recording traces of our subjective cultureAudiovisual Education for young people

While I was filming Paris - Texas I had something like a rev-elation. I realised that the story was like a river and that if I dared sail on it, and if I entrusted the river, then the boat would be transported towards something magic.

Wim Wenders12

Life changes, the landscape changes, and the children will leave school. Their picture, however, will remain. Their traces will remain in the school’s history in a completely informal way. This experience will lead them to new magic journeys, so they can say more stories. We can’t wait to listen to them.

Notes

1. Kondylis, P. (1991). Η παρακμή του αστικού πολιτισμού [The decline of urban civilisation] (p. 168). Athens: Themelio.

2. The work of this team is uploaded on the blog Videomuseums - 3rd Gymnasium of Acharnes, whose subject is graffiti and the film “Rendez-vous at the Wall”. Retrieved June 4, 2012: http://Videomuse-ums-graffiti.blogspot.com.

3. The process of creating the films The way I am and Running after Freedom - Welcome to Our World is presented in the blog of the 3rd Gymnasium of Acharnes Σκηνοθετώντας τον εαυτό μας – παίζοντας με την εικόνα [Directing Ourselves – Playing with Images]: Retrieved June 4, 2012: http:// videomouseia20113gymacharnon.blogspot.com.

4. The films of the Music Gymnasium of Pallini, Radio (2010), Comput-er versus Environment (2011) and Scenes from Our Future (2012) are presented here by Katerina Alexiadi, the teacher who ran the Vide-omuseums project in this school.

5. Tirard, L. (2002). Moviemakers’ Master Class: Private Lessons from the World’s Foremost Directors. London: Faber and Faber. Greek Edi-tion (2008), Master Class: Μαθήματα σκηνοθεσίας από τους σημαντι-Μαθήματα σκηνοθεσίας από τους σημαντι-κότερους σύγχρονους κινηματογραφιστές (Al. Tsegou, Trans.) (p. 116). Athens: Patakis.

6. Balázs, B. et al. (2003). Το μοντάζ [Editing] (p.43). translators: G. Ba-basakis et al.). Athens: Aigokeros.

Mary Kaldi studied Pedagogy at the Depart-ment of Philosophy of the University of Ioan-nina. She studied the piano in the Hellenic Music School. She played the piano in Nicolas Assimo’s band “Enapomeinantes” (1983-1986). Since 1983, she has been working in Secondary Education and during recent years in the 3rd Gymnasium of Achar-nes. She has worked with school thea-tre groups and has participated in international conferences, meetings and teacher training as member of Organising Committees. She was the Vice-President of the Hellenic Theatre/Drama and Education Network (2008-2011), responsible for the Editions Committee, and member of the edit-ing committee of the Education and Theatre jour-nal. She films and edits audiovisual resources from TΕNet-Gr’s seminars and conferences. She has been involved in the projects Literary workshop and Videomuseums (2009-2012).

7. Davlopoulos, T. (2003). Πραγματεία για το μοντάζ [Essay on ed-iting]. In collective volume: Tο μοντάζ [Editing] (p.199). Athens: Aigokeros.

8. Sontag, S. (1977). On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Greek Edition (1993), Περί Φωτογραφίας (H. Papaioannou, Trans.). Athens: Editions of the PHOTOgrapher magazine.

9. Tirard, Laurent, op. cit., p. 124.

10. Sontag, Susan op. cit., p. 23.

11. Tirard, Laurent, op. cit., p. 116.

12. Tirard, Laurent, op. cit., p. 123.