The H&C Research Theme and the Screen Work Group are pleased to announce our fourth Videographic Research Summer School at the University of Reading, July 7th – 11th 2025. After successful workshops in previous years – which have included participants from Pharmacy, History, Archaeology, Theatre, Museums and Collections, Modern Languages and English Literature – we welcome expressions of interest from UoR colleagues working in all discipline areas who would like to develop their skills in making video essays.
Applications
If you are interested in taking part, please complete this EOI before the 15th January.
The form confirms your availability for the dates and duration of the workshop (July 7th – 11th 2025), provides us with information about your research context and proposed object of study, and addresses the potential for working with audiovisual approaches in this area.
Context
The digital reworking of sound and image is an exciting and rapidly developing research practice. This summer school is designed to make these methods available to colleagues at Reading across a variety of disciplines and research areas. Our ambition is to develop the videographic skills of researchers beyond film and television studies, where these approaches are now firmly established. We believe there are significant and underexplored opportunities in applying videographic approaches to research projects in every discipline, including collections-based research.
The Summer School
The workshop will take place in Minghella Studios, July 7th – 11th 2025. It will involve:
- basic 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 aspects of video essay form
- 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 year
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 H&C APVC Research John Gibbs, an award-winning video essayist with extensive experience of teaching videographic criticism and FTT Lecturer in Filmmaking Andrew Philip, a documentary maker with 20 years of experience working in postproduction. It will also draw on expertise from colleagues in the wider videographic field, including Screen Working Group Director Adam O’Brien.
Testimonials
“The workshop exceeded my expectations! It was one of the best weeks of my professional life. I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“The workshop has opened up avenues to rethink project design, and project delivery. The videographic method allows also for a wider dissemination, and I like that a lot. In this sense, the workshop has extended my perception of reach and research design.”
“This was the most productive skills event I have encountered during my almost 15 years of working at the University. Its tight focus, collegiality, mix of academic and practical expertise, and its lecturer-centered approach were especially welcome.”
“The workshop surpassed my expectations and enabled me to develop new skills which will be useful in both teaching/research. The atmosphere was very supportive, constructive and encouraging. It was also beneficial to be able to engage with colleagues beyond my department and breakdown the silos that can characterize research at a university.”
“I had already heard from colleagues that the workshop was awesome. I have to say that the workshop went well above my already high expectations. It has been one of the most transformative and elevating intellectual experiences of the last few years.”
“I had been slightly worried that it might be beyond my technical capabilities and that the theoretical frames of such work might be too grounded in film theory and in disciplines beyond my area of expertise, but I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the approach has a much broader range of applications and breadth of relevance. I would encourage people from any disciplinary background to try these approaches.”
Explore videographic methods…
If you are not yet familiar with video essays, these examples may help to illustrate the exciting potential and variety of the approach:
The Elephant Man’s Sound, Tracked (Liz Greene): A deep archival dive into sound design, David Lynch and creative-labour politics.
Creative Geography, Creative Connections: Candyman (John Gibbs): Explores the two films’ (1992, 2021) engagement with their location and the politics of urban space.
Restituting Evidence: Genocide and Reparations in German colonial Namibia (Forensic Architecture): this extraordinary video work by the Goldsmiths team and their partners in the Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation indicates some of the potential of videographic approaches in different fields.
Nerdwriter on The Night Watch. We have significant reservations about this one – feeling it’s too pleased with itself and its claims to knowledge – but it does illustrate some of the kinds of analysis one might offer on an object / work / material in another medium.
xena’s body (a menstrual auto-investigation using an iphone) Watch this on your phone! An embodied investigation of the politics of menstrual tracking apps, among other things.