The Nomads of Media- and Family Histories. Rethinking the Moving Images of Families in the Age of User-Generated Content
The Nomads of Media- and Family Histories. Rethinking the Moving Images of Families in the Age of User-Generated Content

Summary/Abstract: The title is referencing Hans Belting’s differentiation between image and medium: “images resemble nomads in the sense that they take residence in one medium after another” (Belting 2005, 310). This paper tries to build a methodological framework for the research of the nomadic behaviour of home imagery in the new media age. While the practice of home movies was theorised in the age of the celluloid film and so-called ‘nuclear family’, the refinement of these approaches occurred at the beginning of the 1990s, with the emergence of video technology. However, the literature of the new media reported the turning point-like changes of the habitus of amateur films: the home movie is just one of the amateur filmmaking habitus, neither more typical, nor more representative than any other practices. The technological, social, and cultural dimensions of the previous ritualised practice need to be rethought in this context. How have the content, status, and functions of the home movies regarded as places of memory changed in the age of presentist do-it-yourself media products? The paper argues that home movies and videos should be regarded as historical sources of the participative culture.

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