Simon Tarr and Patricia R. Zimmermann gave a collaborative presentation at the Orphans of the Storm Symposium last month.
Tarr and Zimmermann did an invited performance entitled "Algorithms for Recombinant History" at the Orphans of the Storm Symposium on archival film at the University of South Carolina on March 27.
The performance combined computer veejaying programs to composite images, live Ghanian djembe drumming, and spoken word exploring theoretical issues in amateur film, digital archives, and critical historiography. Collaborating at the symposium with Jake Homiak of the Human Studies Film Archive (HSFA) of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, Tarr and Zimmermann used ethnographic and scientific footage from HSFA's extensive archival holdings. Laura Kissel (IC '91), assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, and Jan-Christopher Horak, curator of Hollywood Entertainment Museum in Los Angeles, collaborated on the performance as spoken word readers.
Orphans of the Storm is the biannual gathering of film historians, archivists, curators, programmers, and preservationists from across the country and the globe dedicated to understanding "orphaned" cinemas that have not been archived due to their marginal cultural status outside commercial or national cinemas. Tarr and Zimmermann also discussed the InVisible Histories Project at Ithaca College at the symposium.
Simon Tarr is an assistant professor of cinema and photography; Patricia R. Zimmermann is a professor of cinema and photography and the coordinator of the culture and communication program in the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies.
Contributed by Patricia R. Zimmermann
