Readings & Video Essays (week 1)

What are we doing in this "Media Lab" seminar?  What does it mean to produce video essays as a mode of academic expression?  Is there a difference between a "Video Essay" and "Videographic Criticism?" And what does all this have to do with my professional goals as graduate student in the humanities and arts?  Does this even count as "research"? 

To begin answering these questions, please read the three short essays by Catherine Grant listed below, watch the video essays I've curated for this purpose, and browse the various peer review journals that specialize in videographic criticism.  We'll unpack and discuss all this (and more!) in our first seminar meeting on Monday, March 31.  

Required Readings

1. Catherine Grant wrote this oft-cited text on video essay practice as a creative/critical form of "material thinking" in 2014, the same year that she, Christian Keathley, Drew Morton and Jason Mittell launched the peer review journal [in]Transition in conjunction with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.  Shudder of a Cinephiliac Idea.pdf".  

2. Shortly before publishing "Shudder of a Cinephiliac Idea," Grant delivered a talk at the Audiovisual Essay conference in Frankfurt, Germany (November 2013) that was then transcribed on the open access source, Film Studies for Free, which Grant founded in 2008 to collect audiovisual essays and related work in the then-emergent field.   "How Long is a Piece of String?: On the Practice, Scope and Value of Videographic Film Studies and Criticism. Links to an external site."   I encourage you to bookmark Film Studies for Free Links to an external site., and skim through the 2013 talk, paying especial attention to "Video Essay 3."

3. In 2016, Grant edited a special section of the peer review journal NECSUS (which had begun publishing audiovisual essays in 2014).  Read her introduction, "The Audiovisual Essay as Performative Research Links to an external site.."  It is also worth spending time browsing through the audiovisual essay sections of NECSUS, as I mention below.

Optional 

• "A Performative Paradigm for the Creative Arts Links to an external site.," (Barbara Bolt, Working Papers, 2009).  Barbara Bolt's work in particular has influenced Grant's conception of videographic criticism as a form of performative research/material thinking.  
• Grant's contribution to a 2022 issue of NECSUS, "Irresistible instrumentalism: Materially thinking through music-making in the story worlds of silent films Links to an external site.," puts all of the above into further praxis, as she explains in her creator's statement for this video essay. 

Peer Review Journals 

Arguably, videographic studies as an identifiable academic field began 11 years ago, in 2014.   This is the year the Society for Cinema and Media Studies  launched [In]Transition Links to an external site., the first peer review journal dedicated to video essays.  That same year,  the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies published the first section on Audiovisual essays in the peer review journal NECSUS Links to an external site., a tradition sustained every year since.   Other journals have evolved in the meanwhile, including the bi-lingual (Spanish and English) TECMERIN: Journal of Audiovisual Essays, Links to an external site. hosted by the University of Madrid, which also hosts the "Screen Star Dictionary Links to an external site." series edited by Ariel Avissar.  It's worth browsing around in the archives of these journals to familiarize yourself with the field.  (Throughout the quarter, we'll identify a wide array of  academic journals that increasingly accept or solicit video essay submissions.  But this is a great place to start). 

Required Video Essays

Finally, take some time before our first class meeting to watch the following video essays, which I've organized here to consider how this form of critical-creative work can "analyze" films and media texts in ways that are likely familiar to you from more traditional film/media studies classes, (e.g. sequence analysis; auteur studies; compare/contrast analysis; historical or cultural analysis) but which look (and feel) differently in this audiovisual mode.   

—As Shot/Sequence Analysis

Barbara Zecchi, "Queering Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Links to an external site."

Dayna McLeod, "Wild at Heterosexuality Links to an external site."

Catherine Grant, "Un/Contained: A Video Essay on Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank (2009) Links to an external site."

—As Auteur Study 

Ken Provencher, "Wong Kar-wai's Sleepers Links to an external site."

Evelyn Kreutzer, "Footsteps Links to an external site."

—As Compare/Contrast Analysis

Maud Ceuterick, "Resilient Aging Women: A Question of Performance Links to an external site."

Maria Hoffman, "Maria's Maria" Links to an external site.

—As Historical and Cultural Analysis

Terri Francis, "Josephine Baker Watches Herself Links to an external site." 

Katie Bird, "Feeling and Thought as They Take Form: Early Steadicam, Labor and Technology, 1974-1985 Links to an external site."

Liz Greene, "Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name Links to an external site."

Optional Video Essay Podcast

Just for fun: here is a link to the "Video Essay Podcast Links to an external site.," for the episode in which Evelyn Kreutzer talks about her video essay, "Footsteps," if you're interested.  The podcast also covers one of the "Moving Poem" video essays which we will look at more carefully in a few weeks when working on our Epigraph assignment.