New technologies, new identities

This is an abridged and edited version of a longer, unpublished text written and assembled by the veteran Colombian documentary film-maker Marta Rodríguez, based on her long experience of making films about and alongside indigenous and other marginalized communities throughout Colombia. Just as Rodríguez' documentary practice seeks to devolve audiovisual production to her indigenous collaborators, in the following text Rodríguez' own authorial voice is interspersed with the testimonies of indigenous video-makers collected over time, transcribed and edited by Rodríguez herself. The text offers an insight into audiovisual practices and attitudes towards evolving communications technologies in Colombia during the 1990s, a historical juncture at which a combination of political and technological factors gave rise to a flourishing of increasingly autonomous video production on the part of indigenous communities.