MRI Acquisition of Instruments for Advanced Research in Visual Anthropology

Chico State Enterprises, Chico CA

Investigators

Abstract

With a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Anthropology at California state University Chico will acquire a 4K digital cinema camera and an integrated system of high-powered computers, servers and peripheral devices to create an Advanced Laboratory for Visual Anthropology. This facility will be the most advanced laboratory dedicated to anthropological cinema production in the world. Undergraduate students, graduate students, outside researchers and faculty at CSU, Chico's Department of Anthropology will collaborate on visual anthropological research projects. Research will encompass ethnography, archeology, biological and forensic anthropology and museum studies. Advances in digital cinema technology are revolutionizing motion picture production and hold the potential to revolutionize the field of visual anthropology. The compact and robust camera system can withstand the rigours of anthropological field research, while producing images of the highest quality. Digital formats facilitate the dissemination, presentation and archiving of the results of that research. Students will be integrated into research teams led by faculty and outside researchers where they will receive the training necessary to conceive and execute anthropological documentary research projects. By enabling researchers to discover those aspects of culture only observable in an audio-visual mode, this new technology holds transformative potential for visual anthropology as a discipline. In order to advance knowledge and understanding within visual anthropology, it is necessary to produce motion pictures of the highest possible quality. High production values are essential to visual anthropology's twin aims of producing visual documents for scientific analysis and documentaries for wide dissemination. Digital Cinema technology frees the anthropologists from the constraints imposed by the film crew. Visual documentation will be produced by researchers who have rigorous training both in traditional anthropological methods and in cinema production. The use of these technologies holds potential to transform research in the field of visual anthropology by creating digital documentaries of a hitherto unattainable quality. This project advances knowledge and understanding by putting a leading-edge research instrument in the hands of students and faculty. The majority of students in the Department of Anthropology are women and members of underrepresented minority groups. This project will open up leading-edge research opportunities to them that are not available elsewhere. It promotes research and learning by creating a facility for high-level teaching and research training in visual anthropology. It will represent a dramatic enhancement of the research and education abilities of the Department of Anthropology and the University as a whole. Visual anthropological projects are uniquely suited for wide dissemination, as films are screened for large audiences in classrooms and conferences throughout the world. Results will also be disseminated through television broadcast, digital libraries, professional conferences and the internet. This broad dissemination makes visual anthropology well-suited to anthropology's traditional social mission of teaching respect and tolerance for cultural diversity throughout the world. This represents a benefit to society in a world riven by conflict born of a lack of intercultural understanding.