NFSA blog entries by Martin Ford

Recently, NFSA staff, along with staff and students of the ANU School of Art, heard talented animator Katie Ryan reflect on her research into works in the NFSA collection. It was a fascinating insight into the history and technology of animation in Australia.

Well, Patineur Grotesque (Sestier, Australia 1896) has finally had its first screening to the Australian public. At 11.30am on 7 August 2010 in the ACMI 1 Cinema, around 120 people gathered to see and hear us as we presented Salon Lumière.  We, being myself as I gave a short introduction, Stephen Barker who narrated the whole thing, and John Shortis who played his light, airy and very French arrangements on the piano.  This is almost the same presentation we gave in the NFSA’s Arc cinema back in March when Patineur Grotesque was launched by the Hon Peter Garrett, Minister for environment and the arts to an invited audience.

The last couple of weeks have seen a flurry of activity to finalise selection of the 2010 additions to the National Registry of Recorded Sound – Sounds of Australia. We have had some really interesting and, at times very imaginative, nominations which have come in from all over the country.

It was back in 1973 that Paul Simon immortalised colour photography in this song, but if he saw the writing on the wall, it was a long time coming. The last ever roll of 35mm roll of Kodachrome film will be processed, at Dwayne’s Photofinishing Lab in Kansas City, in December this year. Manufacture of the film stock was discontinued some time ago.

This week I started the recently established British Library Sound Archive (BLSA) staff exchange program in London. During my time here I will be exploring the ins and outs of sound archiving in the United Kingdom. Amongst many 'meetings and greetings’ I am also working on a project which aims to mutually benefit the NFSA and the BLSA.

Jenny Gall (Research Fellowships program at NFSA) and myself took the train across the English countryside to Cambridge University. Our destination was the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

I recently presented a paper at the International Conference on Museums and Restitution hosted by the Manchester Museum, a large regional museum based at the University of Manchester.

The NFSA recently hosted intern, Laura Clarke, as part of our Research Programs.  Laura is in her final year of a Bachelor of Arts (New Media Arts) at the Australian National University , and spent 70 hours at the NFSA from March to May this year.