This session consists of 3 presentations and a joint Q&A with the presenters. The session contains:
➺ Daniel Ángeles Hernández, Laura Alhach Castro - Film and Audiovisual Archives: The Climate Footprint of Our Memory (Short presentation)
➺ Jose Luis Maire - Recording the Catastrophe: sound archives, phonographies, sound art and ecoacoustics (Long presentation)
➺ Mirerza González-Vélez - Cambio climático y los desafíos para la preservación digital del acervo sonoro y audiovisual en Puerto Rico y el Caribe: tres casos de estudio (Panel session)
**Abstracts:**
➺ Film and Audiovisual Archives: The Climate Footprint of Our Memory
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Daniel Ángeles Hernández, Laura Alhach Castro (Short presentation)
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Film archives safeguard and preserve physical media and digital files. However, the ecological impact of accomplishing this task is considerable. Today, in the midst of climate upheaval and uncertainty, we ask ourselves about the balance between the preservation of our species' audiovisual memory and the mitigation of its environmental impact.
Understanding that each archive operates in a specific way regarding its collection and contextual needs, the dialogue between two Latin American film archives in Mexico and Colombia and one in Spain, allows for a comparison of the various economic, social and geopolitical factors for decision making. This, faced with the challenge of preservation and its ecological relationship.
Amongst other concerns, we ask ourselves: to what extent should we be willing to modify film preservation strategies in relation to their intrinsic environmental impact? Should the loss factor, the quality of the files or the non-rescue of certain films, as an ecological care strategy, be assumed? Could the generation of more democratic access strategies for film archives justify their carbon footprint in order to navigate the crisis?
Specifically, with this research we propose to delve into the possible practices of film archives in relation to new preservation and dissemination strategies, as a response to the climate upheaval and uncertainty. Thus, reflect on the historical and colonial responsibility of the Global North towards the Global South, pondering on the ethical place of audiovisual memory preservation and its balance in the face of ecological heritage conservation.
➺ Recording the Catastrophe: sound archives, phonographies, sound art and ecoacoustics
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Jose Luis Maire (Long presentation)
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In the past decade, the climate crisis and its ecological, social, and political effects have significantly increased the number of academic studies dedicated to bioacoustics and ecoacoustics. Ecoacoustics is a new scientific discipline that investigates the relationship between natural and anthropogenic sounds and the environment. Additionally, there has been a growing interest in these types of publications among non-scientific readers, including naturalists, biodiversity advocates, musicians, and sound artists. Moreover, there have been recent publications on animal musicalities, such as Rachel Mundy's (2018) 'Animal Musicalities: Birds, Beasts, and Evolutionary Listening' and 'Listening After Nature Field: Recording, Ecology, Critical Practice’ by Mark Peter Wright (2022), ‘Exploring the Ecologies of Music’ by Makis Solomos (2023), and ‘Histoire naturelle du silence’ by Jérôme Sueur have challenged the traditional boundaries between music/culture and nature, leading to a re-evaluation of the concept of nature and its relationship to the fields of ethnomusicology and musicology. Furthermore, a relatively new phenomenon is the consolidation of a musical and sound discipline called Phonography, which is based on field recordings of animals, plants, environmental sounds, and those of human origin. This presentation discusses the interrelation between sound archives, focusing on commercial and scientific recordings of whales, birds, and bats and the sound practices. It also explores the work of some sound artists as examples. The aim is to reflect, therefore, on the need to respond, from the sound archives, to a concept of nature that is not reduced to an external, separate, excluding and transcendent power.
➺ Cambio climático y los desafíos para la preservación digital del acervo sonoro y audiovisual en Puerto Rico y el Caribe: tres casos de estudio
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Mirerza González-Vélez (Panel session)
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Esta mesa, moderada por la Dra. Mirerza González Vélez, examina tres estudios de caso y como en cada uno se documenta el "presente" de archivos sonoros y audiovisuales en el contexto de Puerto Rico ante desastres naturales y eventos extremos relacionados con el cambio climático. Explora, así mismo, cómo se insertan en estos procesos prácticas de humanidades digitales y éticas de curaduría y preservación digital para lograr efectivamente su rescate y manejo.
1."Humanidades digitales, preservación digital, y la documentación del huracán María en Puerto Rico", presentado por el Dr. Joel Antonio Blanco Rivera, investigador de la Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía, discute el ensayo multimedia, "Huracán María" , un trabajo académico y reflexivo sobre el impacto del Huracán María en Puerto Rico y los esfuerzos comunitarios y colaborativos durante los primeros meses de recuperación. “Dicotomías cotidianas ante la escasez de recursos y el cambio climático” presentado por la Mtra. Hilda Teresa Ayala, directora del Archivo General de Puerto Rico, discute acciones y determinaciones que se han ejecutado en busca de un balance en los esfuerzos por cumplir con las prácticas de preservación digital de colecciones patrimoniales en Puerto Rico con recursos insuficientes.
Mientras, “(Co)Laboratorio de Humanidades Digitales: Procesamiento Mínimo de Colecciones Especiales del Patrimonio Cultural” presentado por la Mtra. Mila Aponte González, de la UPR-RP, Facultad de Humanidades, discute un modelo de experiencia académica que ha permitido innovaciones en la preservación digital del acervo sonoro en Puerto Rico. Discute la experiencia en preservación del programa radial 1-2-3 Probando.
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