Gerda Cammaer | Toronto Metropolitan University (original) (raw)

Papers by Gerda Cammaer

McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Jun 18, 2024

Intellect eBooks, Jul 3, 2023

Springer eBooks, 2018

Traveling shots such as phantom rides symbolize the trajectory of travel and the experience of mo... more Traveling shots such as phantom rides symbolize the trajectory of travel and the experience of movement that is inherent to travel. Their primary quality is movement and the ability to draw the viewer into the world on screen. They are ideal tools for documentary makers to experiment with form and content, with time and space, duration and distance, and in doing so create a moment of critical distance for the viewer. This chapter focuses on two Australian works that use phantom rides as their basic material to engage with the world: the SBS documentary The Ghan (2018) and Daniel Crooks’ mesmerizing video installation Phantom Ride (2016). Contrary to mapping duration as a coherently located whole as in conventional documentary film, The Ghan and Phantom Ride provide different, sometimes competing, temporalities that lack a clear (narrative) motivation. They provide restless spaces that denaturalize our experience of time, distance us from our habitual reading of space, and transport us into a world unfolding where things go off in unimagined directions.

Environmental Communication-a Journal of Nature and Culture, Mar 1, 2009

This paper analyzes the complex relationship between photography and film in the documentary “Man... more This paper analyzes the complex relationship between photography and film in the documentary “Manufactured Landscapes,” a film about the work of Edward Burtynsky: beautiful, painterly, large format photos of scarred landscapes, dumps and industrial ...

Presses universitaires du Septentrion eBooks, 2013

The Redacted Life of a Native American Activist: Professor Cathy Davidson and Professor Ada Norri... more The Redacted Life of a Native American Activist: Professor Cathy Davidson and Professor Ada Norris found themselves unable to document fully the public life of the remarkable Yankton Nakota writer and activist Zitkala-Ša. "Penguin Classics gave us very clear limitations in terms of our publishing guidelines; since they were operating on limited budgets, there was no room to even consider any works that fell outside of 1922, even if they seemed to be free of copyright claims."

The Moving Image, 2012

ABSTRACT

Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Nov 1, 2022

This chapter uses the principles of the Slow Media Manifesto and Roland Barthes’ punctum to conte... more This chapter uses the principles of the Slow Media Manifesto and Roland Barthes’ punctum to contextualise and explain the making of Mobilarte. Shot in the city of Maputo (Mozambique) on an iPad, Mobilarte is an experiential video in three chapters. The video’s narrative is non-verbal: all meaning is created in image and sound with the aim to recreate the actual experience of traveling the city by tuk-tuk and filming the trip on an iPad for the audience. The techniques used to achieve this were applying ideas about change blindness to the visual narrative and linking colour and sound for the audio. The production of the video is explained in detail as an example of mobile video art-making and of Slow Media creation.

Presses de l'Université du Québec eBooks, Jun 22, 2018

McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Feb 1, 2010

McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Nov 1, 2014

Interactive film and media journal, May 25, 2022

Journal, creative technologies, Nov 17, 2015

The purpose of this article is to offer a preliminary exploration of the similarities and differe... more The purpose of this article is to offer a preliminary exploration of the similarities and differences between historical and contemporary travelogue practices of tourists by comparing some aspects of the travel behaviour and film culture of two generations, the boomers and the millennials. It focuses, in particular, on how amateur travel films have evolved stylistically and conceptually since the era when they were shot on small analogue film cameras (8mm and Super-8mm film) to recent videos of the "genre" shot on small, portable digital cameras and android devices. By comparing the travel films of these two generations, this article explores the ways in which mobile media has reinvigorated questions about the formation and proliferation of the tourist gaze. It also discusses how amateur travel films offer an alternative to hegemonic forms in film by demonstrating techniques and practices used by amateur filmmakers that are discouraged by professionals of the corporate media. Lastly, it explores how sharing travel stories is different now that the notion of community is at the heart of the internet, and home movies are not just for the home anymore.

What do digital platforms mean for cinema studies in Canada? In an era when digital media are pro... more What do digital platforms mean for cinema studies in Canada? In an era when digital media are proliferating and thousands upon thousands of clips are available online, it seems counter-intuitive to say that audio-visual history is quickly disappearing. But the two processes are actually happening in tandem. Adopting a media-archaeological approach to the history of cinema, contributors to Cinephemera cover a wide range of pressing issues relating to Canadian cinema's ephemerality, including neglected or overlooked histories, the work of found footage filmmakers, questions about access and copyright, and practices of film archiving. Spurred by rapid changes to technologies of production, viewing, and preservation, this collection showcases both leading and emerging scholars grappling with the shifting meaning of cinema as an object of study. Film historians are put in conversation with experimental filmmakers and archivists to provide renewed energy for cinema studies by highlighting common interests around the materiality and circulation of films, videos, and other old media. Considering a wide range of cases from the earliest days of silent film production to the most recent initiatives in preservation, Cinephemera exposes the richness of moving image production in Canada outside the genres of feature length narrative fiction and documentary - a history that is at risk of being lost just as it is appearing. Contributors include Andrew Burke (Winnipeg), Jason Crawford (Champlain), Liz Czach (Alberta), Seth Feldman (York), Monika Kin Gagnon (Concordia), Andre Habib (Montreal), Randolph Jordan (SFU), Peter Lester (Brock), Scott Mackenzie (Queen's); Louis Pelletier (Montreal), Katherine Quanz (WLU), Micky Story (New College), Charles Tepperman (Calgary), Jennifer VanderBurgh (Saint Mary's), William C. Wees (McGill), Jerry White (Dalhousie), and Christine York (Concordia).