Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

156 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubecollection case studies157system, and user-generated content groupings) allow users to navigate through content andarrange items according to their own categories, add tags and comments, and make their ownaccess copies. These systems, by being restricted to members of the community, allow usersto form their own safe public spaces around media content.Extending upon the software created for Mukurtu, Christen and her collaborators subsequentlycreated the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal (PPWP). Instead of a browser-based offlinedigital archive, PPWP is online, as the Plateau tribes are physically located across threestates, and because the material users wanted access to was held at regional and nationalcollecting institutions. This is an online digital archive space that allows Plateau peoples’cultural materials, which are held in Washington State University’s special collections and inthe Museum of Anthropology, to be curated by Plateau Tribes. 24 The PPWP website notesthat the software, using extensive administration features, provides each tribe with ‘controlover their content, narratives, tribal knowledge, metadata fields and categories’ so that ‘Tribaladministrators and tribal users can add additional knowledge to the portal materials on anon-going basis through the dynamic back-end features’. 25 Collaborators involved in bothprojects are currently developing the Mukurtu software tool into an open source, standardsbasedarchive and content management tool geared to the specific cultural protocols andintellectual property needs of indigenous communities globally. 26Another innovative project created out of the need for specific cultural needs is Ara Irititja.Ara Irititja (‘stories from a long time ago’) is a community-based digital archive and softwareinitiative designed at the request of Pitjantjatjara / Yankunytjatjara (Anangu) peoples in SouthAustralia. 27 Officially commenced in 1994 to repatriate ‘lost’ material for Anangu, and tomake it available and participatory at the community and personal level, the project haseffectively drawn family and community members of all ages together, through the use ofmultimedia content. The innovative software is presented visually, organized according toIndigenous standards, in native languages wherever possible, and protects and/or restrictsaccess to private and sensitive materials, such as images of people who have passed away,and information relating to men’s and women’s business. 28 Over time, other Aboriginal communitiesand related organizations, such as the Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne, the24. Plateau tribes are the Indigenous people of the Plateau or Intermontane region of westernCanada and the United States.25. Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, http://libarts.wsu.edu/plateaucenter/portalproject/design.html.26. Check the Mukurtu website for updates regarding the new software tool: http://www.mukurtuarchive.org/.27. For more Information see, www.irititja.com. John Dallwitz, Douglas Mann, Sally Scales, SabraThorner; Dora Dallwitz. ‘Ara Irititja’, Information Technologies and Indigenous CommunitiesSymposium, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS),Canberra, Australia, July 14, 2010. Video documentation of the event available on the AIATSISwebsite: http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research/symposia/Digi10/presenters.htm.28. This cultural protocol has to do with Men and Women having different roles in society and inceremonies; these roles vary from language group to language group. Some ceremonies arefor men only, others are for women only, and both men and women have their own particularSpiritual and sacred objects: http://www.indigenousaustralia.info/culture.html.Northern Territory Library System, and the Sisters of St John of God in Broome, have begunto use the Ara Irititja software in order to organize their own content.To further its reach, this year the Ara Irititja project is launching server/browser-based knowledgemanagement software that will be available for purchase to other communities internationally,and adaptable to their specific needs. The purchaser of the license will have controlover software development, enabling extensive changes to be made to the interface, to dataentry fields and to functionality, according to the specific needs of the community. For interestedcommunities to make major adaptations to Ara Irititja, they of course need to havefunding allotted to pay a programmer, train for community maintenance, and ideally to supportmembers of the community, especially elders, to advise about cultural protocols. Withthe right support, communities will be able to make serious graphic and structural changes,as well as create individual ‘profiles’ under such headings as ‘people’, ‘flora’, ‘fauna’, ‘places’,‘events’, ‘activities’, ‘cosmological narratives’, ‘stories’, and ‘historical stories’. These headingscan be deleted, added and re-named to suit the needs of any community. The new softwarealso allows content to be categorized as ‘open’, ‘sensitive’, or ‘sorrow’, according to culturalprotocols. And since the updated Ara Irititja is web-ready, content can be curated, and ‘open’content may go online (but not necessarily be made ‘public’), 29 whilst sensitive content willremain available only to community members where the software is running. The new softwarealso enables archive users to annotate material with text or even with audio or videocomments. This new functionality removes the necessity for the written word, and allowsusers to record their knowledge in their own words and language. This has the potential toencourage not only knowledge about multimedia content, but increase the archive of videoand audio material of endangered Indigenous languages.All three of these web-based archives for multimedia materials – IsumaTV, Mukurtu and AraIrititja – exemplify the use of web-based database technologies and customized informationalarchitectures to provide digital archives that foreground user-centred design, networking, andsharing potential. Though the software used for these projects is not specific to video, it representssome interesting moves toward increased sovereignty and collaboration using webbasedtechnologies. It also demonstrates how internet access and online knowledge-sharingcan contribute directly to Indigenous livelihoods and can actually be productively aligned withtraditional Indigenous knowledge systems and protocols. Though adaptations to the architecturemay still require the assistance of a software developer, both the Ara Irititja and Mukurtuarchive projects are moving towards the development of tools that are economically sustainable,open source, or both, and thus may help serve global Indigenous communities. Theseefforts also demonstrate how local, community-focused projects are opening themselves upto more global forms of collaboration.To summarize, as more and more Indigenous media makers create content, and as museums,archives, and other cultural institutions rapidly decentralize their collections and ac-29. If a community chooses, open content can be designated by senior elders or other knowledgeholders. The new Ara Irititja will most likely be on an intranet - an online network that is keptprivate by multiple levels of security.