Schemes of image and symbolic power: notes on some conceptions of interview in dispute

Abstract

This article aims at regarding two U.S. research projects that used video as an important tool to collect data: the Fortunoff Video Archive (Yale) and the Shoah Foundation Institute (USC). Although they had similar goals - to provide a collection of testimonies of Nazism victims -, these institutions show distinct manners of conducting their work, such as: what is the most suitable location for the filming? Who could be at the filming? how and to what extent it should be registered the presence of the interviewer? Which "aesthetic" should the scene have? How to establish time in the interview (chronology of events, the interviewee's subjectivity) and how did it relate to what was shown in the video? Such questions, seemingly confined to the immediate context of the research, put into play deeper issues, such as the dispute over the symbolic power, as reflected by the assertion of a certain public image of the so-called "Holocaust survivor", through a struggle of different points of view with regard to the war and regimes of authenticity. Visual dimension was a central aspect, thus the importance of considering the schemes of image on this research.