Art Institutions and National Identity in a Post - Conflict Society
Post-conflict societies inhabit a prolonged identity crisis. This crisis defines the scenario in present day Bosnia and Herzegovina, where ethno-centric narratives embody the consciousness of the Bosniak, Croat, and Serb populations, inhibiting the prevalence of an overarching national identity. In this thesis, I contend that realizing a national identity, as defined by Benedict Anderson, is crucial to the reconciliation of a post-conflict country such as Bosnia. In light of the limitations of parliamentary structures (such as those defined by Bosnia’s Dayton Agreement) within a society affected by mass atrocity, I argue that art institutions are capable of negotiating the question of a national identity. Focusing on Bosnia, I have examined the nation’s representation in the Venice Biennale, the phenomenological significance of the Sarajevo Film Festival, and finally, the function of museums and public art within the nation. This has revealed how art institutions can address the past in order to memorialize and revisit significant events to realize a collective history, act as a soft body power, create new traditions and narratives, and act as a means for society to realize the distinctness of the nation. My research concludes that art institutions can certainly fulfill long-term and symbolic functions that governmental or legal bodies fail to effectively address, despite their limitations in regards to outreach, access, and the dubious assumption about the effects that they can have on a post-conflict society. This ultimately reiterates the importance of art to the political imagination, not just in Bosnia, but also in other post-conflict societies.
Sarajevo Film Festival
Sarajevo Film Festival Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, August 19-27, 2005 In late August, the Sarajevo Film Festival reconvened for its eleventh year amidst the city's bullet-ridden medieval Ottoman wooden houses, pale yellow nineteenth century Austrian municipal buildings, nineteen-sixties cement skyscrapers, scattered minarets, and steeples. The festival has an upbeat feel, no doubt an emotion rooted in its 1994 inception at the end of the terrible four-year siege, when they first screened films, against all odds, with the few daily hours of electricity allotted them. As the only festival dedicated to showcasing regional movies (Thessalonka specializes in something similar but its focus is national), including documentaries, features and specials, the festival has continually expanded and now includes competition entries beyond the Balkans, such as those from Hungary and the Czech Republic. This dimension is one that the organizers wish to develop on all fronts-both artistically and practically. The festival's distribution forum, Cinelink, (a version of Rotterdam's CineMart) takes up its last few days and gathers together producers from Europe-especially Germany and France-to meet with filmmakers from countries of former Yugoslavia, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and others. As important, Sarajevo still has no art cinemas and thus the festival fulfills the enormous role of bringing multi-faceted art films to the area. The Panorama section, programmed by New Yorker Howard Feinstein for the last eight years, also provides this art selection and was consistently interesting. Notable among its offerings were Hany Abu-Assad's incisive Palestinian feature Paradise Now (2005), the fascinating Spanish documentary by young filmmaker Mercedes Alvarez, The Sky Turns (2004), and Minh Nguyen-Vo's lyrical Vietnamese Buffalo Boy (2004), all of which have shown in other festivals but make a particularly good international representation. Other sidebars included an homage to Alexander Payne, who attended, and an exhibition called New Currents, which was programmed by Philippe Bober to include an array of experimental features and animations, such as Ilya Khrzhanovsky's Russian 4 (2004) and the Danish animation Terkel in Trouble (2005). The festival is also expanding a teenage and children's program that attracts enough kids to fill a 2,500-seat cinema, a place whose entrance was often crowded with fashionably dressed, excited adolescents. Elma Tataragic, the competition and shorts programmer, felt that the festival was beginning to find its footing and that this year's regional selection was especially good. She saw something new emerging-these films were developing intimate stories (versus solely social or global themes), allowing greater international appeal. Certainly Lady Zee (2005), the Bulgarian film by director Georgi Djulgerov, and the festival's best feature prize winner (25,000 euros), was noteworthy and the best of the pick. Though it had a tired plot-girl forced into prostitution-Djulgerov's interesting take on how, as he put it, to "humanize" this storyline, placed his film in a category of its own. His characters, virtually all played by charismatic non-actors, speak straight to the camera, a device that was extremely effective, absolutely overcoming the burden of the cliche. …
High-frequency hearing thresholds: effects of age, occupational ultrasound and noise exposure
AbstractPurpose
It has been suggested that high-frequency audiometry (HFA) could represent a useful preventive measure in exposed workers. The aim was to investigate the effects of age, ultrasound and noise on high-frequency hearing thresholds.MethodsWe tested 24 industrial ultrasound-exposed subjects, 113 industrial noise-exposed subjects and 148 non-exposed subjects. Each subject was tested with both conventional-frequency (0.125–8 kHz) and high-frequency (9–18 kHz) audiometry.ResultsThe hearing threshold at high frequency deteriorated as a function of age, especially in subjects more than 30 years old. The ultrasound-exposed subjects had significantly higher hearing thresholds than the non-exposed ones at the high frequencies, being greatest from 10 to 14 kHz. This hearing loss was already significantly evident in subjects with exposure <5 years and increased with years of exposure and advancing age. The noise exposure group had significantly higher hearing thresholds than the non-exposed group at the conventional frequencies 4 and 6 kHz and at the high frequency of 14 kHz. After stratification for age, there was a significant difference between the two groups at 9–10 and 14–15 kHz only for those under 30 years of age.ConclusionMultivariate analysis indicated that age was the primary predictor, and noise and ultrasound exposure the secondary predictors of hearing thresholds in the high-frequency range. The results suggest that HFA could be useful in the early diagnosis of noise-induced hearing loss in younger groups of workers (under 30 years of age).
