ord47 - Open research data for the 7th art

The project originates from the idea that, in the age of cultural digitalization, archives (of whatever kind) are no longer the once dusty and passive repositories of defunct data. Now they are considered and understood as highly relevant repositories of knowledge. They are once more active promoters as well as agents of cultural change and discourse. In the “Age of Big Data” they have finally become manageable and accessible in an ever-increasing manner, as new forms of cultural agency, outreach and empowerment play an ever-greater role in global discourse. In this project we focus on the archives of the Locarno Film Festival as an exemplary instance of archives of cinematographic material, in particular the critical reviews and the documentation that revolves around the cinematographic piece of work.  Currently the archives of the Locarno Film Festival, the RSI Radiotelevisione Svizzera at Lugano and the Cinémathèque Suisse at Lausanne constitute up until now a by and large dormant legacy in relation to the Locarno Film Festival, the overriding importance of which we are only beginning to grasp and become aware of. The open research data paradigm allows kissing this patrimony finally awake, removing it from the amnesic bowels of archival shelving. This will only be possible on the basis of an inter- and trans-disciplinary, inter-medial and inter-connective initiative which relies on the publication of a shared ontology to provide access to the archive content as linked open data (LOD).