Collective Memory and the Moving Image Archive: The Changing Sites of Memory in Europe

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Collective Memory and the Moving Image Archive:

The Changing Sites of Memory in Europe

Master Thesis Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image 27 June 2014 Faculty of Humanities Department of Media Studies University of Amsterdam Bobbie Noë (10164472) bobbienoe@gmail.com Supervisor: Mrs. Dr. M. de Valck

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Introduction

Collective memory has become an increasingly popular term over the last three decades, spurred on by a new concern with the past, or the so-called ‘memory boom.’ The idea that memories cannot exist outside a social frame determining how

individuals remember, based on the writings of the ‘founding father’ of memory studies, French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, has gained traction in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from neuronal, medial and psychological studies to cultural, social and political studies.1 In addition to scholars from all these different fields, archivists have also taken a particular interest in the concept, as is for example exemplified by archive journals Archivaria and Archival Science dedicating special issues to collective memory.2 Archives themselves have also adopted the term in their mission statements and collection management strategies. The British Library, for example, writes in its Collection Development Policy: ‘At the core [the collection of the British Library] represents the collective memory of the nation.’3_{Many national} archives often use the term to describe what they do and to refer to the shared past inherent in their collections. The National Archives of Singapore states in the ‘About’ section on its website: ‘The National Archives of Singapore houses the collective memory of our nation.’4 The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), about its Film Australia Collection, writes: ‘The NFSA is the proud custodian of the Film Australia Collection (FAC), preserving and providing access to the nation’s documentary record – our collective memory.’5_{These archives use the concept of} collective memory explicitly to indicate what it is they are attempting to preserve and protect.

As popular as the term may be in the archival field and beyond, there remain questions of definition. Fundamentally, the relationship between archives and memory is not a given. With archives being institutions for social memory and its

1_{Aleida Assmann, “Memory, Individual and Collective,” The Oxford Handbook of Contextual}

Political Analysis, 2006.

2_{Trond Jacobsen, Ricardo L. Punzalan and Margaret L. Hedstrom, “Invoking ‘Collective Memory’:}

Mapping the Emergence of a Concept in Archival Science,” Archival Science 13 (2013): 218.

3_{British Library, Collection Development Strategy: http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/coldevpol/.} 4_{National Library Board Singapore, ‘About National Archives’:}

http://www.nlb.gov.sg/About/AboutNationalArchives.aspx.

5_{National Film and Sourch Archive Australia, ‘About the Film Australia Collection’:}

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activities as forms of memory preservation,6 it may be tempting to see a direct relation between memory and archives and to assume that the collection of records archives keep logically amounts to a collective memory. However, the memory inherent in the records kept by archives does not naturally equal the formation of a collective

consciousness. For this, a closer interaction between archives and memory might be necessary to truly bring the collective memory into the archives.7

These concerns reveal the fuzzy edges of a concept that has been appropriated in many different contexts and for as many different purposes. If the notion of

collective memory itself, inside and outside the archive, is not a firm concept, it becomes even less so when considering two distinct currents that are particularly strong in society today: globalization and digitization. On the one hand, globalization changes the spaces of memory and the composition of memory communities.

Whereas memory production and debates on memory used to be national affairs, they now inevitably cross state boundaries.8 At the same time, digitization creates a new kind of memory, which Andrew Hoskins has called digital network memory, challenging the dynamics and uniqueness of human memory.9 The new media and technologies also change the understanding of the ‘archive.’ All these developments significantly transform the nature of collective memory, making the present time an especially interesting one to reconsider the concept.

With the changes brought about by globalization and digitization, archives are forced to redefine their own relationship to collective memory and how they present it. Archives have become networked and part of what Hoskins describes as an accessible and connected network memory.10 Digitization forces collective memory to be

understood in more dynamic terms in which remembering has become an active, performative engagement with the past rather than a merely reproductive

involvement.11 This obviously has implications for the archive, which is pressured to not just facilitate reproductive engagement, but also the active engagement users have

6_{Trond Jacobsen et al., 218.} 7_{Ibid., 225.}

8_{Aleida Assmann and Sebastian Conrad, “Introduction,” Memory in a Global Age. Discourses,}

Practices and Trajectories (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010): 2.

9_{Andrew Hoskins, “Digital Network Memory,” Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural}

Memory, edited by Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney (New York, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009): 92-106.

10_{Hoskins 2009, 97.}

11_{Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney, “Introduction,” Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural}

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come to expect. New digital technologies might support this by providing more spaces for public interaction in which archives can contribute to the production and propagation of memory.12

The effect of globalization on the archive is related to its political function. The archive has a powerful position in controlling how individuals, groups and societies remember their past and, in this way shape their collective memory and sense of national identity.13 However, the very idea of the nation-state and ‘national’ identity is transformed by globalization. Borders have become more fluid and national identities and memories are changed along with them. It is up to the archive to

reposition itself in relation to this new configuration by either providing a stronger argument for the nation-state or reflect the new memory’s transcendence of state boundaries by appealing to a more globalized collective memory.

A region where both the developments of globalization and digitization are currently at play and specific political motives concerning collective memory are involved is the European Union. Its inception after the Second World War was motivated by the desire to counter the nationalism that was seen to have caused two major world conflicts in the twentieth century.14 Presently, it is precisely this nationalism that any European process of economical and political integration runs into. A European federalisation cannot emerge without the European Union transcending the individual nation-states to create a common European identity,15 but within the European Union, identity plays out on several different planes. The individual members of the

European Union are sovereign states with their own economies, cultures and social structures, while together they also share a European identity based on common history, culture and values.16_{However, the resistance against a supranational union} harnessed by nationalism has made the formation of a truly shared European identity difficult. Moreover, European integration has mainly been driven by economic prosperity. Without it, individual nation-states might not see enough reason in being part of the union. When this economic prosperity falls away, further political

12_{Jacobsen et al., 225.}

13_{Terry Cook and Joan M. Schwartz, “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern}

Memory,” Archival Science 2 (2002): 2.

14_{Montserrat Guibernau, “The Birth of a United Europe: On Why the EU Has Generated A}

Non-Emotional Identity,” Nations and Nationalism 17.2 (2011): 304.

15_{Dušan Leška, “Politics in an Era of Globalization and European Union Integration,” Human Affairs}

22 (2012): 94.

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integration will halt in response.17 Therefore, the economic recession of the past years has made the need to create a sense of shared European identity all the more pressing. This is where archives might come in. As memory institutions, archives have the power to appeal to a shared history and culture and may thereby foster European unity. Taking this into consideration, the fact that the European Union actively encourages archives to further develop ‘the potential of information technologies to contribute to ‘Europe’s collective memory’18 is far from surprising.

The thesis will investigate how the new nature of collective memory, transformed by globalization and digitization, is reflected in the collective memory activities of audiovisual archives. Its focus on archives with audiovisual collections allows for the study of collective memory in terms of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage, of which visual media are of particular interest here, plays an important role in collective memory. Cultural memory, a term drawn from collective memory, is meant to underline the fact that memories are often produced and reproduced through cultural forms. These ‘technologies of memory,’ while they might be any kind of object, have become increasingly visual and mass mediated.19

In the first chapter, the thesis will define collective memory further. As collective memory is a concept used in many different contexts, the chapter will also define its relevance for this thesis, investigate the usefulness and problems of the term and describe its particular relationship with archives. It will also look at the power of archives, both historically and in the present, in order to understand the power relations inherent in the case studies.

The second chapter will study how collective memory is propagated in practice by two digital initiatives in Europe. With the discussion of these two case studies, the thesis will describe how archives articulate collective memory in digital environments. The case studies include initiatives of collections of European archives working together on digital platforms and function on both national and European levels. Both cases are funded by the European Union and are aggregators of content for Europeana (europeana.eu), which aims to be the single access point to Europe’s

17_{Leška, 312.}

18_{Bjarki Valtysson, “Europeana. The Digital Construction of Europe’s Collective Memory,”}

Information, Communication and Society 15.2 (2012): 151.

19_{Marita Sturken, “Memory, Consumerism and Media: Reflections on the Emergence of the Field,”}

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digital culture and to engage people with their cultural history in new ways.20 The first case study is EUscreen (euscreen.eu): an online portal that wants to promote the use of television content to explore Europe's cultural history.21 By providing digital access to television heritage, EUscreen aims to stimulate active participation in the collective cultural memory of Europe and create awareness about the role of television in

European history and culture.22 The second case study is the EFG1914 project,23 which was launched in 2012 as a follow-up to the European Film Gateway project. The goal of EFG1914 is to digitize and make available material from the First World War, in commemoration of the war’s centennial in 2014. Through the European Film Gateway portal,24 and integrated within Europeana as well, the digitized material from the different institutes is made accessible online. The material includes propaganda films, documentaries, fiction films, documents and newsreels relating to conflicts of the First World War.

While both projects are similar in their sources of funding and as international collaborations, they were chosen as case studies for this thesis for their differences as well. While EUscreen is concerned with the recent past, EFG1914 deals with a more distant collective memory and one that has a more indirect bearing on the users of today. In examining these cases, these different forms of collective memory will be considered. Furthermore, the two forces of globalization and digitization will be particularly discussed in relation to one case study each. With EUscreen, its preoccupation with the engagement of a shared European past connects it to the formation of the European Union and its cultural heritage and thereby globalization. EFG1914, as an initiative that aims to ‘facilitate good practices of film digitization and digital preservation’25 among European film archives, will be considered from a digitization angle. At the same time, both globalization and digitization are clearly present in each case as well and will therefore be considered throughout.

The analysis of these case studies will focus on the ways in which they give access to the wide range of material from the different archives they hold and by

20_{European Commission, Europeana:}

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/europeana-–-single-access-point-europes-digital-culture.

21_{EUscreen, ‘About’: http://www.euscreen.eu/about.html.}

22_{Dana Mustata, “Video Active en EUScreen. Europa zet televisie-erfgoed online,” 609 - Cultuur en}

Media 7 (2011): 13.

23_{EFG1914: http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/content/efg1914-project.} 24_{European Film Gateway: http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu.}

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doing so present collective memory in a specific way, especially taking into consideration the involvement of the user. The chapter will examine online exhibitions, the presentation of material in categories and the possibilities for user participation in the case studies.

On the basis of the case studies, the third chapter will then suggest ways to strengthen how collective memory is presented digitally. It will look at technological aspects, as well as the implications of French philosopher Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation to define the workings of cultural policy within the European Union, and the way institutes and users are entangled in their own power relationship. As a result, the thesis will establish the relevance of the concept of collective memory for moving image archives in a digital and global age. Before the 1980s, moving image archives mainly kept quiet. Since then, they have become better ‘publicists for their cause’, as is also increasingly expected of them.26 In the interest of the cultural heritage they hold, archives need to step out to create public awareness about the importance of its preservation.27 For this they would need to find a bridge to their users. This thesis suggests that collective memory can be used to form such a bridge, and by successfully appealing to it archives may forge more meaningful and

interactive connections between their collections and their users.

26_{Penelope Houston, Keepers of the Frame. The Film Archive (London: British Film Institute, 1994):}

3.

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Chapter I: Collective Memory and Archives

1.1. Archives and power

For a long time archives have carried the connotation of being ‘neutral and objective repositories for authentic records of human activity’28 or ‘value-free sites of document collection and historical inquiry.’29 It is not difficult to understand where this

assumption comes from. After all, archivists collect mostly primary sources and records and work to guard the physical and intellectual integrity of those records. However, this assumes the role of the archivists is passive and transparent.30 Instead, archival theorists, departing from what French philosopher Jacques Derrida called the process of ‘archivization,’31 have pointed to the mediation of reality that occurs when archivists interact with the process of archivization, shaped by their personal

backgrounds and interpretations. Archivists place records in interpretative contexts, which influences what is accessible, and thereby shape what may be known from archival materials.32

The idea of the archive as a site of power is as old as those in power have used documents to legitimate this power, but it became even more pervading in the

nineteenth century. Napoleon used archives as emblems of his power, while in other parts of Europe those in power equally understood the need for historical and cultural self-justification through archives in the age of nation building. The power of the archive was also brought in relation to colonialism and the role the archive played in sustaining the empire.33 The utilization of archives in the legitimization of nation-states and empires coincided with the establishment of national archives. Archives of all kinds existed before that time, but they were all non-national, such as monastic archives, court archives, city archives and family archives. In contrast, the nineteenth century archives were all linked to the state, keeping its records and functioning for state administrations and legal purposes.34

28_{Randall C. Jimerson, “Archives and Memory,” OCLC Systems & Servives 19.3 (2003): 91.} 29_{Cook and Schwartz, 6.}

30_{Tom Nesmith, “Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives,”}

The American Archivist 65.1 (2002): 27.

31_{Jacques Derrida, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” Diacritics 25.2 (1995): 11.} 32_{Nesmith, 30-31.}

33_{Caroline Steedman, “After the Archive,” Comparative Critical Studies 8.2–3 (2011): 332.} 34_{Stefan Berger, “The Role of National Archives in Constructing National Master Narratives in}

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Despite such early understandings of the role of archives as part of the state, and as tools in nation-building and colonialism, the idea that archives are not neutral and objective repositories only permeated archival science with postmodernism, which laid bare the power relations existing within archives.35 Postmodernism suggests a new intellectual place for archives in the formation of knowledge, culture, and societies. The archivist in postmodernist thought is seen as a key mediator in the construction of knowledge: archivists co-create and shape the knowledge in records, and thus help form society’s memory.36 Philosopher Michel Foucault and the

aforementioned Derrida were instrumental in making the notion that the archive is a site of power apparent. They recognized the archive as a construction, which is borne out of power, and at the same time expresses that power.37

Archives wield particular power in the shaping and directing of collective memory and national identity. The archive’s relationship to these two notions is important to define for this thesis in order to investigate the changes brought upon it by digitization and globalization in a European context. The question of national identity will be explored further in the next chapter in relation to European identity. This chapter will further evaluate and define collective memory in the digital and global age. Since media are at the heart of the archival projects that will be discussed, and the function of media in circulating memory, the mediated nature of collective memory and the role of the archive therein will be considered as well.

1.2. Defining collective memory

The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs is usually cited as the founding father of collective memory, first coining the term in 1925 in his book Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. At the foundation of Halbwachs’ conception of collective memory is the argument that people acquire memories as part of a society. They recall, recognize and localize their memories within this society.38_{Thus, remembering always takes} place within social frameworks, and such frameworks are often connected to a

35_{Randall C. Jimerson, “Embracing the Power of Archives,” The American Archivist 69.1 (2006):}

22-23.

36_Ibid.

37_{Verne Harris, “Archons, Aliens and Angels: Power and Politics in the Archive,” in: The Futures of}

Archives and Recordkeeping: A Reader, edited by Jennie Hill (London: Facet Publishing, 2011): 109.

38_{Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, edited and translated by Lewis A. Coser (Chicago:}

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specific group of people, and work to create social cohesion.39 This assumes a geographically limited community with shared beliefs. While such an understanding of collective memory frameworks could arguably be applied to the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, modernity and mass media challenge it by creating new social frameworks bringing together communities that may not share the same geographical spaces or beliefs.40 Globalization, transnationalism, and postmodernism have made it less evident to think in terms of national boundaries and the global flows of media, capital, information and ideology pose a challenge to the idea of stable shared frameworks.41 Technologies of mass culture now assume an important role in circulating memories of the past.42 This is what Alison Landsberg has called a ‘prosthetic’ memory: a transportable, mass mediated memory transcending national and cultural boundaries.43

Landsberg’s prosthetic memory points to the role of media technologies in circulating memory. Memory is necessarily embodied and mediated in order to exist in the world, and media technologies allow memories to be experienced and

embodied.44 Memories may be manifested in different cultural forms, which Barbie Zelizer calls agents of mediation.45_{Zelizer discerns two functions of media in} memory. One function is for transmission: media accommodate access to group memory. As such, media contribute significantly to memory as a collective activity. Another function of media is for storage. Especially visual media lend themselves well for recalling the past, because they ‘stabilize the transient nature of memory itself.’46 Arguably, archives collecting audiovisual material therefore have an especially important role in constructing and circulating collective memory: the material they collect is central in the transmission and storage of a society’s collective memory.

The function of memory institutions in the circulation of collective memory has to do with the uneasy step that exists between individual memory and collective

39_{Alison Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory. The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of}

Mass Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004): 8.

40_Ibid. 41_{Ibid., 10.} 42_{Ibid., 11.} 43_{Ibid., 8-11.} 44_{Sturken, 75.}

45_{Barbie Zelizer, “Reading the Past Against the Grain: the Shape of Memory Studies,” Critical Studies}

in Mass Communication 12.2 (1995): 232.

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memory. Remembering, as a cognitive process in the brain of the individual, can only be metaphorically transposed onto the level of culture, the collective.47 As Aleida Assmann points out, autobiographical memory and collective memory are not equivalent, because individuals have a neurological system for memory that

institutions do not possess.48 Therefore, institutions have to make their own memory, which they base on texts, symbols, rituals, ceremonies, places, and the like. The construction of this memory occurs through a process of exclusion and selection, making collective memory necessarily a mediated memory. The archive, along with other memory institutions, creates and circulates this ‘prosthetic’ memory. For this reason, the archive is sometimes said to be a society’s collective memory. The things kept in archives – objects, artefacts, documents – are material embodiments, or surrogates, of the acts of human communication that are ordinarily ephemeral in nature, and that can be passed from person to person over time.49 Archives, along with institutions like libraries and museums, function as storage spaces for the memory that cannot be retained by human memory.50 As such, archives have a powerful position. The records they keep (or not keep) decide a society’s collective understanding of the past, and the way members of these societies shape their identities.

This conception of archives as society’s collective memory already indicates the connection that exists between memory and space, in which the archive is a physical space where memory is stored, constructed and circulated. Space is

necessary to anchor memory for it to be preserved, for example through monuments, artefacts and texts.51 One particularly influential theory on memory’s relationship to space is French historian Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire, or sites of memory, which he set out in Les Lieux de mémoire (1984-92), a series of seven volumes in which he described the French ‘sites’ memory attached itself to and defined French national consciousness. Making a distinction between history and memory, Nora argues that whereas history attaches itself to events, memory attaches itself to sites.52 These sites embody traces of the past and contribute to defining

47_{Astrid Erll, “Narratology and Cultural Memory Studies,” in: Narratology in the Age of}

Cross-Disciplinary Narrative Research, edited by Sandra Heinen and Roy Sommer (New York, Berlin:

Walter de Gruyter, 2009): 217.

48_{Aleida Assmann, “Transformations between History and Memory,” Social Science 75.1 (2008): 55.} 49_{Kenneth E. Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” The American}

Archivist 53.3 (1990): 379.

50_{Assmann 2010, 5.} 51_{Zelizer, 223.}

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memory itself.53 Lieux are identity projection screens, according to which (French) national identity is defined.54 Nora distinguishes three elements of lieux de mémoire: material, symbolic and functional. Lieux de mémoire are created when these aspects co-exist and merge. Secondly, there needs to be an intention and willingness to remember. Without the will to remember select events, everything would have to be remembered, and lieux de mémoire would simply be the same as lieux de histoire.55 Sites of memory may take different shapes. They can be expected lieux such as cemeteries and museums, but could also be more ‘intellectually elaborate.’56 Nora cites as examples portable lieux, such as Jewish Tablets of Law; dominant lieux that are imposed from above, such as official ceremonies; pure sites that only have a commemorative function, such as funeral eulogies; and composite sites, in which the commemorative function is only one among others, such as national flags.57 This wide range of possible lieux suggests a flexibility of the notion, proved by the many adaptations of the concept in different contexts. These have included faithful, one-to-one interpretations of Nora’s lieux de mémoire adapted to different national contexts, as well as methodological transformations of the concept and loose applications.58 Recently, there have also been several efforts to ‘downgrade’ lieux de mémoire (to a subnational, regional level) or ‘upgrade’ them (to a supranational, transnational level).59_{The latter approach is especially interesting for this thesis, as it demonstrates} the potential for expanding the scale of lieux de mémoire to a transnational level. Generally, Nora’s concept offers a valuable concept for this thesis to examine the sites, both material and conceptual, in which collective memory roots itself, possibly also in the context of digital environments. However, the thesis does not mean to follow Nora’s project, and instead uses it only as a point of departure for a different line of inquiry, similarly concerned with identity formation, but less with nationalism and materiality of memory.

53_{Zelizer, 223.}

54_{Benoît Majerus, “Lieux de mémoire: A European Transfer Story,” in: Writing the History of Memory,}

edited by Stefan Berger and Bill Niven (London: Bloomsbury, 2014): 158.

55_{Nora, 18-19.} 56_{Ibid., 22.} 57_{Ibid., 23.} 58_{Majerus, 167.} 59_{Ibid., 165-65.}

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1.3. Globalization and digitization

The global turn has, and continues having, a major influence on collective memory and archives. The control of the nation-state over collective memory, as well as Nora’s nationally focused sites of memory, is challenged by globalization. The changing shape of the nation-state itself necessitates the discussion on collective memory to take place on a more transnational level. Rather than understanding national memory as stable and fixed, there has been a shift to understanding

transnational memory as mobile and non-linear.60 In her article Travelling Memory, Astrid Erll proposes an adjustment of Halbwachs’ original conception of collective memory. She demonstrates how Halbwachs’ understanding of collective memory does not accommodate a transcultural approach to memory. He recognized the transculturality of memory on an individual level in his acknowledgment of the way people base themselves on several different frameworks when they remember, but in terms of the collective, Halbwachs considered collective memory to be

non-transcultural and culturally contained. He described the collective memory of social communities as self-centred and solely interested in similarity and identity.61 Instead, Erll prefers to draw on Aby Warburg’s exhibition of the Mnemosyne-atlas, in which Warburg looked at the movement and migration of symbols across time and space for the development of a concept of transcultural memory that fits our age. Based on this, Erll conceives of transcultural memory as ‘the incessant wandering of carriers, media, contents, forms and practices, their continual ‘travels’ and ongoing transformations through time and space, across social, linguistic and political borders.’62 Rather than thinking in terms of Nora’s sites of memory, Erll deems ‘travels’ of memory to be more accurate for the current time.63_{Erll’s transcultural memory, as well as}

Landsberg’s prosthetic memory, provides useful frameworks to consider the unstable and mediated nature of collective memory in a global era.

The other force changing collective memory and its relation to the archive is digitization. Collective memory is becoming increasingly digital.64 If collective

60_{Laila Amine and Caroline Beschea-Fache, “Crossroads of Memory: Contexts, Agents, and Processes}

in a Global Age,” Culture, Theory and Critique 53.2 (2012): 99.

61_{Astrid Erll, “Travelling Memory,” Parallax 17.4 (2011): 10.} 62_{Ibid., 11.}

63_{Ibid., 15.}

64_{Elizabeth F. Churchill and Nancy Van House, “Technologies of Memory: Key Issues and Critical}

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memory is necessarily mediated, the digital turn requires this statement to be developed even further. Landsberg’s concept of prosthetic memory already demonstrated how media transport memory across cultures, but Andrew Hoskins argues that this still approaches memory from a pre-connective perspective without touching on the radical networking and diffusion of memory brought about by digital technologies.65 His concept of digital network memory is useful to consider the new memory created by contemporary digital technologies. Hoskins argues that

communications such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr ‘dynamically add to, alter, and erase, a kind of living archival memory’ and transform the temporality, spatiality and mobility of memories.66 The archive itself is transformed accordingly. Digital data are fluid, reproducible and transferable and thereby challenge the

traditional artefactual archive. The archive of the past was a hierarchically organized, elite institution. New media remove the limitations on the organisation of information. This liberation from spatial and institutional constraints brought about by the

infrastructural changes in new media opens the archive up to new potentials. According to Hoskins, the archive has become part of a new accessible and highly connected network memory.67

The networked archives Hoskins describes pose a challenge to the traditional relationship between space and memory as defined by Nora’s lieux de mémoire. While the lieux de mémoire provide a valuable understanding of the site-specificity of memory, it is the material aspect in his triad of materiality, symbolism and

functionality that is quickly disappearing in the archive as a site of memory. Both the nature of the material that it collects changes, turning into data, and the emergence of virtual archives that are not necessarily tied to a physical place, transform the

materiality of the archive as a site of memory. Simultaneously, globalization expands the frame of memory from the national to the transnational, further compressing nationally bound, located lieux de mémoire. For the purposes of this thesis, then, it is necessary to take into account these undeniable forces of globalization and

digitization and understand collective memory as transcultural, fundamentally in movement, mobile, fluid, unstable, transferable and mediated. With the analysis of the

65_{Andrew Hoskins, “Media, Memory, Metaphor: Remembering and the Connective Turn,” Parallax}

17.4 (2011): 23.

66_{Hoskins 2009, 92-93.} 67_{Ibid., 97.}

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case studies in the next chapter this contemporary type of collective memory will be related to two archival projects in a specifically European context.

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Chapter II: European Identity and Two Case Studies

The European Union, as a relatively recent construction of a supranational union consisting of a collection of culturally and politically diverse nations, allows for the investigation of collective memory and identity in a transnational and postnational context. It poses challenges to accepted ideas about national collective memory as established by the founding fathers of memory studies, and shows how the utilization of collective memory in forming a shared identity across a number of self-contained nations works or does not work in practice. As Ann Rigney notes, there are multiple ‘Europes’: Europe as legal entity with clearly defined borders, as cultural space with less defined edges, and as ‘imagined community.’ Rigney argues that these structural differences feed into a desire to align the political borders with the cultural borders and vice versa by creating or promoting a shared memory.68 Whether this is indeed possible or desirable remains up for debate, but it explains why the European Union would be interested in promoting a shared memory. Particularly in the European Union, collective memory figures into identity formation, which can be traced to the continent’s conflicts in the twentieth century and the desire to overcome this legacy.69 In addition, the European Union gives the opportunity to look at globalization within a defined, heterogeneous space without being so limitless it is impossible to make any claims. For these reasons, the European Union makes for an appropriate case to look at the functions of collective memory.

2.1. The European Union and European identity

The existence of the European Union depends on the harmonisation of its member states. However, this harmonisation is hindered by the isolationism and nationalism of its individual members.70_{When the modern nations of Europe were formed, states} were used as an instrument to shape the nation’s attributes. In this process, nations came to be organic societies based on common languages, and shared culture, history and traditions.71 Furthermore, the legitimacy of state government depended on the

68_{Rigney, Ann. “Transforming Memory and the European Project.” New Literary History. 43.4 (2012),}

610.

69_{Ibid., 611.} 70_{Leška, 93.}

71_{Andrew Heywood, Politicial Theory: An Introduction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) cited}

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social cohesion of its people. The state therefore had a social and cultural function as well. However, the state can only exist when its citizens are participating in its creation and form a 'demos'.72 On the one hand, the state is needed to maintain and develop the nation’s identity. On the other hand, the state requires the nation, the citizens, to attain legitimacy.73 While this has long been established in the individual nations of Europe, in the union as a whole, where there are many different national identities that have been cultivated over centuries, rather than a united community of citizens, there is no single ‘demos’ as it exists on the nation-state level. In order to truly establish and integrate the federation, the European Union would need to create a common European identity, shared by the citizens of the individual member states.74

In practice, various European institutions indeed use European identity as a political tool for developing a collective and political identity.75 The identity the European Union attempts to promote is institutionally generated to nurture a sense of community among this diverse population.76 Since it cannot base itself on the cultural and linguistic homogenisation of its citizens, it instead relies on the shared

consciousness of belonging to an economic and political space defined by ‘capitalism, social welfare, liberal democracy, respect for human rights, freedom and the rule of law, prosperity and progress.’77_{The problem with European identity is that most} Europeans do not think of themselves as Europeans or experience a sense of

belonging to Europe,78 and that Europeans remain attached to their national identities, rather than a ‘European identity.’79 In Europe, different identities exist alongside each other. Citizens have their national identities, but as the nations are part of a larger union, there also exists a ‘European’ identity, even if it might be a fragile one. These dual identities can be seen to be in conflict.80

72_{Leška, 94.} 73_{Ibid., 94.} 74_{Ibid., 94.}

75_{Marion Demossier, “The Political Structuring of Cultural Identities in Europe,” in: The European}

Puzzle: The Political Restructuring of Cultural Identities in a Time of Transition, edited by Marion

Demossier (Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007): 53.

76_{Guibernau, 311-312.} 77_{Ibid., 312.}

78_{Demoissier, 57.}

79_{Ralph Grillo, “European Identity in a Transnational Era,” in: The European Puzzle: The Political}

Restructuring of Cultural Identities in a Time of Transition, edited by Marion Demossier (Oxford, New

York: Berghahn Books, 2007): 75.

80_{Wil Arts and Loek Halman, “Identity: the Case of the European Union,” Journal of Civil Society 2.3}

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In the literature on globalization, it is often argued that the nation-state, and therefore national identity, is in decline as a consequence of the global society. The role of the nation-state in its control of society and autonomy in the world is seen to be diminished.81 In terms of identity, the decline of the nation-state would imply a decline in the strength of national identities. However, the nation-state has always struggled to reconcile national identity with the diversity of its inhabitants, and people are capable of combining loyalties to their communities with national, regional and global units.82 While the nation-state may indeed be transformed by globalization, it does not disappear. Instead, the nation-state can be understood as flexible and adaptable, and can insert itself into both regional and global structures.83 Such an argument assumes that globalization does not eradicate national identities and that the dual identities of Europeans do not necessarily need to be in conflict. While

globalization in Europe has merged nations in a transnational union, the individual nation is still strong, especially when it comes to identity. Meanwhile, the European Union works to construct a European identity that has to exist alongside these persistent national identities.

The European Union has been working to achieve unification amongst the member states in the domains of economics, trade and the labour market. Similar ambitions exist in its cultural policy. The key aim of this policy is to emphasize Europe’s cultural diversity, while also finding the common ground between European cultures.84 The European Union’s cultural policy can be understood by considering culture’s relation to identity. As several scholars have pointed out, culture plays a role in constructing identity. In this view, identities are manifested and located in culture, language and history.85 This means the European Union could appeal to culture to strengthen European identity. Tuuli Lähdesmäki describes the European Agenda for Culture as one example of the European Union’s cultural policy that aims to reinforce European identity. In aspiring to promote cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, the Agenda also aims to promote cultural heritage. By increasing access to cultural heritage and its circulation, the diverse regional and national heritage is made known

81_{James Fulcher, “Globalization, the Nation-State and Global Society,” The Sociological Review 48.4}

(2000): 523.

82_{Ibid., 538-541.} 83_{Ibid., 541.}

84_{Tuuli Lähdesmäki, “Rhetoric of Unity and Cultural Diversity in the Making of European Cultural}

Identity,” International Journal of Cultural Policy 18.1 (2012): 59.

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around Europe and thus ‘Europeanized.’ Moreover, the encouragement of

intercultural dialogue is meant to increase social cohesion and produce a common European identity.86 Projects such as EUscreen and EFG1914 are in line with such a European Union’s cultural policy, aiming to strengthen European identity through (audiovisual) culture.

In its Digital Agenda for Europe in 2010, the European Commission describes how digital technologies can contribute to the rehabilitation of Europe after the financial crisis by enabling a ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ after years of recession.87 When it comes to cultural heritage, one of the Agenda’s most prominent results is Europeana; a public digital library presenting digitized material from European museums, libraries, archives, and galleries. Both of the case studies that will be examined in this chapter are also the result of funding generated through the Digital Agenda and are connected to Europeana. This chapter will analyse these cases to determine how collective memory is presented in these digital environments.

2.2. Case study: EUscreen

EUscreen is funded by the eContentplus program, which focuses on stimulating the development of digital content for services in areas of public interest. The

development of digital libraries is one of three areas targeted by the eContentplus program.88_{EUscreen is such a digital library, providing an online portal for} broadcasting material from its partners. According to the project page on the

Information Society’s website, online access to television heritage remains fractured for lack of interoperability within metadata and semantics, the absence of proven scenario’s for the use of audiovisual material, rights issues and the lack of

contextualisation.89 EUscreen attempts to solve these problems by building a network of content providers, standardisation bodies and user groups. It aims to set up

interoperability between European audiovisual collections and together with

Europeana develops long-term solutions to rights issues, support user-led demand and

86_{Lähdesmäki, 65.}

87_{European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the}

Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: A Digital Agenda for Europe, 2010, 3.

88_{European Commission, Making Digital Content in Europe More Accessible and User Friendly.} 89_{Europe’s Information Society, Project: EUscreen.}

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provide contextual information.90 Ultimately, EUscreen wants to be an interoperable platform with a collection of television material and references to digitized items of the institutional collections and catalogue entries.91 In its 2011 Annual Report, EUscreen stated that it hoped to stimulate the use of television archive content and so ‘advance active engagement with the cultural memory of Europe both at a national and a European level.’92 The analysis of this case study will look closer at the way EUscreen encourages this engagement with Europe’s cultural memory.

EUscreen gathers its material from twenty-two content providers and has a wide range of material in terms of quantity and content. It therefore has to organize the material in a way that is accessible to a user who is not looking for anything specific. EUscreen allows users to explore its content in various ways. The homepage has a search field, a link to the exhibitions, and, most prominently, an area with a grid of topics, genres, languages and providers. There are seventeen topics presented here, covering different aspects of European life, including Arts and Culture, Being

European, National Holidays, Festivals, Anniversaries, War and Conflict, Disasters

and Education (see fig. 1).

Fig. 1. EUscreen: Section of topic grid on home page.

90_{Europe’s Information Society, Project: EUscreen.} 91_Ibid.

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Selecting a topic, the user is directed to a collection of material dealing with this topic, where a further distinction can be made between types of material (videos, images, texts, audio), genres, languages, providers and decades. The national flags on the thumbnail of each entry indicate the provider’s country. Back on the homepage, it is also possible to view collections organized by genre, which include drama/fiction, entertainment and performing arts, factual, interstitials and trailers, news, and sport.

Each moving image entry has information in the original language and in English, and the terms of use. In some cases there is also additional information, which includes an extended description and further information on, for example, the series in which the item was broadcasted. As standard metadata, there is information on the title (original and in English), the series of which it was part, the provider, the broadcaster, the broadcast date, the production year, the country of production, contributors, aspect ratio, duration, colour, sound, material, original language, language used, subtitle language, and geographical coverage. There is also

information on the filename and identifier, and in some cases a link to the item on the provider’s website. Finally, there is also information that specifically places the entry within EUscreen’s infrastructure, such as the genre and topic it belongs to, and thesaurus terms and keywords, which make the item searchable. The user can print the item’s metadata and contact the provider. If the user has an account on EUscreen, they can bookmark the item, which will then appear on the user’s My EUscreen page. Finally, the page of each entry suggests related items. In some cases, these show items by the same provider or from the same series. In other cases, there are related items from other European countries. For example, a clip from the BBC called Joining the

EU, broadcast in 1962 on the series Gallery, which is a report on the British

application to join the European Union, displays items from VRT and the ORF Austrian Broadcasting Corporation concerning European elections and opinions on the European Union.93

In addition to the selection of topics and genres, EUscreen presents exhibitions covering historical events, political debates and aspects of everyday life in Europe to ‘help you get the most from [the] wealth of material.’94 Currently, there are twenty-three exhibitions available using material from EUscreen. Some titles include Being

93_{EUscreen, Joining the EU:}

http://www.euscreen.eu/play.jsp?id=EUS_7741EF50D8E34B6782AFF976E9F8CC33.

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European, French Television History, Culture in Europe, Communist Romania, Hungarian Music and Dance and The Euro (see figure 2). Some of the exhibitions

have sub-exhibitions that further explore the theme, while others only have one level. For example, The Euro tells the story of the currency in six pages, while Television in

Europe presents six sub-themes, each highlighting a different aspect of European

television. The themes of the exhibitions cover a variety of aspects of European life, either cultural (Hungarian Music and Dance and Fashion), or political and historical (The Velvet Revolution and Communist Romania). Some themes are nationally focused (French Television History, TV3: a Television in and for Catalan and Living

in the Netherlands), while others have a clear pan-European approach (Being

European, Television in Europe and The Euro). To understand the kind of European

collective memory EUscreen presents, two exhibitions with a European focus will be analyzed further.

Fig. 2. EUscreen: Exhibition page.

The European focused exhibitions explicitly or less explicitly deal with a shared European identity and memory. The exhibitions that will be looked at here each take a different attitude towards Europe: one emphasizes nationalism and differences, and another underlines similarities. The first is Being European, curated by Dr. Sian Barber of the University of London. According to its introduction, the exhibition ‘addresses how issues of European identity, culture and heritage are explored on television. It suggests how economic and social factors have fostered a common

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European identity while also reinforcing the importance of national identity.’95 The second sentence already clearly indicates the curator’s interest in national identity. The exhibition has five sub-exhibitions exploring particular themes: Immigration and

Emigration, European National Identity and Culture, Growing up in Europe, The European Culture and A United Europe? (see figure 3).

Fig. 3. EUscreen: Being European main page.

Two of these sub-exhibitions within Being European will be looked at closer here:

European National Identity and Culture and A United Europe?. The first wishes to

‘consider how we define ourselves – who we include in our national definitions and who we exclude.’ It explores attitudes towards national identity in Europe by looking at countries celebrating their national identities by recalling their past, by focusing on internal politics, by revering their national heroes, by showcasing their national attractions and treasures, and by competing in the Eurovision Song Contest and sport games. It suggests a strong emphasis on a national, rather than shared identity. Indeed, on the final page, the curator concedes: ‘Events such as the European

Championships, the World Cup, the Olympics and the Eurovision Song Contest have been used to suggest a shared European identity, but much of the footage included in this exhibition has indicated that it is national rather than a homogenous European identity which is still most important.’ This might be considered a peculiar statement in an exhibition named Being European. The curator seems to suggest ‘being

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European’ for Europeans still means celebrating national identities before a shared identity. Another sub-exhibition, A United Europe?, explores this question from another angle. It purports to investigate what it means to be part of Europe and considers the importance of the European community to European citizens. It begins by stating that one of the most important ways in which Europe is united is in its shared history. It then goes on to acknowledge that despite this shared history and heritage, many European countries are still torn between domestic and European agendas. It illustrates this by showing several clips where ambivalent attitudes towards Europe are displayed. The next part considers the complex relationships between member states and the larger European community by looking at one such particularly problematic relationship: that between Britain and Europe. The sub-exhibition then takes a more optimistic turn by showing how since Europe’s

unification, countries have started to look at each other more: to learn from and better understand each other. It draws attention to the opportunities for travel and

exploration that came with the emergence of a Europe without borders. Nevertheless, attitudes towards Europe vary greatly among member states, and the sub-exhibition considers some of these attitudes in different countries. It shows how some member states have a negative view on being part of Europe, while others still feel positive. The last page of the sub-exhibition reflects on the debates that play out on television and present conflicting views on European politics, people, history and culture. The question mark at the end of the sub-exhibition’s title suggests that the curator

considers the unification of Europe as anything but straightforward. It acknowledges negative views of individual countries of being part of Europe, but also shows the more positive attitudes towards member states amongst each other. Considering these two sub-exhibitions, one which emphasizes the continuing importance of national identities and the other which discusses the difficulties of the European unification, the Being European exhibition presents a nuanced perspective on European

unification and what it means for collective identity.

Another exhibition with a European approach, but a different attitude is

History of European Television (see figure 4). Unlike Being European, it is clearly

less involved with politics, and more with culture. As a result, it is much less concerned with the problems of identification and unification, and instead explores shared experiences through television.

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Fig. 4. EUscreen: History of European Television main page.

Curated by Dr. Dana Mustata of the University of Utrecht, it aims to ‘demonstrate[s] the potential for online audio-visual content to explore European television history in new and exciting ways.’96 The exhibition is divided in five sub-exhibitions: The

Europeans of Early Television, European Milestones of Television, At Home with Television in Europe, Programming Europe and Do You Remember? Televised Moments in Europe. As these titles suggest, the exhibition is strongly concerned with

transnational European television traditions. The sub-exhibition The Europeans of

Early Television takes a transnational stance and shows the shared experiences in

early television across Europe. For example, the continuity announcer is explained as a particularly European phenomenon and the relations between broadcasting practices in Europe are emphasized. The next sub-exhibition, European Milestones in

Television, claims that television is a transnational, rather than national endeavour. It

looks at some milestones in European television history and explores transnational links between countries. For example, there is a page about the advent of colour television, which divided Europe into two different television systems: PAL and SECAM. Another page looks at the launch of national television services around Europe, claiming that the start of these services is a European, rather than national milestone in television. At Home with Television in Europe explores cultures of television viewing and looks for commonalities in these viewing cultures between European nations. One page is devoted to different types of television sets in different

96_{Curator’s Corner History of European Television:}

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nations that emerged with the advent of the medium. Another page addresses the early socializing practices with which television introduced itself to audiences across Europe. The sub-exhibition Programming Europe looks at what programmes in different countries in Europe have in common and aims to search for ‘a common European television culture.’ The sub-exhibition suggests that commonalities can mostly be found in the formats and programmes that have crossed the borders of individual countries. It looks for example at the quiz show, which has been a common feature of television since the 1950s. By showing examples from Italy and Slovenia, the section aims to illustrate how programming can transcend national borders. The final sub-exhibition, Do You Remember? Televised Moments in Europe, explores the role of television in shaping a collective European memory by looking at popular programmes and particular historical events that were broadcast all over Europe. These include the moon landing, which is described as not just a ‘giant leap for mankind,’ but also for the medium of television, and the Eurovision song contest, which is a platform for collective viewing across Europe. As a whole, the History of

European Television exhibition appeals to a shared European collective memory. It

aims to show that television is central in the process of remembering and the shaping of this collective memory. The exhibition is clearly concerned with showing a shared European experience of television, both in terms of production and in remembering.

The curators of the exhibitions on EUscreen are usually connected to institutes, archives, universities, or providers. As a user it is also possible to create your own exhibition on the personal My EUscreen page that was mentioned above. The so-called Exhibition Builder allows the user to create an exhibition like the ones presented by EUscreen (see figure 5). After creating the exhibition, the user can choose to keep it private or make it public. Upon choosing the public option, the user receives the link to the exhibition online. To publish the exhibition on the EUscreen portal alongside the institutional exhibitions, the user has to send an email to the organization, after which it will be reviewed before being presented on the portal. This form of regulation might be necessary, but it also limits the level of user

participation and the potentials of sharing. Currently, all exhibitions on the exhibition portal were made by curators related to institutions and the ‘ordinary’ user still seems to be restricted in their participation.

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Fig. 5. EUscreen: Exhibition builder.

The analysis of this case study has shown that EUscreen presents different

interpretations and narratives of European collective memory alongside each other. The exhibitions feature views both highlighting commonalities in European culture and identity and those questioning these. EUscreen also invites user participation through the Exhibition Builder, and in that way allows users to find their own ways through the collection and share it with others. In theory, the user exhibitions could be presented next to the institutional exhibitions to foster interactions and interrelations. In practice, however, this is currently not the case. The collective memory it presents is therefore for the most part institutionally generated, with minimal, yet existing possibilities for user involvement.

2.3. Case study: EFG1914

EFG1914 is the follow-up project of the European Film Gateway, which ran from 2008 to 2011 and created an online portal for audiovisual material from European film archives and linked it to Europeana. EFG1914 specifically focused on film and film-related material from the First World War. By including non-AV items, such as film programmes, censorship documents, periodicals and stills, the project aimed to

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deliver a more comprehensive picture of the film collections made accessible and provide a context to production, distribution and reception of the presented moving images.97 The project started in 2012 and ran for two years to culminate with the war’s centenary in 2014. 21 archives from fifteen European countries were involved in the project, with the Deutsches Filminstitut acting as the coordinating partner. The project’s funding came from the European CIP/ICT-PSP programme and was initiated by the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE). The CIP (Competiveness and Innovation Framework) and the ICT-PSP (Policy Support Programme) support innovation activities stimulating the use of digital technologies by citizens,

governments and businesses.98 As such, the programmes augment the Digital Agenda for Europe.

On its project website, EFG1914 presented a work plan consisting of nine ‘work packages,’ each led by a different participating organisation.99 This work plan gives a clear insight into the project’s working processes and aims. To start with, the project had to define a content selection plan, which was meant to describe

information about which items should be available at what time. The second part of the work plan was designed to create coherence in the selection and digitization process, in order for the content selection and technical aspects to meet the partners’ standards. The third stage would set a standard digital master format into which the film elements could be transferred. The fourth step was concerned with ingest, encoding and access and would create compressed high quality digital master files and lower quality distribution files for Europeana and EFG. It would integrate an ingestion and encoding process with all the participating film archives so that they could internally ingest digital motion picture content and handle the resulting data. The fifth stage would digitize all the film-related non-film elements, which were selected and prepared in the first step of the work plan. The sixth stage would ensure interoperability of the EFG1914’s content with the European Film Gateway and Europeana. The seventh stage would create a virtual exhibition to ‘demonstrate the added value of collections brought together in the project and move beyond the traditional information access portal.’ The eight work package would ensure consistent and high quality access to EFG1914 and would liaise with the European

97_{EFG1914 Workplan. WP5: Digitization and Delivery of Non-Film Material.}

98_{ICT Policy Support Programme: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ict-policy-support-programme.}

Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme: http://ec.europa.eu/cip.

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office and the project partners to create a network for dissemination purposes. The final work package dealt with the coordination and management of the project.

In the project’s factsheet, EFG1914 describes its expected results. These give an insight into the project’s aims, and since the project ended in January 2014, can be compared to the realized results. The factsheet describes the project’s aim to ‘give access to 661 hours of digitized film and 5600 film-related materials through the EFG portal and Europeana; support film archives in transferring film into digital format; facilitate future re-use of the film material by reaching new user groups; facilitate good practices of film digitization and digital preservation; create synergies with Europeana projects related to the First World War: Europeana 1914-1918 and Europeana Collections 1914-1918.’100 Two observations can be made about these aims and the actions described in the work plan. The first is that the project appears to be particularly preoccupied with establishing digitization practices among film

archives and synergies with other First World War projects. In this sense, EFG1914 is not just a public-facing project, but also wishes to implement a digitization and digital preservation infrastructure for the professional field in Europe. The second is the project’s objective to reach new user groups. Particularly the desire to promote re-use of the film material is noteworthy, as it assumes a participatory role of the user and an active engagement with the past, which is tied to collective memory’s transformation under digitization as described in the previous chapter.

It is important to understand EFG1914 in relation to collective memory. Unlike EUscreen, EFG1914 has a specifically memorial function: it was timed to coincide with the centenary of the First World War. As Rigney demonstrated, Europe’s identity formation through collective memory has at least partially to do with dealing with the legacy of the continent’s hard-fought twentieth century conflicts, of which the First World War was the first.101 In this light, the project can be seen as one way of dealing with this legacy through film and film-related material, a hundred years after the conflict’s onset. Whereas users of EUscreen engage with material from a recent past and are possibly familiar with it from their own

experiences, EFG1914’s material is from a more distant past and was largely unseen and inaccessible before it was digitized and put online. The important difference is

100_{Factsheet EFG1914: Digitising Films on World War I.} 101_{Rigney, 611.}

Collective Memory and the Moving Image Archive: The Changing Sites of Memory in Europe