Items where Year is 2022

This article contextualizes and characterizes the Venezuelan feminist film collective Grupo Feminista Miercoles. Founded by Venezuelan Josefina Acevedo and Italians Franca Donda and Ambretta Marrosu, among others, Grupo Feminista Miercoles (1979–88) produced the documentary Yo, tu, Ismaelina (‘I, you, Ismaelina’) (1981) and the videos Argelia Laya, por ejemplo (‘Argelia Laya, for example’) (1987), Eumelia Hernandez, calle arriba, calle abajo (‘Eumelia Hernandez, up and down the street’) (1988) and Una del monton (‘One of the bunch’) (1988), and participated in several activities organized by the Venezuelan women’s movement. On the one hand, this article pays attention to both the cinematic and political contexts that allowed the emergence of this collective, with a focus on the influence that Italian cinematic and feminist ideas had in these contexts. On the other hand, it also provides formal analysis of the collective’s filmography and explores how feminist ideas and praxis are deployed in its films. The overall aim of this article is to restore the contributions of Grupo Feminista Miercoles to both Latin American political cinema and transnational feminist cinema.

Cine Mujer was the name of two feminist film collectives, one founded in Mexico (1975–1986) and the other in Colombia (1978–1999). Sharing the same name but with no ties between each other, these collectives produced films that provided different representations of women, politicized personal experiences and domestic spaces, and promoted processes of consciousness-raising. Broadly, this article looks at the Cine Mujer collectives as part of a larger phenomenon that, although informed by second-wave feminism and the New Latin American Cinema, can be better understood within the singular complexity of Latin American women’s movements. Specifically, it analyses two documentaries, Cosas de mujeres (1978) and Carmen Carrascal (1982), produced by the Cine Mujer collectives in Mexico and Colombia, respectively. Drawing on Laura Marks’ work on hybridity, excess, and haptic visuality, this article explores the relation between modes of production and representation in these films and positions them as emblematic examples of a formative moment in Latin American feminist documentary. By emphasizing the emotional and sensorial appeal of these films, this article also attempts to expand what is understood by political cinema.

This special section within the issues 61 of Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media was co-edited by Lorena Cervera Ferrer, Sonia Kerfa, and Elizabeth Ramírez-Soto. All the articles included in this special section were peer-reviewed. Moreover, this section also includes book reviews and an edited transcription of the roundtable that took place at the conference 'Cozinhando Imagens, Tejiendo Feminismos. Latin American Feminist Film and Visual Art Collectives,' from which this section emerged.

Once heralded as a ‘fortress built by Nature for herself... a moat defensive to a house…’ our island is slowly unravelling. Across political, social and economic dimensions, Britain is beset and besieged. ‘Our scepter’d isle’ is fast fraying at the edges.

Politically, these have been intense years. A tortuous and messy divorce from Europe is being tested daily at customs posts on the land and across invisible lines on the high seas. Once a totem of English authority, the White Cliffs of Dover have become irreversibly politicised. One faction regards them as unassailable battlements, while a rival party deploys their sheer white slopes as a vast projection screen to beam forlorn messages of loss to our European neighbours. North and south along the coastline, our Channel beaches have become the landing sites for waves of refugees seeking solace and security after perilous voyages from war-ravaged homelands.

This paper considers the relationship between site, memory and fine art practices, as viewed from the perspectives of a practitioner informed by the discourses of commemoration and the aftermath of conflict. Through an exploration of art works derived from encounters with displaced spaces, peripheries and edgelands, Gough situates his practice – and that of several selected artists – as a conversation between “place”, “space” and the geopolitical. Artists have long employed the notions of ambiguity, transition and the hybrid in their work.

Framed within the discourses of liminality and aftershock, practitioners have explored various strategies to address rites of in-betweenness to evoke a sensation of transition and displacement. To explore these ideas, Gough posits a number of his artworks as ‘provocations’, and draws attention to other contemporary artists and practitioners similarly drawn to the aftermath of constructed places and re-constructed histories. The paper draws upon two suites of Gough’s work each addressing aspects of the aftermath, and each to a degree addressing issues of transgression. The first is a series of site-specific photographs take on the decrepit and abandoned British army bases in former West Germany where Gough’s family was garrisoned during the Cold War.

They speak of an abjectness and blankness tempered by the depth of familial association. The second suite of practice use frottage, rubbings and photographic collage, to assemble a cycle of triptych forms drawn from prolonged site visits to the sites of twentieth century battle in Turkey, France, Belgium and Macedonia: locations richly associated with transgressive military intervention and now comprised of preserved terrain, military cemeteries and rhetorical topography that has long informed Gough’s practice.

Since the start of his career, British fashion designer Richard Quinn has juxtaposed highly fetishistic imagery with bourgeois floral prints in his runway presentations. The interplay of Quinn’s masks, latex and whips with his choice of bold and bright florals is informed by the various and complex symbolic associations with flowers, which communicates both a delicate femininity and sexual danger. At the core of this is the idea of the hybridized image of the woman-as-flower, who embodies a beguiling combination of exaggerated feminine beauty and uncanny horror. To contextualize why Quinn’s fetish-chic fashion is so impactful, this article explores the fashionable representations of the ‘woman-flower’ through history and how Quinn co-opts imagery of BDSM (bondage, discipline, and sado-masochism), and fetishwear to evoke the complex associations found within floral symbolism, its links to eroticism and sexuality, and how this is enacted on the runway within the discourses of plant horror and the monstrous-feminine.

Outside the scientific community, knowledge and understanding of synthetic textile fibres in museum collections tends to be diffuse and limited. As a result, garments made from these synthetic fibres are liable to be neglected. This guide addresses this knowledge gap. Its aims are to: bring together in one document, key information to support the curation of semi-synthetic and synthetic garments of all types; increase confidence nationally in the curation of semi-synthetic and synthetic garments: their history, interpretation, care and identification; improve the ability of museums to engage the public with these parts of their collections whatever the focus of the museum.

This research looks at the evolving space of animated documentary production in the UK, with a focus on its community of practice and the related communities of
practice that overlap with and within it. In recent years there has been an increase in scholarly attention paid to the history of animated documentary, as well as to the legitimacy of its documentary status. Less research has addressed its diverse production processes or the distribution of power within its production culture. The originality of this research lies in my focus on these areas, and in the synthesis of social research methods with reflection on my own critical practice as an independent animated documentary filmmaker.

I approach animated documentary as a ‘conjunctional’ practice (Ward, 2003, p.7), taking place at the boundaries of other communities of practice and governed by both the formal systems of the commercial media industries and the informal systems of social interaction and identity. As objects of cultural capital, films carry, through their production
histories, the traces of the exchange of other forms of capital – symbolic and economic. By analysing case studies of animated documentaries, I shed light on some of the ways in which power is distributed in the environments from which
they emerge.

My methodology synthesizes multiple qualitative methods to observe and analyse production culture, including: semi-structured interviews; textual analysis of documents; field observation of production and exhibition spaces; theoretical and historical research; and reflection on my own practice, as well as analysis of trends in animated documentaries recently programmed in key film festivals. It includes biographical and production- focused case studies. I interpret my findings using perspectives drawn from concepts of ‘forms of capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986), ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991), and ‘boundary objects’ (Star and Griesemer, 1989). Through these research methods I engage with both academic and production
communities, aiming to create new avenues for knowledge sharing between these.

I propose that animated documentary is multivalent and elastic, allowing filmmakers to work across
industrial boundaries, to access new skills, audiences and relationships, and to develop rich,
interdisciplinary identities. However, the boundary-crossing nature of animated documentary means
that it lacks a set of standardised methods and an industrial lexicon. Because of this, animated
documentary production can be hampered by communication and production issues. This can lead to
inefficiency and wasted creative opportunities, and it is in part responsible for the difficulties that filmmakers encounter when trying to find support for larger scale, longer form animated documentary work.

As part of this thesis, I begin to reify processes through the identification of two broad modes of animated documentary production: a ‘linear’ process in which animation is commissioned as an illustration to an existing soundtrack, and a ‘dialogic’ process in which sound, story and image are developed in parallel, each element in dialogue with the others. I contrast these modes,
looking at the risks and advantages of each.

I conclude by proposing ways in which animated documentary production can grow in scale and ambition, through establishing systems of knowledge sharing, and developing an industrial lexicon. I suggest that this endeavour is best taken up by academics working in dialogue with industry, with a flow of knowledge passing between these worlds and approaches to production being reified into
named systems and techniques. As part of the conclusion, I suggest simple guidelines to support practitioners approaching an animated documentary production, and some words and phrases that could form the beginning of a lexicon of animated documentary production.

In this chapter I look at a cross-section of songs that emerged from the British ‘Indie’ music scene and Counterculture of the 80s (and its evolution into the 21st century) – songs evoke an eco-conscious awareness through their use of imagery and ambience. As an island nation it is no surprise that the surrounding seas and wider ocean have influenced and defined the collective ‘British Isles’ for millennia. One pervasive example of this is in the way it has manifested in the pop song (a 20th Century iteration of a long-running tradition of sea-inspired ballads and sea shanties – and one that has come full circle in the recent number one by the Scottish postman TikTok sensation, Nathan Evans). Focusing on three main ‘waves’ or creative approaches, we’ll consider the personal lyric, the political, and the ecological. Starting this tripartite survey, we’ll look at The Waterboys’ song, ‘All The Things She Gave Me’ (1984), which describes a journey to the docks to discard all the physical associations of a failed relationship. Other songwriters who have adopted this personal, lyrical approach will include Martha Tilston, with her album, ‘The Sea’ (2014); and Johnny Flynn, with ‘Country Mile’ (2013). We’ll then move into more explicit political waters with The Levellers’ apocalyptic song, ‘On the Beach’ (2008), and equivalent acts of the more radical protest scene, including Seize the Day. In the third section we’ll look at more explicitly ecological songs, specifically ones with a potentially redemptive message – in particular, the song ‘In the Anthropocene’ by Nick Mulvey (2019), which raised money for Surfers Against Sewage. Whileas some of these examples will be seen as very contemporary, it will be argued that such songs of solastalgia (Glenn Albrecht) draw upon a long tradition of folksongs that explore liminality and longing, songs such as ‘Carrick Fergus’, ‘Donal Og’ and the ‘Skye Boat Song’ – the Hebridean tradition of the ‘cianalas’, which eco-songwriters are bringing into the modern age.

Moving to the Marlborough Downs on the edge of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Avebury in late 2019 (an area I have been exploring since the late `80s), I decided to map my new locality through poetry and art – connecting nodes of significance to create a personal Wiltshire ‘songline’: The Herepath Project. As the 2020 lockdown kicked in, the concept of ‘deep mapping’ (Nan Shepherd) my local universe gained increasing poignancy. In the form of a literary dérive – charting zones of ambience and influence as I range metaphorically across the Downs – this article will consider different forms of creative mapping, including the ‘Counter-Mapping’ of the Zuni Map Art Project; and the ‘song-walking’ of Dr Elizabeth Bennett (Essex University); as well initiatives which ‘hack’ the hegemonic discourses of the countryside, such a Black Girls Hike, the Colonial Countryside project, and Slow Ways, and other acts of creative resistance (Rebecca Solnit; Nick Hayes). Examples from the poetry pamphlet produced will be shared, along with the odd field sketch. A technique of ‘writing the land’ will be fashioned, combining repurposed elements of Debord’s psychogeographical ‘dérive’, Richard Long’s ‘Land Art’, and Buddhist ‘jongrom’. Drawing inspiration from the biodiversity of the Downs a non-anthropocentric perspectival shift will be advocated for deconstructing the conventional human-centred cartographies of property demarcation, ontological discreteness, and hierarchical layering.

The voices of autistic children and their families are routinely underestimated and overlooked in research and practice. Research is challenged methodologically in accessing the views of autistic people who, by definition, are characterised by social and communication difficulties. Consequently, many voices remain unheard and experiences undocumented. This has important implications for the validity of research that is interested in improving the life experiences of marginalised groups since the representation of those experiences is partial and dominated by research perspectives that prioritise particular kinds of evidence. This situation matters because there remains a substantial gap between research and practice such that the longer-term outcomes for autistic people across social, educational and economic indices remain poor. We argue that research can only make an impact on practice if there is a genuine commitment to gathering and understanding these different sources of evidence in ways that connect research and practice from the start. This protocol describes a methodological project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK. The ‘Our Stories’ project applies and extends a participatory Digital Stories methodology to explore the research challenge of gathering a range of views from autistic children, families, and practice in authentic ways and at points of transition. Digital Stories is an accessible and inclusive methodology that supports the sharing of views and experiences in visual, video form. We describe the rationale for, and design, of the project across four pilot studies in different contexts as well as our approach to analysis and ethics. While our project focuses on autism, the knowledge we gain is applicable to research and practice much more widely and to any voices or groups who are marginalised from the traditional ways of doing research and to any contexts of practice.

While addressing the question of screenplay textuality, this Special Issue takes a close interest in the ‘media thickness’ of the screenplay in its textual form. In doing so, we wish to contribute to the exploration and affirmation of scenaristic processes as both cultural and intermedial practices, as in general, screenwriting and screenplays are indeed to be considered at the crossroads of different artistic, mediatic and social fields. This is a flexible editorial posture and assumed as such, one which above all aims to consider the constitutive plurality of given textual practices, not only in terms of conceptual and social anchoring, but also of styles, modes and languages.

Alongside South India’s rapid urbanisation, the early decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed the arrival of new digital technologies and social media platforms in India, opening new possibilities for performance on a mediatised urban and global stage. In a wave of popular performance practices emerging around 2011–2, Bengaluru (as with other cities across India) became the site to a host of flash mobs staged in urban spaces and filmed for online publics. This chapter examines the flash mob performance trend of that era in relation to national discourses of ‘New India’as an example of forms of cultural practice characterised by an ‘aesthetics of arrival’ in globalising India.

This article examines Milner’s artistic insights in “The role of illusion in symbol formation” (1952) and “Psychoanalysis and art” (1956). She notes how Milner extends existing psychoanalytic formulations of art as substitution and reparation to include exploratory motivations towards the undiscovered. Scott situates Milner’s thinking within her artistic community namely Ben Nicholson and Cedric Morris, citing overlaps of experimental “free” drawing, unconsciously interchanged body parts, and mixing the “visitation of the gods” with everyday objects, potentially used to explore human relationships.

This book chapter introduces the reader to the field of experimental animation by surveying various definitions that have been proposed, offering an overview of some of the key figures, explaining the history of visual music, and exploring the theme of medium expansion. It ends by offering three original case studies of contemporary experimental animations.

From the beginning, the Risiera di San Sabba, the only concentration and extermination camp of the Axis in Italy, had been the central character in the film San Sabba (2016). However, in 2014 the project was denied access to the premises. This chapter explores how and why the initial treatment, featuring interviews with survivors and tour guides conducted in a traditional participatory style, evolved into an experimental script for an essay film questioning the ontological status of memorialisation. Constructed around unseen documents, held in multiple languages (Italian, Slovenian, German and English), the narrative aimed to illustrate the harrowing topic without entering the camp. With the story locked in the relationship between the silenced history of the victims and those who struggled for the persecution of the perpetrators, when late into production some access to the camp was granted, the team was brought back to the drawing board and editing became screenwriting.

Beyond Beck Road (part of Open House Festival London and European Heritage Days) is a free public art event, where the street becomes a living breathing exhibition space.

The street is a communal stage for artistry, embracing inclusivity, participation and collaboration, through workshops and public exhibition. The event’s participants and artists are all connected to the street and surrounding area and encompass emerging and established creatives if all ages.

Beck Road itself houses resident artists, studios and has significant communal and cultural heritage. The event’s configuration, of individual and collaborative work, reflects its location in the heart of Hackney, as a vibrant and culturally expansive borough.

Beyond Beck Road culminates with Underline, a performative screening event, which takes place in the railway arch that divides the street. For this event it is transformed into a unique cinema space. Its programme combines an open call, short films, expanded cinema and performances in a distinct sensory encounter.

Film is the ‘art of time’, and film and memory’s
generative affiliation is founded in this relationship.
This paper will examine how this mnemonic facility is
invoked through practice and how this in turn creates
memories.

The tension between narrative interests
and memory’s imperatives can form an axis of
experimentation and exploration. All films reference
memory, one way or another, however not all are
works of memory. Some films would evoke the idea
of memory but do not risk structural and psychological
instability whereas others consciously suggest
memory’s presence through offering more than one
temporal plain and other related signifiers.

The latter categorisation includes the films suchas
Muriel ou le temps d’un retour (Resnais, 1963), Tren
de sombras (Guerín, 1997) and Appearances (Meter,
2000). In this work the correspondence of history and
form, narrative and memory relates and develops
subjective and cultural recollection.

These films relate a form of filmic hybridity that
emphasizes conceptual potentiality and will be the
focus of this study. This examination will consider how
these films’ account of memory’s evolving resonances
is an act of writing and re-writing, and how these works
produce new ways of seeing and thinking.

It is now accepted that current film production practices are unsustainable and new formulations need to be found that address the climate crisis. The issue’s primary reporting is concerned with industrial film productions, which is undoubtedly important, but this top down approach needs to be balanced with more inclusive and imbedded solutions. Therefore, a pedagogic perspective, which considers whether learning initiatives can influence production methods, is timely. This article proposes that through this engagement alternative practices can be developed.