Dr. Nouraei:

“Oral history of art” should move toward producing documentaries

Maryam Assadi Jafari
Translated by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

2024-12-30

According to Iranian Oral History website, the preliminary workshop of “Oral History of Art” was held online before the national conference “Iranian Theories of Historiography and Art” on Wednesday 21st of Azar 1403 (December 11, 2024) by the Art Research Institute of the Art Cultural Center. During the event, “Dr. Morteza Nouraee” the professor of the History Group of Isfahan University delivered a speech. What follows is the selection of his speech.

Oral history: an inverted ladder to the recent past

What is significant about oral history in the contemporary period is variety of art and data both in the scene of production and artistic content. So, we are facing with explosion of information in this regard too. From this perspective, oral history is an inverted ladder into immediate time; a ladder into the recent past. For this reason, it is comparatively short in time but very extended; so comprehensive that it can be said to be equal to most of the past eras. At the same time, history will be immediate and connected to our present life. Given the position of the Art Research Institute, I will give an introduction to the nature of oral history and the degree of credibility of oral narratives. As Michael Stanford said, history is the science of communication, and the historian establishes a two-way connection between the present, the readers, and the past. In fact, the job of historian is a multi-faceted wiring to establish contact and dialogue with the past and the present.
One of the things that transformed the changing view of the present towards the past was Professor Carr's interpretation around 1985, which also became the basis of Stanford's theory. He believed that history is an endless dialogue between the past and the present. We constantly have questions about the past, usually based on necessities, that keep the way open for dialogue. We are constantly forced to seek answers to our questions in the past. This definition shows that no historical production is permanent and eternal. That is, historical productions themselves have an expiration date. Because every time has its own necessities and questions from the past. For this reason, there is a constant and inevitable reference to the past. This means: history in general and in particular.

Oral tradition and oral history
Sometimes, we face different kinds of narrations. Now we want to see what things are not oral history. Hadiths and narrations are narrative history or tradition; not oral history. Oral history basically means that its beginning and end time are clear and its source is accessible for verification. In the path of narration, the basis in historiography, credibility and believability are the triangle of the permanence of the narration so that it can be recorded. The old tradition of oral narrations, which is the basis of chronicles or even stories, was also the basis of works such as the History of Herodotus and Abu Rayhan Birooni, and its basic narration is of the type of oral tradition, but if we find the exact sources of those narrations, it becomes conditional history, which is of course impossible. While in oral history, we have a certain angle on this issue.
On the other hand, we are faced with a huge volume of oral memories that are recorded and published in the name of oral history. Oral memories are personal experiences. While oral history is a collective experience. An oral history interview is an active interview, not a passive one. An interview that is for reminiscences is passive and the command of the interview is in the hands of the narrator; whereas if the command of the interview is in the hands of the interviewer, oral history becomes a challenging conversation. Of course, we also have the memories of some people, which are called secondhand memories. Someone may have recorded and published them, but they are not oral history. The task of the oral history interviewer is to guide the narrative from individual experience to collective experience. For example, he or she should try to ask the person: Were other people in that group also present and witnessed various aspects of the narrative? This is the beginning of the snowball research method that is used during the interview. The snowball system in oral history interviews means guiding individual experience towards collective experience. On the other hand, the question may arise: how deep is oral history? It is said that the depth of oral history is about three generations, but we still have to follow the snowball system. Of course, in the case of oral history of an environment or historical area that is about to disappear, this obsession is not required and it is not necessary to abandon it. Two or three narratives that are found are enough. It is possible that later we will be able - or others will be able - to reach a collective experience (to frequency in the news) in reimagining it.
Most of the existing productions are oral memories and personal experience. It may be said whether personal experience has an influence on historiography or not? For example, we take the memories of an influential person in the field of art. But our other assumption is whether that person's memories are documented or not? If this person simply said things, it is not the basis of historical knowledge and is only one of the things we have as conditional evidence. We will keep it in reserve for now; unless several people narrate or confirm these words in some other way. In the nature of historical news, there must be continuity. That is, one person's claim cannot be made the basis of a social experience and the basis of a solid historical narrative.
The German historian “Ranke” first provided a specific source and reference in his works in the 1840s of the 19^th century. That is, what is the reference and documentation for this claim of yours about the past? Gradually, the type of historiography moved towards modern historiography and has continued to this day. However, this documentation in the postmodern world has become confused in the scope of the volume of information. From this point of view, it is said that the microphone-delivery mechanism was a response to the extent and degree of density and combination of information to be recorded. In this regard, the process of oral history in clarifying hidden and lost historical discourses is used as a solution to prevent the accumulation of unknowns and the disappearance of information for future historians.
The interviewer, before conducting an interview for any oral history topic, must have research and library study. He must have access to archives. Research study plays a fundamental and important role in turning the interview into an active interview and deepening the conversations.

Hermeneutic Procedure; Suitable for Oral History of Art

One of the goals of oral history is to fill the gaps in written documentation, where events have failed to lend themselves to recording or reporting. Oral history leaves these events or processes to be recorded and then, through a series of steps, is recorded.

The liberation of history is another goal of oral history. It means that all aspects of human life are covered and spotlighted by historians and every aspect of social life can be counted. Decentralization is another goal of oral history. The focus of our political history was the history of kings and the upper classes. In this way, pluralism entered the field of historiography and reached a methodological stage in the 1970s. In the existential philosophy of oral history, which is still the model of oral historians, social groups that were not literate - such as women, workers, illiterate, semi-literate people, and the lower classes - were among the silent groups  of history that were taken into account in oral history.
Paul Thompson's book, The Voice of the Past, which has yet to be translated into Persian, is the first research method in oral history and landscape painting, written in the 1970s, and is an influential book.
Oral history gradually moved towards considering diverse perspectives on events; that is, small events that occurred on the margins of an event and led to a large event. So, the annals and a series of small events are effective in writing that history. Early in the current century, the hermeneutic approach, which was a combination of event-oriented and annals, was applied to Italian history by Luisa Passerini; a method based on data and narrator interpretation with a variety of questions about its methods and reasons. This interpretive approach to the trend of art in the field of oral history will be a way to clarify the existing reasons about the contexts of the emergence, growth and spread of that art. It is recommended that you focus on this type of perspective and approach and become familiar with his works.

Pathology of oral history in Iran

We are faced with a multitude of productions under the title of oral history in the country. Many of them cannot be used for historical purposes until they reach theorizing. These works remain at the level of an oral narrative and cannot have a place in the processing of a theory or process. These days, I am busy with the technical evaluation of oral history works, especially in this year and the second half of last year, when about 2,000 titles were written. Sometimes we also encounter non-technical historical productions. I recommend the historian to take their foot off the wire and let history flow on its own. Because sometimes conventional histories of this kind have blocked history itself. After examining these works, we realized that good talents have emerged in the field of writing. There are several styles in our oral history that are at a high level by world standards and are commendable; both the literary and the interview types. Sometimes their interviews are very subtle and they have managed to clarify for us all the aspects that we expect from the text and leave it to the recording.
Regarding the pathology of oral history, I must say that oral memoirs have found a good market under the title of oral history. In fact, they are oral memoirs, but oral history is written on the cover, which is one of the disadvantages of oral history. Second, oral history in Iran has become extremely elitist. Because there is financial support in those sectors. Of course, in my opinion, it is limited to individual experience.
Regarding the outputs of oral history, our most important recommendation is to establish a national archive bank from the products of all institutions and organizations, and even independent researchers. The institutions have a budget for oral history, but they take over the writing. While the writing is a secondary task. That institution, as the employer, should insist in the contract that the executor deliver the project archive.
Of course, there is an oral archive in the national archives, and we intend to activate the oral archive of the Art Research Institute. We would like to consider an oral history archive for the research institute with interviews with researchers.
Oral history of art should also follow the path of producing documentaries; it should document the events, trends, and styles of this field. In this regard, there have been activities that we hope will become more widespread.

Significance of “soft heritage” in oral history of art

Oral history does not produce documents. A document is a text that has been disconnected from its source since its production and has become a written document. But oral history is a witness. In the sense that the interviewer and the interviewee, together, read the narrator's mind. This reading is not a document; it is history. Basically, the products of oral history are born as history. For this reason, we say that oral history should move towards producing documentaries and do not expect documents from it. In this way, we can say that oral history is a reason for more evidence.
Sometimes, we see oral history moving towards epic poetry, and in this sense, history has become parallel and reflected the contemporary period in the mirror of pseudo-history. If a researcher goes in this direction and lets his literature and emotional spirit dominate the content, he moves from the historical state to the production of alternative history or novels, and of course it is no longer oral history. These types of products can also have functions about which I have discussed somewhere else.
Oral history in Iran has mostly dealt with topics such as the Islamic Revolution, the Sacred Defense, and some departments; but in the field of oral history of art, we also have oral history of carpets and films. But it should be more comprehensive. Many of our artistic experiences will soon be lost, as they have not yet been recorded. There are experiences that are fading away very quietly.
In fact, oral tradition deals with cultural issues and soft heritage. Soft heritage is not a representational heritage; it is a heritage that exists in the minds of individuals. That is, it is not an individual experience and an event. History means an event or process that has time, and because of this temporality in history, we call it oral history. At the same time, intangible heritage has manifested itself in social actions that have attracted the attention of oral history experts today. The oral tradition presented here follows a parallel path to oral history and, in its hermeneutic capacity, has been able to clarify, especially the missing rings in the history of art.

High capacity of art in the scene of oral history

From one perspective, it should be added that we have “visible art” and “hidden art.” Visible art is the products that we see and have embodied; such as: films, songs, paintings, and the seven arts. But hidden art is the manners and reasons that exist behind that art. In fact, what has created art is hidden art, which is also true of intangible heritage.
In the oral history of art, we are supposed to deal with the agents of art and interview them. But on the other hand, we should not forget about social taste. Artists go towards the market, demand and audience. The person who produces art responds to a necessity. In my opinion, every artistic production is the embodiment of a text, and that text has a hidden necessity that usually has a social taste behind it. Every phenomenon has a backstage and the oral history of art is definitely there. If you are going to write an individual-centered oral history of an artistic personality, you should also address the hidden artistic aspect of it.
The seven forms of art is a vast field, and the Art Research Institute, by being involved in oral history, can create a vast entrepreneurship for students and researchers. Also, many artists are willing to invest in the field of authorship and archives.
In the field of active interviewing, one can discuss the aesthetics and aesthetic of an artistic phenomenon; that is, both epistemological and ontological. Also, at higher levels, it can be the topic of a thesis at the postgraduate level. The artistic discourses that exist in every historical period influence all types of art. This factor is very suitable in setting up question packages at the interview stage.