Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities: Articles. Introduction to the special issue

The article provides an introduction to the first of a pair of special issues devoted to academic filmmaking, which, apart from this introduction, contains eleven prose articles. The article describes the variety of filmmaking practice in the academy, and some of the venues where examples of the practice are published or exhibited. It gestures at the multiple origins of academic filmmaking with special reference to the tradition of the essay film, and finds a key reflexive moment in Eric S. Faden’s (prose) “Manifesto for Critical Media” (2008), which articulated the challenge of using “image, voice, pacing, text, sound, music, montage, rhythm” to create scholarly audiovisual work. The introduction goes on to set out the aims for the special issues, and to describe the contents of the eleven articles in the first issue and some of the features, concerns or approaches shared between and across those contents. The eleven articles deal with themes raging from academic filmmaking as activism, to vulnerability and embodiment, to the challenges of production and publishing, and of institutional legitimization. &nbsp

Academic Filmmaking in the New Humanities. Video Essays.

The article provides an introduction to the second of a pair of special issues devoted to academic filmmaking, which contains ten video essays and prose guiding texts. The article describes the variety of filmmaking practice in the academy, and some of the venues where examples of the practice are published or exhibited. It gestures at the multiple origins of academic filmmaking with special reference to the tradition of the essay film, and finds a key reflexive moment in Eric S. Faden’s (prose) “Manifesto for Critical Media” (2008), which articulated the challenge of using “image, voice, pacing, text, sound, music, montage, rhythm” to create scholarly audiovisual work. The introduction goes on to set out the aims for the special issues, and to describe the contents of the video essays and some of the features, concerns or approaches shared between and across those contents. The video essays derive from fields including videographic criticism, anthropology, experimental cinema, and participatory and activist filmmaking

Professor-artist and professor-researcher: Making the case for experimental filmmaking as research in the academic context of Ecuador’s Universidad de las Artes

The foundation of the Universidad de las Artes inaugurated access to a public education in arts in Ecuador in 2015. As three professor-artist-researchers who have worked in different periods in this institution, we propose an article with two objectives in mind. First, we aim to share and examine the film-based artistic work that has formed part of our research practice within the university setting (and the experience of making these films in this particular context), including the experimental ethnographic documentary short Sour Lake (Dávila, 2019), the found footage essay film 1922 (Gills, 2023), and the expansive imagework design Dispositivo ORG (Terán Vargas, 2017-2024). Secondly, based on these experiences, we propose to discuss more broadly the entanglements of the professor-artist-researcher role (including how our artistic practice and research interweave with our teaching practice) and to reflect on the potential advantages of experimental filmmaking in the academic context

The face-Image, reappropriation and experimental cinema

Tesis Doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Departamento de Lingüística, Lenguas Modernas, Lógica y Fª de la Ciencia y Tª de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada. Fecha de Lectura: 07-09-2022Esta tesis tiene embargado el acceso al texto completo hasta el 07-03-2024Focusing on the cinematic treatment of archival images of the face in contemporary experimental cinema (from 2004 to the present), this dissertation analyzes the possibilities for cinema that are opened up by reappropriations of the face. We begin with the hypothesis that the face-image, as concept and object, is unlike other archival images. Defined as an image of a face that has been removed from its original source and edited into a new reappropriation, the face-image acquires a new object status in the process and in the new context provided by montage. Each chapter centers on how a different typology of archival material (including propaganda, colonial, home movies, commercial cinema, as well as ethnographic, documentary and police photography archives) has been reappropriated into a film or group of films through diverse methods of re-inscription (including montage, the transformation between different formats, the use of sound, text and voice, and performance, etc.). We analyze the origin of the face-image from these materials and how the object is transformed in the new reincarnation(s). With this research we demonstrate that in contemporary experimental film practice the face-image is where tensions of identity, colonialism, race, gender, and constructions of otherness and criminality can play out in new ways on the contemporary screenEsta tesis doctoral aborda el tratamiento cinematográfico de imágenes de archivo del rostro en el cine experimental contemporáneo (del 2004 al presente) y analiza las posibilidades que la reapropiación del rostro abre para el cine. Parte de la hipótesis de que la imagen-rostro -como concepto y objeto- es distinta a otras imágenes de archivo. En tanto es la imagen de un rostro tomado de un archivo y editado en una nueva producción audiovisual, la imagen-rostro pasa más de una vez por el aparato fotográfico-cinematográfico y adquiere el estatus de un nuevo objeto en el proceso. Cada capítulo se enfoca en cómo una tipología de archivo (incluyendo cine de propaganda, colonial, casero, y comercial, como también material fotográfico etnográfico, policial y documental) ha sido apropiada en una película o conjunto de películas a través de diferentes estrategias de re-inscripción (incluyendo montaje, la transformación de soportes materiales, distintos usos del sonido, texto y la voz, y la performance, etc.). Comenzamos estudiando el origen de la imagen-rostro y luego analizamos cómo el objeto ha sido transformado en su(s) nueva(s) reencarnación(es). Con esta investigación demostramos que en la práctica cinematográfica experimental la imagen-rostro se convierte en un terreno fértil para explorar cuestiones y tensiones en torno a la identidad, el colonialismo, la raza, el género y las construcciones de otredad y criminalidad de nuevas maneras en la pantalla contemporáne

Comuneros, pescadores, defensores del territorio : el caso de la comuna de Engabao Provincia del Guayas, Ecuador.

En esta investigaci??n se observa que a trav??s de la narraci??n y del testimonio local queda n??tidamente visibilizado el protagonismo del pueblo, desde la historia de la creaci??n de la comuna hasta el presente. Esta investigaci??n se propone estudiar el rol hist??rico y pol??tico que cumple la memoria colectiva acerca de dos eventos dentro de la historia de la comuna de Engabao: primero la fundaci??n de la comuna, y segundo, la pelea para defender el puerto y el sitio principal de trabajo contra ??lvaro Noboa. Como encontr?? en mi investigaci??n, la memoria colectiva del porqu?? de la comuna est?? ??ntimamente conectada a la necesidad de defender el territorio de Engabao ???en particular el puerto que casi perdieron- y, por lo tanto, ha sido fundamental en la formaci??n de una identidad ???en constante transformaci??n, seg??n las necesidades del pueblo y las ofertas del Estado- del engabade??o como comunero y pescador artesanal

Curators' Discussion of Audiovisual Essay Collection

No abstract available