Call for Papers
Special issue of the journal Culture Crossroads “Exploring the Past and Future of Audiovisual Media in the Baltic Sea Region: Archives, Digital Platforms, Researchers and Spectators”
Culture Crossroads is an open access international peer-reviewed journal published by the Institute of Arts and Cultural Studies of the Latvian Academy of Culture. The goal of Culture Crossroads is to develop and expand theoretical and methodological approaches to the research of art and creativity with emphasis on the potential of a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinarity. A special issue of the journal is planned to gather the papers presented at the 9th Baltic Sea Region Film History Conference (co-organized by the Latvian Academy of Culture, Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council, and LAC Riga Film Museum in June 2024 in Riga) and other articles related to the theme of the issue.
The focus of the special issue of Culture Crossroads journal titled “Exploring the Past and Future of Audiovisual Media in the Baltic Sea Region: Archives, Digital Platforms, Researchers and Spectators” is the histories of audiovisual collections within the Baltic Sea region, and the burgeoning impact of digital technologies on facilitating access to these collections.
In the wake of digital technologies, films from diverse historical periods and regions as well as contemporary cinema have become globally accessible to an unprecedented extent. This digital turn has significantly influenced the operations of archives, museums, and libraries – traditionally the custodians of (national) audiovisual collections. From the perspective of access, it has transformed these repositories from entities with specific physical and administrative boundaries into increasingly open digital platforms, serving researchers, filmmakers, the media industry, and general audiences alike. While heritage institutions’ access strategies often exhibit similarities shaped, for example, by online commercial film distribution, they also vary due to the distinct historical structure and content of different collections. Moreover, custodians of audiovisual collections in the Baltic Sea Region countries have historically worked within diverse cultural, institutional, and legislative frameworks determined by shifting political and socio-economic factors, which has had a major impact on what is collected, preserved, and hence available for accessing on the emerging digital platforms. Finally, the questions of copyright affect significantly what can be distributed online, and under what conditions (e.g. freely or for a fee), making the relationships between the preservation and production industries even more crucial.
The digitisation and platformization as well as datafication of contemporary cinema and audiovisual heritage presents challenges but also opportunities. For heritage institutions, the challenges include the introduction, management and funding of new workflows, tools and competencies related to digitization, digital preservation, metadata creation, etc. At the same time, digital availability of cinema fosters new forms of engagement, exhibition, evaluation, interpretation, and contextualisation. Importantly, the digital environment necessitates media literacy, including audiovisual heritage literacy, and the development of specific educational tools.
We invite submissions addressing the following topics (this list is suggestive, yet not exhaustive):
1) the origins of audiovisual collections in the Baltic Sea Region and the influence of changing political formations and legal frameworks on the content, acquisition, appraisal, documentation, cataloguing, preservation, and access policies and practices in different historical periods;
2) the process of film digitization and restoration, associated challenges, promotion of digital film collections, and potential solutions;
3) the impact of digitization and the availability of audiovisual archives on the platforms on the narratives of film history and concepts of film theory in the Baltic Sea Region countries;
4) the reciprocal relationship between audiovisual archives and contemporary films, exploring how the availability of the archives affects film themes, content, style, and specific filmmakers;
5) the influence of changing viewing formats and location on the consumption of contemporary cinema and film heritage; the audience profile of film streaming platforms (who uses them, to what extent, and to what purpose), and the platforms’ holders knowledge of their audience.
The guest editors of the special issue will be Inga Pērkone-Redoviča, PhD, Professor and Principal Researcher at the Latvian Academy of Culture and the Head of the Riga Film Museum, and Zane Balčus, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at Vilnius University and researcher of the Institute of Arts and Cultural Studies of the Latvian Academy of Culture.
Articles should be submitted in English and they must not be previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere. The length of the article should be 15 000 – 30 000 characters with spaces, and must comply with the Guidelines for Authors (information on the guidelines and requirements can be accessed here). Prior to submission, registration and creation of a user profile is required.
The deadline for submissions: 23 September 2024. The articles should be submitted through the electronical system of the journal.
The journal is indexed in: SCOPUS; EBSCO (Humanities Source Ultimate); ERIH PLUS; ULRICH'S; Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL).
The edition will be prepared in the framework of the State Research programme “Cultural and creative ecosystem of Latvia as a resource of resilience and sustainability”/CERS (VPP-MM-LKRVA-2023/1-0001).
Contacts:
Zane Balčus – zane.balcus@lka.edu.lv, +37126054287
Inga Pērkone-Redoviča - Inga.Perkone-Redovica@lka.edu.lv
Submission
All articles should comply with the ‘Guidelines for Authors’. You can find the information on the guidelines and requirements here. Prior to submission, registration and creation of a user profile is required. Articles should be submitted in English and they must not be previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere.
Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact editorial assistant Lote Katrīna Cērpa: lote.katrina.cerpa@lka.edu.lv
The call for papers is announced at least once a year in November/December.
For technical inquiries, please contact the system administrator, Gundega Teilane, at gundega.teilane@rta.lv
