Media Archaeology

Media Archaeology is a long term research and program project, initiated in Archive of alternative film and video in “Students’ City” Cultural Center in Belgrade, programs initially hosted by Academic Film Center in 2006. Dealing with media forms as symptoms of social phenomena the team of the project presented this research through a dynamic program model of screening and discussion between two hosts with participation of the audience, which turned out to be a right model to establish a communication with the generation who hadn’t have a chance to experience the appearance and transformation of particular media phenomena.

In 2007, the series of lectures which embraced particular media forms from the history of media production of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with a special program dedicated to the translation of Western pop culture in Asia, the program concept enabling communication with the younger audience, with creating an insight into their perception of contemporary media forms was established, and also opened a call for collecting material for a media archive.

In 2008, with the support of the ministry of culture and media of the Republic of Serbia, a project Media Archaeology: The Nineties was initiated, and focused on analysis of the models used for media coverage and shaping of the disastrous social crisis of the 1990’s and to remind of the depth and the long term influences of the changes still visible in media production. Due to the sudden change of the circumstances in the “Students’ City” Cultural Center (more in Current problems in Academic Film Center), the program of the project Media Archaeology: The Nineties were realized successfully in 2009, in the Center for Cultural Decontamination (www.czkd.org).

The method of Media Archaeology team is based on the recognizing of the dominant and grouping similar media forms, creating a new string of media fragments which, differing from the de-contextualized string of the broadcast, enables a better insight into production and communication mechanisms and continuity of a particular media form or media formations. We observe the media form as an apparatus itself – end there lies the analogy with the conventional meaning of media archaeology in media studies.

One o the aims of this project is research of the new possibilities of archival practice and archive interface, its perfromative potential and archive as a cultural form.

A new cycle of Media Archaeology is being prepared and it will, as usual, be open for your suggestions and contributions!A new cycle of Media Archaeology is being prepared and it will, as usual, be open for your suggestions and contributions!

The team of the project:
Boško Prostran, Jovan Bačkulja, Aleksandra Sekulić, Ivica Đorđević, Nebojša Petrović, Ivko Šešić, Vladimir Jerić, Milan Marić

We had special help from:
Bojana Andrić (and TV Trezor crew, RTS), Mileta Kečina, Stevan Vuković, Borka Pavićević, Lazar Lalić, Rade Radovanović, Milena Dragićević Šešić, Dragomir Zupanc, Snježana Milivojević, Vladimir Tupanjac, Nenad Jeremić, Marijana Markoska, Zoran Skopljak, Dušan Grlja, Igor Đorđević, Kosmoplovci, Turbo Comics, Draško Milošević, Jelena Vesić, Dragan Mitić, Antonio G. Lauer aka Tomislav Gotovac, Biljana Đurđević, Bambi Plus film crew, Greg de Cuir, Irena Šentevska, Isidora Ilić, Svetlana Novaković, Milica Tomić, Jovan Čekić, Zoran Naskovski, Zoran Pantelić, Isabel Herling, and we also thank to all our friends and colleagues who supported us and who made a great audience.