Summer Workshop in Videographic Research Methods

As part of our commitment to interdisciplinary research at the University of Reading, the Heritage & Creativity Research Theme and the Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures (CFAC) are pleased to announce a Summer Workshop in Videographic Research Methods.

Context

The digital reworking of sound and image is a key academic approach in film and television studies. This workshop is designed to make these methods available to researchers at Reading, including those working in other disciplines. While we imagine some participants in the workshop will be conducting research in film or television, a major ambition of the workshop is to develop the skills of researchers in other discipline areas. We believe there are significant and underexplored opportunities in applying videographic approaches to other arts and humanities subjects.

The workshop

The workshop will take place in Minghella Studios, June 20th – 24th. It will involve:

• technical training in non-linear editing and related technologies
• producing and sharing feedback on a series of exercises in response to briefs designed to engage with different and videographic approaches
• discussion of existing video essays and debates in the wider field of videographic scholarship
• reflection on videographic analysis and archival material
• planning a longer audiovisual essay, with opportunities for feedback later in the vacation
• lunch and refreshments.

Participants will nominate and work with an item of audiovisual material or material object relevant to their research, as a means of ‘testing out’ how to develop critical ideas through editing. No prior experience or equipment is required (computers with appropriate software will be available at the workshop).

The workshop will be led by CFAC Co-Director Adam O’Brien and John Gibbs, an audiovisual essayist with several years’ experience of teaching videographic criticism. It will also draw on expertise from colleagues in Special Collections and the wider videographic field.

Applications

If you are interested in taking part, please complete the expression of interest. The form invites you to confirm your availability for the dates and duration of the workshop, to provide information about your research context, and to identify an object of study, indicating what potential there might be for working with it through audiovisual means. Please RSVP by March 25th.

Questions

Please contact CFAC Co-Director Adam O’Brien with any questions (adam.obrien@reading.ac.uk).

Explore videographic methods…

If you are not yet familiar with videographic work, these examples may help to illustrate the exciting potential and variety of the approach:

Pasta as prologue: the Spaghetti House siege on film (Charlie Shackleton): Two different dramatisations of the 1975 siege of a Knightsbridge restaurant by Black British radicals remind us that history also needs its agitators.

The Elephant Man’s Sound, Tracked (Liz Greene):A deep archival dive into sound design, David Lynch and creative-labour politics.

The Mighty Maestro on Screen (Evelyn Kreutzer): A study of gesture, movement and music, through the figure of the on-screen orchestral conductor.

‘Say, have you seen the Carioca?’ (John Gibbs): Moving between film, popular music, histories of dance and cinema exhibition practice; looking afresh at relationships between different historical periods and national cinemas.

Mediated Auscultation (Emilija Talijan): Stethoscopes, bodies, sounds, modernism, still and moving images.