Short History of the Media Archaeology Project

The series of programs Media archaeology has been so far taking place in Academic Film Center of the „Students’ City“ Cultural Center, as part of the regular program.

Academic Film Center was founded in 1958 in Belgrade, and after establishment of „Students’ City Cultural Center in 1976 it was moved into this institution.

Bosko Prostran and Jovan Backulja, going through the materials from the collection of the Archive of alternative film and video gathered a corpus of media material and suggested to Aleksandra Sekulic to screen it as a part of the program of Academic Film Center. Realizing the quantity and the variety of the material is exceeding just one program, Academic Film Center started it as a series of programs, and Aleksandra suggested the title Media archaeology, aluding to the process of its preparations and to the deviation of the meaning of the term compared to its roots in theory. This series of programs entered a game of relations to another series in AFC called Black market, prepared by Sasa Markovic and Micun Ristic, which enabled the young audience of AFC to have insight into pop culture phenomena each month through the dynamic „talk show“ discussions and video illustrations.

The first program „Media archaelogy: Economic propaganda program“ was held in October 2006, and offered to the audience an insight into blocks of TV commercials from the period of 1980’s in Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, with the analysis of social context and dramaturgy, given by Prostran (politicologist) and Backulja (film director). In December 2006, this program was included in the program of Alternative film&video 2006, and had a great success, getting the first invitations for its distribution in the country and in the region.

To the abjections of the director of the „Students’ City“ Cultural Center that these two series are not according with the Academic Film Center program profile, best response was the attendance and developement of these series, as well as the attention given to the aspects of media dramaturgy and creative practivces in this kind of production, and to their influences on alternative culture and art. With growing outreach and audience, the series continues with the programs: „Music video in SFRY“ (with the sequel and guests: Dragomir Zupanc, National television of Serbia and Drasko Djurovic, who presented TV production in Montenegro at the period of 1980’s), „Sarajevo pop“, „Margine against margine“, „The song that lasts“ (with the guest Dusan Grlja from Prelom magazine), „Eurosong through the centuries“.

With the program „Media archaeology special: Asia“, the program enters a wider frame of analisys of the translation of the Western pop culture in Asia in the forms of music video and genre films, which was estimated as one of the most successful issues of this series.

In 2007, the team of the project starts with the preparation of the research of the material for the new series „The nineties“. Stevan Vukovic was invited in order to approach to this complex task in the best prepared way. The project was designed as a complex analisys of the media phenomena specific and authentic for the period of 1990’s in Serbia (TV Monologue, TV Metaphysics, etc) and gets the support of the Ministry of culture and media of Republic of Serbia. Paradoxically, the director of SCCC Miodrag Milosevic continues the pressure on the team of the project by problematizing the authorship over the project, its significance in the program of the Alternative film&video festival, and the team finds the support in Archive of alternative film and video where it prepares the programs.

The new series starts in September 2008, with the program „TV Monologue“ featuring the invited guest Zoran Skopljak. The next issue is dealing with the music video of the 1990’s in Serbia, which opens several important topics and expands the number of contributors and the audience. In the programe of the festival Alternative film&video 2008 Media archaeology made a special edition dedicated to Sonja Savic. After the successfully closed festival, the director declares the decision to move Aleksandra Sekulic from AFC SCCC, which brought the question of the continuation of the project. The director claims that the project is welcome in AFC, but at the same time members of the team of the project are no longer able to use the editing room of AFC, because „serious films“ will be produced there, but to prepare the program in the Archive of alternative film and video which they can enter through the basement and backstage of SCCC.

January 13th, 2009, A. Sekulic files a warning that without necessery preparations and redirections of the collaborators of the project to the new channel of communication the functioning of the e-mail address alternative@dksg.co.yu shouldn’t be interrupted, and on January 14 gets a notice she has to hand over the computer and the address on January 15 to the Committee of SCCC and Miodrag Milosevic (he controls now the address personally). Due to the fact we only had one afternoon to notify numerous colleagues and collaborators, in case we haven’t reached you, please resend us your contributions and emails to this address.

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