Vidding Grrls. Audiovisual Remix Practices in Contemporary Digital Culture

La pratica del remix è al giorno d’oggi sempre più diffusa e un numero sempre più vasto di persone ha ora le competenze e gli strumenti tecnologici adeguati per eseguire operazioni un tempo riservate a nicchie ristrette. Tuttavia, nella sua forma audiovisiva, il remix ha ottenuto scarsa attenzione a livello accademico. Questo lavoro esplora la pratica del remix intesa al contempo come declinazione contemporanea di una pratica di lungo corso all’interno della storia della produzione audiovisiva – ovvero il riuso di immagini – sia come forma caratteristica della contemporaneità mediale, atto di appropriazione grassroots dei contenuti mainstream da parte degli utenti. La tesi si articola in due sezioni. Nella prima, l’analisi di tipo teorico e storico-critico è suddivisa in due macro-aree di intervento: da una parte il remix inteso come pratica, atto di appropriazione, gesto di riciclo, decontestualizzazione e risemantizzazione delle immagini mediali che ha attraversato la storia dei media audiovisivi [primo capitolo]. Dall’altra, la remix culture, ovvero il contesto culturale e sociale che informa l’ambiente mediale entro il quale la pratica del remix ha conosciuto, nell’ultimo decennio, la diffusione capillare che lo caratterizza oggi [secondo capitolo]. La seconda, che corrisponde al terzo capitolo, fornisce una dettagliata panoramica su un caso di studio, la pratica del fan vidding. Forma di remix praticata quasi esclusivamente da donne, il vidding consiste nel creare fan video a partire da un montaggio d’immagini tratte da film o serie televisive che utilizza come accompagnamento musicale una canzone. Le vidders, usando specifiche tecniche di montaggio, realizzano delle letture critiche dei prodotti mediali di cui si appropriano, per commentare, criticare o celebrare gli oggetti di loro interesse. Attraverso il vidding il presente lavoro indaga le tattiche di rielaborazione e riscrittura dell’immaginario mediale attraverso il riuso di immagini, con particolare attenzione al remix inteso come pratica di genere.The practice of remix is everyday more spread in the contemporary audiovisual production, and performed by an ever-growing number of people, who now have technological instruments and technical skills to perform something that was once reserved only to experimental artists. Despite its growing presence in the media sphere, remix, especially in audiovisual form, has received little analytical attention. This work explores the practice of remix as both the contemporary declination of a long term practice in audiovisual media – that is the re-use of found footage – and the grassroots act of appropriation of mainstream media contents by users. The dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first part, a theoretical and historical-critical in-depth analysis is further divided into two chapters. The first is dedicated to the practice of remix as an act of appropriation, of recycle, of decontextualisation and resemantization of media images through the history of audiovisual media. The second investigates remix as the cultural, social and media context in which remix has seen in the last decade a capillary diffusion. The second part, which corresponds to the third chapter, is dedicated to a single case study, the practice of fan vidding. An - almost exclusively - female audiovisual form of fandom activity that consists in appropriating clips from movies or TV shows, re-editing them and setting them to music, usually to pop songs. Vidders, using editing strategies and techniques, stage analytical readings of the original media texts they appropriate, in order to comment upon the sources, criticize them, or praise them. Through vidding, this work explores the tactics of reworking and rewriting of media imaginary through remix, and focuses especially on remix as a gendered practice

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Perinatal Loss Experienced by the Parental Couple: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

Background: At the beginning of 2020, mothers and fathers who experienced perinatal events (from conception to pregnancy and postpartum period) found themselves facing problems related to the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated difficulties for health care centers in providing care. In the unexpected and negative event of perinatal loss (ie, miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death) more complications occurred. Perinatal loss is a painful and traumatic life experience that causes grief and can cause affective disorders in the parental couple—the baby dies and the couple’s plans for a family are abruptly interrupted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, limited access to perinatal bereavement care, due to the lockdown measures imposed on medical health care centers and the social distancing rules to prevent contagion, was an additional risk factor for parental mental health, such as facing a prolonged and complicated grief. Objective: The main aims of this study are as follows: to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on mothers and fathers who experienced perinatal loss during the pandemic, comparing their perceptions; to evaluate their change over time between the first survey administration after bereavement and the second survey after 6 months; to examine the correlations between bereavement and anxiety, depression, couple satisfaction, spirituality, and sociodemographic variables; to investigate which psychosocial factors may negatively affect the mourning process; and to identify the potential predictors of the development of complicated grief. Methods: This longitudinal observational multicenter study is structured according to a mixed methods design, with a quantitative and qualitative section. It will include a sample of parents (mothers and fathers) who experienced perinatal loss during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020. There are two phases—a baseline and a follow-up after 6 months. Results: This protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Psychological Research, University of Padova, and by the Institutional Ethics Board of the Spedali Civili of Brescia, Italy. We expect to collect data from 34 or more couples, as determined by our sample size calculation. Conclusions: This study will contribute to the understanding of the psychological processes related to perinatal loss and bereavement care during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will provide information useful to prevent the risk of complicated grief and psychopathologies among bereaved parents and to promote perinatal mental health. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/3886

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perinatal loss among Italian couples: A mixed-method study

Background: Perinatal bereavement is an event that greatly impacts the emotional, psychological, and psychosocial aspects of those who want to have a child. Objectives: Since there are few studies on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on couples grieving for perinatal loss, this research aimed to survey this experience. Participants: Between 2020 and 2021, in Italian provinces highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, 21 parents participated: 16 mothers (76%; mean age 36.2; SD: 3.1) and 5 fathers (24%; mean age 40.2; SD: 3.4), among which there were 4 couples. Methods: A mixed-method design was used through self-report questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Accompanied by a sociodemographic form, the following questionnaires were administered: Prolonged Grief-13, the Parental Assessment of Paternal Affectivity (PAPA) (to fathers), the Parental Assessment of Maternal Affectivity (PAMA) (to mothers), the Dyadic Adjustment Scale short version, the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised. The texts obtained through the in-depth interviews underwent thematic analysis. Results: Fifty per cent of participants suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) symptoms and 20% suffered from relational dyadic stress. Four areas of thematic prevalence emerged: psychological complexity of bereavement, the impact of the COVID-19, disenfranchisement vs. support, and spirituality and contact with the lost child. Participants interpreted their distress as related to inadequate access to healthcare services, and perceiving the pandemic restrictions to be responsible for less support and lower quality of care. Furthermore, they needed psychological help, and most of them were unable to access this service. Spirituality/religiosity did not help, while contact with the fetus and burial did. Conclusion: It is important to implement psychological services in obstetrics departments to offer adequate support, even in pandemic situations

“The Biggest Fan Remake of All Time”. Star Wars Uncut: fans e crowdsourcing in una galassia lontana lontana

Started in July 2009 as an experiment in crowdsourcing by young programmer Casey Pugh, the Star Wars Uncut project gathered together almost a thousand fans from all around the world to recreate a fanmade version of the first episode of George Lucas’ cinematographic saga, 15 seconds at a time. This paper aims to examine this project, its development, its main features and potentialities, and how its structure was implemented to develop further the participants’ user experience. Moreover, drawing from different academic fields and topics, such as fan studies, participatory culture and participative documentary studies, this paper seeks to provide effective theoretical tools to analyze the processes that subtend crowdsourced media project like Star Wars Uncut

“Come together”: a fanvid insight on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and fandom

Through the in-depth analysis of a single fanwork, Luminosity’s concept-vid Scooby Road (2005), made with images appropriated from the acclaimed TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this paper will investigate the strong and complex relationship between fan communities and media. A vid is a form of remix that consists in appropriating clips from movies or TV shows, and setting them to music. The author of the remixed work, the vidder, uses editing strategies in order to comment upon the sources, criticize them or praise them. Building on the concept of fandom ecology, and providing an overview of the main characteristics of the vidding community, this paper will focus on how the shared knowledge of both the original work and of fannish interpretations of such work, combined with fannish conventions and modes of media consumption, shape fandom creative productions. After examining the relevance of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the vidding community and its history, we will then focus on Scooby Road’s peculiar context of creation and distribution, and proceed to analyze several of the fifteen vids that compose this peculiar, 42- minute concept-vid

Le fascisme italien en couleurs

Arte a diffusé les 14 et 21 février 2007 un documentaire du cinéaste britannique Chris Oxley réalisé en 2006, le Fascisme italien en couleurs. Ce film, divisé en deux parties de 52 minutes chacune, la Conquête du pouvoir et Mussolini au pouvoir, se propose de raconter l’histoire du fascisme italien, de la conquête du pouvoir par Benito Mussolini, dans les années 1920, à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, jusqu’à la défaite finale du fascisme, en avril 1945. Il fait partie d’un courant documentaire, ..

Paratexts from Cinephilia to Mediaphilia. (through Ludification Culture)

According to the most influential dictionaries, “-philia” is – among other things – “a positive feeling of liking, the experiencing of affective and emotional states”, “a feeling of affection for a person or an institution”, “or for an art expression”. But also: “a feeling of unusual or abnormal (mainly sexual) desire for someone or something.” Basically, all “-philias” convey the idea of closeness and assiduity with the object of one's affection, something that can often degenerate into excess and exaggeration (necrophilia, dendrophilia and other pathological behaviors). Do media pose the same threat? They do, according to some recent theories on the relationship between media and quality of life, which also bring up the concept of “media obesity” that should be fought by following special media diets. This is actually not a new topic for those involved in cinema studies and came up before any concerns over the risks of hyper-exposure to the media – something existing even without the occurrence of a “-philia” - ; therefore the articles tries to contextualize the problem

Researching Women in Silent Cinema: New Findings and Perspectives

This anthology exposes the richness and variety of interests that motivate feminist film research today. Exploring women’s contribution to silent cinema, scholars from across the globe address questions of performance, nationality, industry, technology, labor, and theory of feminist historiography. The volume builds on the thematic, methodological, and material diversity that characterized earlier efforts in women’s film history, and the originating context of the sixth Women and the Silent Screen conference (Bologna, 2010). Much emphasis is given to the transitional period of silent cinema (1910s to the early 1920s), which emerges as the field where feminist film scholars are beginning to claim their own theoretical and historical ‘place’. While giving a new impetus to the idea of transitional cinema, the collected essays also illuminate the importance of film’s transnational circulation. Questions of nation and nationhood, and women’s inclusion or exclusion within these terms, are examined in connection to issues of cultural globalization. How did American serial queens impact early Chinese film? How did the variety stage accommodate American films in Rio de Janeiro? Along what lines might we discuss women filmmakers who literally toured the world? These are just some of the issues that are discussed in the volume. Each investigation prompts us into distinct acts of cultural contextualization. A particular focus on acting and the agency of the actress is shared across the volume. The fundamental figure of the actress links multiple threads of scholarship, traversing different films and national cinemas. Alice Guy, Asta Nielsen, Florence Turner, Lois Weber, Mary Pickford, Esfir’ Shub, Pearl White, Vera Karalli, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Elsa Lanchester, Louise Fazenda, Sarah Bernhardt, Gemma Bellincioni, Angelina Buracci, Yin Mingzhu, Leni Riefensthal: these are but some of the names that are encountered across the essays in the collection. New findings are exposed and new research perspectives are opened through these and other figures, allowing us to uncover original ways of thinking about women’s visibility and agency on film