Digital Audiovisual Archives E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 359

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Today, huge quantities of digital audiovisual resources are already available - everywhere and at any time - through Web portals, online archives and libraries, and video blogs. One central question with respect to this huge amount of audiovisual data is how they can be used in specific (social, pedagogical, etc.) contexts and what are their potential interest for target groups (communities, professionals, students, researchers, etc.). This book examines the question of the (creative) exploitation of digital audiovisual archives from a theoretical, methodological, technical and practical point of view, especially in three main directions of work: - The repurposing and republishing of existing audiovisual data. - The building of community-centric audiovisual archives. - The use of digital social media and Web 2 technology for the diffusion and sharing of audiovisual content. This book presents a series of concrete examples of creative uses of digital audiovisual corpora for education, research and cultural heritage preservation and valorization.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART 1: Analysis, Rewritings and Republications

Chapter 1: Analyzing an Audiovisual Corpus of A Thousand and One Nights

1.1. Introduction

1.2. Creating a thematic educational dossier based on A Thousand and One Nights

1.3. Perspectives: ASWs and new forms of digital writing

Chapter 2: Analyzing a Corpus of Traditional Bread Making

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Creating educational dossiers to raise public awareness

2.3. Creating a communication dossier for improving cultural events

Chapter 3: Republishing Audiovisual Resources

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Breakdown of the (re)publication process according to genre

3.3. “Rerecording” audiovisual texts

3.4. Interactive video books

3.5. Thematic folders

3.6. Educational folders

3.7. Narrative path

PART 2: Audiovisual Archives, Knowledge Management and Cultural Heritage

Chapter 4: An Archive on the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Andean Populations in Peru and Bolivia

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Scientific methodology and ethical and participative approaches

4.3. The Andean intangible cultural heritage portal

4.4. Interests and perspectives of the project

4.5. Conclusion

Chapter 5: An Audiovisual Azerbaijani Cultural Heritage Portal for Educational and Academic Use

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Disseminating and transmitting cultural heritages via the Internet

5.3. Aims of creating an Azerbaijani cultural heritage portal (AACHP) in the ASA-SHS project

5.4. Principal aspects of cultural heritage approach in developing an Azerbaijani cultural heritage portal (AACH)

5.5. Analyzing audiovisual corpora for AACH in ASA

5.6. Applications for the AACH portal and the ASW environment

5.7. Conclusion: advantages, benefits and perspectives

PART 3: Social Networks, Web 2.0 and Mobile Communication

Chapter 6: Academic Communication via Facebook and Twitter

6.1. Introduction

6.2. The ArkWork portal

6.3. Facebook for sharing various types of information

6.4. Twitter as a means of publicizing short information

Chapter 7: Uses for Digital Content Sharing Platforms

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Flickr

7.3. Twitpic

7.4. ArkWork on YouTube

7.5. ArkWork on Dailymotion

7.6. ArkWork on Vimeo

7.7. Nomadic approaches: mobile communication for sharing academic content

Chapter 8: Uses for Content Aggregators and Community Networks

8.1. Netvibes, a content aggregator

8.2. Pearltrees, a content curation platform

8.3. Sharing information on community portals: the Louvre Community portal (communauté.louvre.fr)

8.4. Conclusion

Chapter 9: Tracing Video Usage: The Potential of VDI

9.1. Introduction

9.2. Presentation of the scenario

9.3. Walkthrough

9.4. Conclusion

Glossary of Specialized Terms

Glossary of Acronyms and Names

Bibliography

List of Authors

Index

First published 2012 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUKJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USAwww.iste.co.ukwww.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2012

The rights of Peter Stockinger to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Digital audiovisual archives / edited by Peter Stockinger.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-84821-338-8

1. Audio-visual archives--Case studies. I. Stockinger, Peter.

CD973.2.D54 2011

025.3'47--dc23

2011042576

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-84821-338-8

Introduction1

We discussed the issue of analyzing digital audiovisual corpora in [STO 11a] using a variety of concrete examples. We also examined in this book a working environment which enables us to analyze these corpora that are specifically adapted to their users’ professional or personal needs.

Analyzing audiovisual corpora involves identifying the stages in work processes which define every digitizing project of knowledge heritages (i.e. scientific, cultural, etc.). This follows the (audiovisual) data collection stage which documents a “research terrain” and precedes the publication and dissemination of (analyzed, i.e. described, classified, annotated, interpreted etc.) data. Along with the technical processing (“cleaning”, improving visual creation, etc.) and auctorial (i.e. mounting) stages of data collection and creation of field corpora, this is an unavoidable movement from transforming the status of virtually relevant digital data into a potential resource that is a potential “advantage” for the audience and its expectations, needs, and curiosities for various contexts of usage. In [STO 11a], various approaches are discussed which might define a concrete analysis and approaches such as:

– stricto sensu textual analysis, which consists of locating (identifying) only those passages in an audiovisual text that are genuinely relevant for an analysis project, presuming that for a given analysis not the whole audiovisual text (no matter if it is a documentary or a simply “raw” recording of a cultural or scientific manifestation) is necessarily relevant. Once the passage(s) is/are identified, the analyst (a role given to an individual or group undertaking an analysis project) segments the audiovisual text, that is (virtually) extracts the identified passage(s), provides them with a provisory title, and records the temporal values corresponding to their beginning and end of the audiovisual text’s linear progression. The analyst can always return to this analysis to modify, for example, the beginning and end of the segmented passage, to suppress segmented passages, or redefine identified passages, and so on;

– meta-description of which the object is not so much the audiovisual text or the analyzed passage of an audiovisual text. The aim of meta-description, rather, is to explain the aim of the analysis itself: its authors, aims, the area of expertise (i.e. the area of knowledge concerned) or even the genre that it represents (basic versus detailed analysis, an excerpt versus the whole audiovisual text, overall content versus visual and acoustic patterns, analysis as linguistic adaptation of the audiovisual text or part of it). Meta-description also defines its authors rights as well as the rights for its use and exploitation by an interested public (in a new analysis project, for example);

– paratextual description initially aims to specify the formal identity of the audiovisual text and/or each identified and virtually extracted excerpt. This involves identifying indicative information related to the author(s), directors, producers, and so on, of the audiovisual text (or an excerpt of it). This description enables us to identify the genre(s) which the audiovisual text represents and also identify the important times and places in the “life” of the text in question, for example the time and date of production, publication and dissemination, latest update, and so on. Another important point of the paratextual description is that of the explicit rights that govern ownership of the audiovisual text (or a particular passage) and of its various uses by the interested public;

– audiovisual description specifically focuses on analyzing the audiovisual patterns which are composed of the text (or a specific passage which was identified and virtually extracted). The focus of audiovisual description, for example, ranges from recording of different frames in a filmed event to the sounds accompanying it or synchronization between “acoustic” and “visual” patterns;

– thematic description involves explaining the content conveyed by an audiovisual text which is being analyzed (or an excerpt of this) including thematized events or situations (i.e. the domain to which the text refers), discursive thematization strategies (i.e. the perspective in which an event or situation is being examined, the progressive development of a theme in the text etc.);

– pragmatic description – in the wider sense, has three objectives: 1) highlighting the potential interest, the potential value of a text (or a specific passage) for an audience and a context of use, 2) enriching the text (or excerpt of it) (via commentaries, bibliographies (including Web) suggestions etc.) in order to adapt the text to the needs and interests of a targeted audience and the specific constraints of a specified context of use, 3) producing, if necessary, an appropriate linguistic version of the audiovisual text (or an excerpt of it) for an audience that cannot understand, or fully understand, the text’s language of production (in general, this involves text translation (not necessarily a literal or “faithful” translation) or producing a linguistic version of the text which is better adapted to the sociolinguistic register of the audience’s language. Note that the pragmatic description ends where technical and authorial processing of an audiovisual text or corpus begins: pragmatic description, specifically analysis in general, does not focus on the audiovisual text’s “materiality”. Modifying the audiovisual text’s “materiality” involves processing audiovisual corpora from a purely technical perspective (“trimming” collected audiovisual data, cleaning files, improving acoustic or visual quality etc.) or from an authorial perspective (displaying audiovisual data according to a specific scenario, with additional music and voice overs (production technique where voice is not part of the narrative), post synchronization of visual and sound patterns etc.) .

To enable everyone to carry out “their” analysis projects with this variety and richness of approaches, a small group of researchers and engineers working at ESCoM (Equipe Sémiotique Cognitive et Nouveaux Médias [Cognitive Semiotics and New Medias Lab]) at FMSH (Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme)1 in Paris have developed a sophisticated digital work environment called the ASW Studio in reference to the ASW-HSS (Audiovisual Semiotics Workshop for analyzing corpora in Humanities and Social Sciences)2. The ASW Studio is composed of several specialized workshops: the Segmentation Workshop (virtual) for audiovisual data, the Description Workshop, the Publishing Workshop, and the Modeling Workshop for the metalinguistic resources necessary for carrying out the analysis/description of the audiovisual data. The analysis of audiovisual corpora is carried out in the segmentation and description workshops presented in further detail in [STO 11a].

This book will develop the analysis of audiovisual corpora in further detail in terms of the analysis projects. Like any project, an analysis project of audiovisual corpora follows precise objectives, stages, and so on, (e.g. defining the project, analyzing the needs and project related audiovisual information that already exists, carrying out the project etc.) and is led by a person or team working in a given framework (social, community, institutional etc.).

We will examine the three types of analysis for audiovisual corpora which, in one way or another, explore new aspects and perspectives of production, dissemination, sharing, and enriching knowledge in an entirely digital context.

The first type of work relies on the creative reuse of audiovisual corpora which have often (but not necessarily always) been already analyzed and published (on a Web portal for example) to submit them to a new cycle of analysis and publication with a view to create new products or services from it (see [STO 99]) for specific audiences or fixed usage. This is carried out in what is presently known asrepurposing or even document reengineering. Chapter 1 presents an analysis project focusing on a corpus which has already been published online based on A Thousand and One Nights3. Chapter 2 is dedicated to analyzing and re-analyzing corpora which have been partially published online focusing on the traditional production of bread in France and Portugal4. Chapter 3 examines different types of publications/republications which have proven particularly useful for experiments carried over a number of years at ESCoM in its Research and Development “Archives Audiovisuelles de Recherche” (Audiovisual Research Archives) program5 (see [STO 11a] for further details), with support/help from a series of European and French research and development projects6.

The second type of research focuses on using the ASW Studio for creation of digital audiovisual and specialized geographically thematized corpora, as well as for analyzing and publishing (or republishing) data composing these archives. Chapter 4 describes an area of experimentation based on constructing and using Andean Quechuaphone communities. This area of experimentation is part of the European research and development program Convergence7 developing, among other things, technologies which enable us to trace all uses of digital data (such as a video) over the Internet. Chapter 5 describes an area of research in the ASW-HSS project based on creating an archive dedicated to cultural heritages (in this case, that of Azerbaijan).

The third type of research focuses on analyzing and publishing projects for audiovisual corpora using new possibilities presented by social networks, Web 2.0 or even mobile communications to better circulate, share and enrich previously analyzed and published audiovisual extracts. Chapter 6 examines case studies for publication and sharing of scientific information via Facebook and Twitter.Chapter 7 examines the importance of using dissemination platforms for digital data such as YouTube, DailyMotion, or Vimeo. Chapter 8 demonstrates how to use, in an analysis/publication project, “aggregators of Web 2.0 content” such as Netvibes or scoop.it or even research communities such as Louvre.fr. Finally, Chapter 9 explores the importance of “usage tracing” technology for digital data developed in the Convergence project by developing in a highly detailed and technical way, the area of experimentation examined in Chapter 4, including the diffusion of sensitive audiovisual content which documents the intangible heritage of Quechuaphone communities in Peru and Bolivia.

To conclude this examination, it should be emphasized that this book is the product of collective and interdisciplinary work converging “fundamental” and applied research, informatics, and human social sciences (specifically those of semiotics and linguistics). This has been led over a period of 10 years by a small team of researchers and engineers who have also written this book and [STO 11a]. I would like to formally acknowledge all of them and convey my regards to them.

Throughout the past 10 years of research and development, our team has benefited from the support of a number of friends and colleagues from France and elsewhere. In particular, we thank the following people: Patrick Courounet, Steffen Lalande, Abdelkrim Beloued, Bruno Bachimont (INA Recherche); Jocelyne and Marc Nanard (CNRS-Lirmm); Marie-Laure Mugnier, Michel Chein, Alain Gutierrez (CNRS-Lirmm); David Genest (University of Angers-Leria); Danail Dochev, Radoslav Pavlov (Académie des Sciences de Bulgarie); Stavros Christodoulakis, Nektarios Moumoutzis (Université technologique de la Canée);

Finally, we profusely thank Muriel Chemouny (FMSH-ESCoM) for having reviewed the contributions to this book and Elisabeth de Pablo (FMSH-ESCoM) for creating the manuscript.

1 Introduction written by Peter STOCKINGER.

1 “House of the Sciences of Man”, (http://www.msh-paris.fr/en/foundation/missions).

2 ASW-HSS (Audiovisual Semiotics Workshop for analyzing corpora in Humanities and Social Sciences) is a research project by ESCoM/FMSH financed by the ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche [National Research Agency]) in France. Its reference number is: ANR-08-BLAN-0102-01. ASW-HSS began in January 2009 and will officially end in December 2011. For further details, visit the official Website of the ASW-HSS project: http://www.ASW-HSS.fr/

3 The audiovisual corpora are sourced from the AAR program (“Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche”) [Audiovisual Research Archives] from the ESCoM Research and Development program, presented in further detail in [STO 11a]; see also the program’s official Website: http://www.archivesaudiovisuelles.fr/EN/

4 Parts of this corpus are also published on the AAR portal.

5 The official site can be found at: http://www.archivesaudiovisuelles.fr/EN/

6 This consists primarily of three projects; SAPHIR, LOGOS and DIVAS. SAPHIR (“Système d’Assistance à la Publication Hypermédia” [Assistance System for Hypermedia Publication]) is a French research project financed by the French ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche [National Research Agency]) and coordinated by the INA Recherche which began in 2006 and finished at the end of 2010. LOGOS is an acronym for “Knowledge on demand for ubiquitous learning”, a European research and development project financed in the 6th PCRD which began in January 2006 and finished in February 2009. DIVAS is an acronym for “Direct Video & Audio Content Search Engine” which is a European research and development project, which was also financed in the 6th PCRD beginning in January 2007 and ending in February 2009. For further details, see the glossary at the end of this book.

7 Convergence is a European research and development project which will run from June 2010 to February 2013. It is coordinated by the CNIT (Consorzio Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni [Interuniversity Consortium for Telecommunication]) in Rome and financed by the 7th PCRD, No. FP7-257123). The aim of the Convergence project is to enrich the Internet with a new publication-subscription service model focused around content and based on a shared container for each type of digital data, including people and real world objects (RWOs). This shared container, called a Versatile Digital Item (VDI) is a structured set of digital data and metainformation, identified in isolation (i.e. such as the URL on a Web page) and which includes the concept of a Digital Item defined by MPEG-21. The significance of ESCoM and the ANR program in this project relates to the fact that all uses of a video online can be traced via VDI technology. This opens up the possibility of circulating digital content and appropriating those that respect the rights of authors and owners. The official Convergence site can be found at: http://www.ict-convergence.eu/

PART 1

Analysis, Rewritings and Republications

Chapter 1

Analyzing an Audiovisual Corpus of A Thousand and One Nights1

1.1. Introduction

The ALIA1 Workshop (LHE - Literary Workshop of Here and Elsewhere) is one of the ASW-HSS projects, which include the Culture Crossroads Archives (CCA)2 for cultural studies and the ADA3 (ArkWork) for archeology. The aim of the ALIA (LHE) dossier is to communicate and improve the online literary heritage for various Internet audiences such as researchers, students, media professionals and so on.

The aim of the ALIA is to create an audiovisual corpus of French and world literature, analyze it using the ASW Studio and then publish it on a portal. The analyzed and published corpus on the ALIA (LHE) portal4 (see Figure 1.1) can be accessed via several sections such as knowledge topics, thesauruses, collections of texts and so on.

Figure 1.1. First interface of the LHE portal

The audiovisual LHE corpus is primarily composed of audiovisual texts from human and social science resources from the Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche [Audiovisual Research Archives - ARA] among others5 following collaboration with researcher-academics (Jean-Yves Masson, professor of compared literature at University Paris IV Sorbonne; Jean Baumgarten, director of research at CNRS and specialist in Jewish cultural history; Frank Greiner, specialist in transmitting aesthetic and literary models at the University of Lille III), public figures (Jean Lacouture, journalist, reporter and author) or partner organizations6, publishing houses7 including interviews with authors, or video examples of literary expressions.

Another partnership, based on a rewarding collaboration was “A la rencontre d’écrivains”. This association is directed by Francis Cransac, who had organized his first literary festival in 1994. Since then, this festival has been based on different themes for amateurs, academics, and professionals. The festival’s content has also been recorded and published online on the ARA portal since 20068.

This highlights the importance of an active collaboration, not only with the LHE dossier management committee, responsible for verifying each stage of experimentation in the ASW-HSS project, but also with potential external users of publications from audiovisual corpus analysis, that is the management committee including researcher-academic, Jean-Yves Masson, responsible for verifying each stage of experimentation in the project, and eminent personalities from the literary establishment.

This framework was beneficial not only for systematically analyzing a large part of the LHE audiovisual corpus (accessible via the online portal) but also for leading a series of experiments such as those carried out in the Décryptimages project9. We will examine one of these experiments on audiovisual texts examining A Thousand and One Nights.

In order to do so, we will consider the different stages creating a thematic educational dossier through an example created on an audiovisual corpus of A Thousand and One Nights. From this initial stage, which involves choosing texts from a vast collection of audiovisual literature, we will examine how their technical process depend on the type of initial sound document, that are segmented or non segmenting videos, extracting relevant parts for each specific theme, in order to adapt them to the demands of the thematic educational dossier. We will also consider the role of each of these texts in the overall structure of the learning dossier and reasons for these functions, primarily due to their semiotic features. Following this, we will focus on the process of analyzing these texts according to their individual characteristics that is semiotic in context, and final editorial choice. The aim, using this example, is to provide a critical overview both of the constraints imposed by the text and the ASW Studio, as well as the wide range of possibilities for detailed audiovisual semiotic analysis and publication for a predefined community of users.

We will conclude this chapter by examining some of the uses of the ASW studio in the context of developing digital records and sharing scientific and professional knowledge.

1.2. Creating a thematic educational dossier based on A Thousand and One Nights

1.2.1. Choosing an audiovisual corpus

The LHE workshop, like CCA or ArkWork, was principally based on audiovisual texts selected from the vast range of corpora in the Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche [Audiovisual Research Archives, ARA] and several theatrical productions carried out during the project. This includes interviews with academics on literature, literary production, experts on its relation with other disciplines such as human and social sciences, interviews with authors about their personal styles, as well as seminars and original stage productions and so on.

From this variety of material, there are several texts which can be selected for the theme of A Thousand and One Nights. There are three texts which are interesting for their variety in both genre and content because they provide three different perspectives on the subject:

– an interview with Joseph Sadan from Tel Aviv University (Israel) presenting A Thousand and One Nights within the general context of the “sociocultural aspects of classical Arabic literature”10. This interview was carried out during his visit to the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH)11, Paris, in 2007;

– a seminar by Aboubakr Chraïbi entitled “En dire plus ou en dire moins: traduire les Mille et une nuits” [Saying more or less: translating A Thousand and One Nights] examining eroticism in A Thousand and One Nights, comparing the original Arabic text with 19th Century translations by renowned authors;

– an original modern stage production, adapted from A Thousand and One Nights - “L’Amour impossible d’après les Mille et une nuits” [Impossible love according to A Thousand and One Nights] – performed by Bruno de La Salle, mixing narration with instrumental music and vocals12.

1.2.2. Text analysis

Semiotic analysis of audiovisual texts is governed by original editorial choices: our selection is based on the type of publication which is a thematic educational dossier, where the dossier is aimed at an “absolute beginner” adult audience for life-long learning. Note, however, that even if these texts are compiled together, they can still be viewed separately and are reusable in other types of publications.

1.2.2.1. Building the dossier: text structure

In the learning dossier's thematic, we need to identify the role of each audiovisual text in our discourse on A Thousand and One Nights. This involves organizing them around a central axis. More generally, as shown through the interview that discusses sociocultural aspects of classical Arabic literature, we will focus the discourse on a specific theme in A Thousand and One Nights, namely eroticism, as examined in Aboubakr Chraïbi’s seminar13 and exemplified in the contemporary theater adaptation. This articulation of the dossier, that is its “mode of use” is specified in the metadescription for each audiovisual text.

This organization is applicable thanks to our videos features. Other structures can also be used depending on the genre of the texts and the style of the discourse.

1.2.2.2. Processing corpora: choice of analysis and segmentation

Exploring this theme implies that we have undertaken a detailed analysis of a segmented video14. This approach is clearly expressed and described in the metadescription section in the analysis workshop15.

However, we also need to account for the characteristics, and even constraints of each of these original texts. This is because their original form differs from each other. For example, the interview is already divided into audiovisual segments whilst the seminar and filmed stage production are not. In compliance with the analysis procedure we have opted for the segmented text, we will initially submit these last two texts to the segmentation workshop to create segments.

Segmentation of the seminar is carried out according to the speaker’s discourse (see Figure 1.2) and, for the Thousand and One Nights production, in different threads of the narrative (see Figure 1.3). This segmentation process is carried out separately for each audiovisual document.

Figure 1.2. Segmentation of Aboubakr Chraïbi’s seminar on translations of A Thousand and One Nights and located in the section “Generalities” relating to each segment

Figure 1.3. Segmentation of the video entitled “L’Amour impossible, d’après les mille et une nuits” [impossible love, according to A Thousand and One Nights, based on the story’s narrative

In terms of the interview, the segmentation process involves isolating the thematic sequences relevant to the dossier16 (see Figure 1.4). In the video’s hour and half duration, focus on A Thousand and One Nights is only for 20 minutes because Joseph Sadan discusses the history of classical Arabic literature with respect to its sociocultural aspects and only uses the example of this corpus to reinforce his main argument.

Figure 1.4. Selection of segments about A Thousand One Nights in the interview listed in the section “generalities” relating to each segment

Beyond these technical considerations, it is essential to consider semiotic specificities of each text. The importance of the interview and the seminar lies in the oral discourse’s content whilst the stage production adds visual and acoustic content which provides an additional semiological approach.

1.2.2.3. Analysis

Once the text is “prepared”, after segmentation and selection of one or more video segments, the task of analyzing, describing, and indexing can begin. The audiovisual text that we have chosen to analyze first is the interview which is the central axis on which the other two texts will depend.

Joseph Sadan uses general scientific elements to contextualize the appearance and subsequent evolution of A Thousand and One Nights’ corpus historically and geographically. In contrast, the seminar approaches the subject through specific perspectives, namely the theme of eroticism and translations of the text. Finally, the theater adaptation provides a modern representation of one of the stories from A Thousand and One Nights. Among the resources we have used, one of the most important was an archive on art in Arabic literature composed by the BnF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France [French National Library]), a broad overview of the history of A Thousand and One Nights corpus which highlights the multiple cultural layers composing it, from India, Persia and Egypt and its subsequent evolution through Western interpretations. The archive is illustrated with manuscripts from the BnF’s art collection17.

The importance of an interview conducted as a seminar, in reference to those created for the Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche [Audiovisual Research Archives], lies essentially in its content. There are few variations in the visual and acoustic patterns which can therefore be briefly and quickly described e.g. wide shot, shot focused on the researcher, man or woman’s voice and so on. Indexing these scenes is a quick process. In contrast, emphasis is placed on themes with focus on oral discourse as we will see in the rest of this chapter.

1.2.2.3.1. The dossier’s central axis: a scientific interview on classical Arabic literature

The indexing framework is provided by the vocabulary used by the researcher and the context of his discourse, which is also the case when approaching a written text. This method involves systematically identifying parts of his discourse that best contextualize the literary corpus by highlighting terms, expressions and concepts discussed by the researcher. In other words, this consists of answering the five classic “W”s and one “H” that is who, what, when, where, why, and how (see [LAS 48])18.

Figure 1.5. Overview of contextualized classification

In terms of indexation words, utterances and even set expressions are used to define each contextually. Several types of contextualizations are therefore included in the formula entitled “Contextualized classification” (see Figure 1.5).

The first feature to be mentioned is the minimum expression of the term with its linguistic category, with the possibility of adding a variant, even an alternative expression. Then it is provided with a discursive contextualization that is referential, spatial, temporal, historical, social, thematic, cognitive and so on, which is then accompanied by a synthetic presentation of the indexed piece.

In the interview there is an abundance of historical references to places, times, names of important figures, current researchers, texts, sometimes named in Arabic or Persian. Each concept, work, author, genre, character, literary theme, cultural feature, place, period and so on can be indexed in various existing orthographic transcriptions using the corresponding description scheme.

Detailed description formulas are used for each field to identify the work, a specific excerpt in a complete text, the author, the literary genre accompanied by a synthetic description of the subject and so on using a glossary prepared by the LHE workshop. The original Arabic term is also included alongside each indexed word as well as its “aliases” that is various other orthographic transcriptions.

For example, in Figure 1.6 the name of the King, Shahrayar, one of the main characters in the narrative framework of A Thousand and One Nights in Scheherazade’s story, is indexed under different Arabic transcriptions.

Figure 1.6. Indexation formula of a character’s name in the narrative framework of A Thousand and One Nights in the original Arabic (detail)

This highlights the importance of contextualizing terms at the point of indexation, which is proven particularly in the title A Thousand and One Nights itself. A variety of versions from different periods and cultures (from both East and West) use the same title whether they are translations or adaptations. What could have been a real difficulty at the beginning is resolved by replacing the term precisely at each indexation in the different contexts that we have mentioned. The term is therefore systematically indexed multiple times under the same title but in separate description formulas. It is described and placed in its spatial, temporal, and discursive context.

Figure 1.7 provides an example of indexation for the title of the Persian work at the basis of A Thousand and One Nights. An initial indexation of the title is carried out in French and then a second in Persian.

Figure 1.7. Example indexation of the title “A Thousand and One Nights” corresponding to the original Persian text

On the other hand, it was also essential with A Thousand and One Nights, created over centuries using multiple oral and written literary materials, to create in this narrative oral tradition a dynamic tradition which provides the essential style of the text. This was highlighted thanks to the description field of “Literary materials” (see Figure 1.8).

This description scheme enables us to identify various materials at the heart of a written text (i.e. oral stories, journey notes, diaries, historical events, various facts and drawings etc.) and account for the complexity of some texts’ structures. Examples of this might be fairy tales, legends, mythology, and also journey accounts in travel guides.

The advantage of this systematic and extremely precise indexation is that Internet users can access video excerpts corresponding exactly to each area of research, thanks to various description schemes from literature and term contextualization.

Figure 1.8. Example of the description pattern for “Literary materials”

1.2.2.3.2. A theater adaptation of a story from A Thousand and One Nights

Note that the original text had previously been segmented according to the various narrative threads of the story. Given the specificity of the audiovisual text, a semiotic approach took place which was slightly different from the two previous pieces. The visual (i.e. staging) and acoustic dimensions (i.e. instrumental music and singing) provide additional elements to describe the audiovisual text.

This adaptation of a story from A Thousand and One Nights is a narration of “L’Amour impossible, d’après les Mille et une nuits” [Impossible love, according to A Thousand and One Nights] by the musician, raconteur, and director, Bruno de La Salle. This is accompanied by the crystal Baschet19, which was used by La Salle to create crystalline sounds (see Figure 1.9), whilst another musician, Aimée Douce de La Salle20, plays the tambura, a stringed Indian instrument (see Figure 1.10).

Figure 1.9. Bruno de La Salle21 (director and raconteur) playing the Baschet organ

The structure of the analysis revolves around two axes; on the one hand the thematics involved, as with the two previous texts, examining themes, characters, places, literary references and so on, which are found in different sequences of the story’s narration. Each protagonist, every town name, each significant object appearing throughout the narrative is carefully indexed, described and contextualized according to the process used for both the interview and the seminar.

The two additional axes, which show the importance of describing this kind of stage production, focus on visuals and acoustics. The first one, visual discourse, identifies and describes significant objects in the staging e.g. colors, decorations, costumes, changes in scene and so on. Even if there are not that many visual elements, they provide interesting indications, for example, the sari worn by the musician, the stringed instrument that she is playing, the tambura (a traditional classical Indian instrument, closely related to the sitar) (see Figure 1.10). These cultural indicators clearly refer to the Indian links of A Thousand and One Nights.

Figure 1.10. Aimée Douce de La Salle, singing and playing the tambura

In contrast, acoustics focuses on the sounds, noises, voices, music, even audience applause, providing information on their type, characteristics and intensity (identifying the technique of the sound) and so on.

In the framework of this thematic dossier, we have clearly chosen to emphasize the relationship between the narration and the music (both instrumental and vocal). A brief consideration of the story’s content itself is also very important. “Impossible love” focuses on the last of the stories in A Thousand and One Nights which Scheherazade tells to the Sultan Shahrayar to try and persuade him not to kill her. It tells the story in which the Vizier is pleading for love.

The story relates the chance meeting between a Persian prince, Ali Ben Bekar, and a princess, Shams al Naar, the favorite mistress of the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, and their subsequent falling in love. It tells the story of an impossible and pure love, describing three meetings which lead inevitably to their demise. The atmosphere is tense and tragic with the piercing, almost oppressive rhythm of the crystal organ accompanying their unavoidable doom, and indicating the fatal outcome of the story. The instrumental partnership also expresses the love of the two characters for each other. Similarly, the singing during Scheherazade’s enchanting pleading to Shahrayar, conveys her love for him.

To return to indexing terms in acoustics, therefore, when we index the name of the instrument, we also indicate its expressive function in relation to the various passages in the narration.

1.3. Perspectives: ASWs and new forms of digital writing

Just as A Thousand and One Nights was composed orally which was then written, rewritten, translated, altered and interpreted in a multitude of ways encouraging human thought and producing more western and eastern versions, each audiovisual text can emerge as material for encouraging thought or generating reflection in a community of users, whether they are individuals or communities of individuals from research, media, the art world or the world of publishing and so on.

This example of use of audiovisual texts in the strict framework of a thematic dossier demonstrates the wide range of possibilities offered by the ASW-HSS environment, not only in terms of analysis but also for releasing videos and, more generally, with regard to experimenting with multimedia writing.

The analysis and video publication tools provided by the ASW Studio and its hypertextual nature (see [STO 07]22) can help users to publish their thoughts on a text’s semiotic content and therefore provide a wider interaction than those of existing electronic reviewers23. The same text can therefore be the subject of multiple approaches and analyses and can be included in multiple specialist publications, measured in relation to each other using this hypertextual function. Therefore, video analyses can be used as a point of departure for other analyses as many times as the video makes individuals or communities of individuals reflect on issues from various areas of study. In addition, collaboration between several individuals or groups of individuals working in the same field or even different disciplines can decipher and analyze the same audiovisual corpus according to a previously defined scenario.

The project set up by Laurent Gervereau, historian, art historian and president of the Institut des images, is a good example of collaboration in terms of deciphering images. Established in partnership with the Ligue de l’enseignement and the Institut des images, his project focuses on analyzing the semiotics of images, whether drawn, filmed, photographed and so on to propose modules for thematic and age analysis (this can be viewed online on the Décryptimages Website or the “Portail d’éducation aux images”). This project has benefited from the support and participation of organizations such as the CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée [National center for cinema and animated images]24), the Societé française de la photographie, the Maison européene de la photographie, universities and well known figures from film and the media25. The aim of the ASW-HSS project, which follows the development work started by the Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche (Audiovisual Research Archives, AFA) lies in part in visual semiotics, as studied by the Décrytimages work group. Methodological reflection in meetings between Laurent Gervereau, members from the Ligue de l’enseignement, the CNC and the ESCoM team has resulted in the production of a semiotic analysis of a small corpus of thematically defined and selected videos from the CCA26 and LHE27 dossiers, of which A Thousand and One Nights was one, to make them available to Internet users on the Décrytimages portal.

However, an interesting approach, in which research led in the ASW framework has in fact found its place, was that developed by the Pôle ImageSon28 in the Mediterranean House of Human Sciences (MHHS). The site, run by research groups from various parts of the MMSH laboratories, aims to be a “place of experimentation, discussion and publication links for the various multiple links between text and images in scientific writing and communicating knowledge in human and social sciences”29.

The innovative forms of analysis and publication produced in the ASW project aid general reflection about new approaches for electronic writing, not only for freedom of use or even appropriation on the part of the user, but also for recommunicating knowledge thanks to the ASA framework’s nuanced editing system which can be adapted to users’ needs.

The Mediterranean House of Human Sciences (MHHS) has therefore expressed interest in the ASW project and has participated in our research during a conference organized in 2010 by the head of sound archives at the MHHS, Véronique Ginouvès, in collaboration with Florence Descamps, researcher at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes entitled “Le chercheur et ses sources sonores et audiovisuelles. Comment les partager? Comment les diffuser? Besoins, risques, contraintes, atouts et benefices” [The researcher and sound and audiovisual resources. How to share and publish them? Needs, risks, constraints, assets, and benefits]30. The LHE presentation created a large amount of interest with the help of researchers and archivists with respect to ways of improving and disseminating knowledge.

1 Chapter written by Muriel CHEMOUNY.

1 Acronym of “Atelier Littéraire d’Ici et d’Ailleurs”.

2 The CCA portal: http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/ARC/FR/.

3 The ADA (Atelier des Arkéonautes, or ArkWork) portal: http://semioweb.mshparis.fr/corpus/ADA/FR.

4 The ALIA portal: http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/ALIA/FR/.

5 For further details on the research and development dossier which was started by ESCoM in 2001, refer the foreword of this book. Further information can also be found on the AAR portal: http://www.archivesaudiovisuelles.fr/FR/about4.asp.

6 We should specifically highlight the partnership with “Décryptimages”, a project initiated by Laurent Gervereau, historian and theoretician of political image, photography, and contemporary art, in cooperation with the Ligue de l’enseignement and the Institut des images, which specializes in image analysis and learning. Laurent Gervereau invited us to take part in this project to create educational dossiers about world folk tales and culture. For further information, see the Décryptimages website: http://www.decryptimages.net/.

7 Galaade publishers, set up in 2005 by Emmanuelle Collas, specialized in French and world fiction, literary essays and contemporary debate. See http://www.galaade.com for further details.

8 See, for example, the “Quatorzièmes Rencontres d’Aubrac” [Fourteenth Meetings of Aubrac] from 2009 based on the theme of a “Tour through the absurd”: http://www.archivesaudiovisuelles.fr/1900/.

9 See footnote 5.

10 The interview can be seen at the following address: http://semioweb.mshparis.fr/corpus/ALIA/1972.

11 “House of the Human Sciences”, (http://www.msh-paris.fr/en/foundation/missions).

12 The performance can be viewed on the ALIA website: http://semioweb.mshparis.fr/corpus/ALIA/FR/_video.asp?id=1742&ress=5500&video=121341&format=91#22301.

13 The seminar entitled “Saying more or less: translating A Thousand and One Nights” (translation) can be found online at the following address: http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/ALIA/FR/video.asp?id=1670&ress=5259&video=8417&format=94.

14 The different types of analysis are examined in Chapter 3 [STO 11a].

15 On the function of metadescription, see Chapter 3 [STO 11a].

16 See Chapter 2 in [STO 11a] regarding the segmentation workshop.

17 The archive can be viewed at the following address: http://expositions.bnf.fr/livrarab/grosjlan/mille.htm.

18 This model was proposed by Harold Dwight Lasswell (1902–1978), an American specialist in mass communication in his definition of communication: “Who says what to whom through which channel with what effect?” (See H.C. Lasswell in “The Structure and Function of Communication in Society”, in The Communication of Idea, a collection of articles compiled by BRYSON, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1948, p. 37.

19 For informatiion on Baschet sound structures, see the site (in French): http://www.baschet.org/structures/lesfreresbaschet.php.

20 Aimée de La Salle’s Website (in French only) can be found at: http://aimeedelasalle.com/.

21 Bruno de La Salle is the artistic director of the CLiO – Conservatoire contemporain de Littérature Orale. For further details on the center, its news, training and events, see their Website (in French only): http://www.clio.org/.

22 According to P. Stockinger, this function allows us to put into context, according to a chosen production framework or scenario, the textual elements involved so that each aim of the communication has a “good” chance of being achieved. See “La place de l’hypertextualité dans le traitement de corpus audiovisuels et/ou multimédias numériques” [The place of hypertextuality in Processing audiovisual corpora and/ or digital media]: http://www.semionet.fr/ressources_enligne/Enseignement/06_07/tim/fascicule_1.pdf.

23 For example, revue.org.

24 CNC Website: http://www.cnc.fr/Web/fr.

25 The Décryptimages portal can be found at the following address: http://www.decryptimages.net/index.php.

26 These texts are mainly interviews with ethnologists, for example, Roberte Hamayon examining shamanism (http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/arc/2004/home.asp) and Rina Sherman and her experiences living among the Ovahimba people (Namibia) (http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/arc/1873/home.asp).

27 Travel literature is one of the chosen themes alongside that of folk takes (see, for example, the interview with François Moureau “La littérature des voyages” [Travel literature]: http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/ALIA/1817, and the seminar “Etude du conte populaire des XIXe et XXe siècles” [Studying folk tales of the 19th and 20th Centuries]: http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/ALIA/1968.

28 The Pôle ImagesSons site can be found through the Mediterranean House of Human Sciences (MHHS) site: http://www.imageson.org.

29 ImageSon can be found at the following address: http://www.imageson.org/document499.html.

30 For the complete schedule of the seminar, see: http://imageson.hypotheses.org/17.