It’s great to finally be making progress on the PLAYBACK project, with work now underway to digitise the Homotopia video archive and fully catalogue the collection.

Our start was delayed for a number of reasons. I was unfortunately unwell at the beginning of the project, and shortly afterwards Homotopia gave up its office at the Bluecoat, where we had planned to base our digitisation station as part of the partnership. Thankfully, METAL has been able to accommodate us in the short term, and we’re hopeful of relocating to FACT where Homotopia is now based, later this month.

We’ve also had a few technical hurdles along the way. One of our main digitisation cameras developed a fault and has been sent away for repair. Fortunately, our backup camera has been performing well, although it can’t play DVCAM tapes. We have plenty of MiniDV material to work through while we wait for the repaired camera to return.

PLAYBACK is being delivered by a small part-time team at Re-Dock. Joe Goff and Alex Ogden Clark are leading the cataloguing work, while I’m overseeing the wider project, partnerships and delivery.

Although it’s been a slightly frustrating start, it’s exciting to finally be making real progress. Over the coming months we’ll be continuing the digitisation work while also planning a programme of public events and screenings as part of this year’s Homotopia Festival.

Alongside the Homotopia archive, we’re also digitising the Duckie video archive, which will eventually be housed at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. We’re delighted to have already confirmed our first public sharing event, taking place on Sunday 21 March, and we’re looking forward to developing the programme over the coming months.

We’ll be sharing more updates as the project progresses, including behind-the-scenes glimpses of the digitisation process and highlights from the collections.