Relational Manoeuvres in Autobiographical Video Art (original) (raw)

Approaching Contemporary Cinematic I-Witnessing

UoH Repository Copy PhD Thesis, 2020

In this thesis, I theorise Contemporary Cinematic I-Witnessing as a critical approach to the production and viewership of autobiographical experience on film. The analysis utilises autobiography, film, and adaptation studies to develop an ethical framework that considers the representation of autobiographical experience on film as a form of testimony. The research reveals the codes and conventions of the autobiographical ‘I’ on screen, to identify and interrogate the cinematic and empathic strategies that invite the viewer to bear witness. Fundamentally, Contemporary Cinematic I-Witnessing describes the unspoken agreement between subject and viewer, underpinned by a singular shared objective: to bear witness to the subjective truth of a life.

The autobiographical documentary: archive and montage to represent the self

Studies in Documentary Film , 2020

This essay aims to examine how archival material is repurposed within autobiographical documentaries in order to reconstruct the documentarian filmmaker's self in relation to their family. It is plausible for the filmmaker to explore their own identity by reexamining their family history, especially with interviews and observational devices; however, domestic media plays a particular role in creating a supporting discourse that finds new meanings from the confrontation of statements and images. By analyzing three examples of autobiographical documentaries, namely Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette, 2003), 51 Birch Street (Doug Black, 2005) and The Marina Experiment (Marina Lutz, 2009), we will explore how the re-contextualization of personal images works as a narrative strategy to unveil identity contestations in American autobiographical filmmaking.

The Cinema of Me: Self and Subjectivity in First Person Documentary

When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subject matter of the film and the subject making the film. The two senses of the word are immediately in play - the matter and the maker - thus the two ways of being subjectified as both subject and object. Subjectivity finds its filmic expression, not surprisingly, in very personal ways, yet it is nonetheless shaped by and in relation to collective expressions of identity that can transform the cinema of 'me' into the cinema of 'we'. Leading scholars and practitioners of first-person film are brought together in this groundbreaking collection to consider the theoretical, ideological, and aesthetic challenges wrought by this form of filmmaking in its diverse cultural, geographical, and political contexts.