__International Journal of Film and Media Arts

URI permanente para esta coleção:https://hdl.handle.net/10437/15692

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Stage-directing the virtual reality experience : developing a theoretical framework for immersive literacy
(Lusofona University, 2021) Melki, Henri; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Despite the incremental improvement and inclusion of immersive technologies in entertainment, training simulation, fine art, inclusive design, academia, and education; Virtual Reality (VR) still faces issues regarding its ability to compete with films and animation in visual storytelling without merging into the realm of video games. In 2015, Pixar’s Ed Catmull warned moviemakers that Virtual Reality is “not storytelling” and argued that the linear aspect of narratives poses an obstacle that cannot be overcome with VR. In contrast, Catmull argued that VR has immense application in games. However, VR creators have been pushing the boundaries and possibilities of delivering narratives in virtual spaces. In 2019, the VR experience “Gloomy Eyes” was presented at the Sundance festivals featuring a 30-minute story split between 3 episodes. The simulation is structured to provide its audience with some degrees of freedom while guiding them intuitively through the virtual space. In 2021, Blue Zoo also released a VR project titled “The Beast” featuring a cyclist powering up a snow-covered mountain. The short film was entirely created in Quill VR with the intention of being treated like a theatrical play rather than a film. While the creators of “The Beast” have explicitly mentioned the influence of theatre, “Gloomy Eyes” draws its visual language from similar theatrical roots. This paper argues that VR has been mistakenly compared to film and animation when it should be associated with theatre. The audience of both are not passive as they are during the screening of a film or animation. The space and the medium demands participation through their presence in the same space with the actors/characters. Theatre presents a promising candidate for extracting criteria that could be used to develop a visual language for VR. This research aims to formulate a framework for developing a VR visual language through comparison between character-driven narratives in VR such as “Gloomy Eyes” and “The Beast”. The comparative study establishes overlapping criteria and characteristics found in the structure, literacy, sound, and delivery format of narratives in a theatrical performance. These criteria are then outlined and discussed, drawing from affordance theory and discussions on aural and visual attention in theatre, to form a holistic view in approaching VR literacy.
Portuguese soap operas : a genre at the crossroads
(Lusofona University, 2019) Damásio, Manuel José; Costa, Jorge Paixão da; ECATI - School of Communication, Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
In the context of ever greater circulation of televisual content of all genres and formats, this paper focuses on the intersections between the global and the local to understand how a specific genre – soap opera – was localised in a specific cultural and geographical setting giving origin to a production model that gained local prominence and nowadays faces a number of new challenges. Our general argument draws on the empirical findings of original research on the molding of this specific televisual genre and format called “telenovela”, and the specific production mode associated with it, and reflects on its historical emergence and the contingencies of such a process. Our goal is to identify the variables that allowed this genre to gain local dominance and later achieve international circulation. Following the results of quantitative and qualitative research, we argue that the structure of the local production and distribution settings and the dominant ideology of the associated production culture promoted the emergence of an original local production culture and sustains it until today.
Stereoscopic therapy : fun or remedy?
(Lusofona University, 2016) Raposo, Sara; FCAATI - Faculty of Communication, Architecture, Arts and IT
Once the material of playful gatherings, stereoscopic photographs of cities, the moon, landscapes and fashion scenes are now cherished collectors’ items that keep on inspiring new generations of enthusiasts. Nevertheless, for a stereoblind observer, a stereoscopic photograph will merely be two similar images placed side by side. The perspective created by stereoscopic fusion can only be experienced by those who have binocular vision, or stereopsis. There are several causes of a lack of stereopsis. They include eye disorders such as strabismus with double vision. Interestingly, stereoscopy can be used as a therapy for that condition. This paper approaches this kind of therapy through the exploration of North American collections of stereoscopic charts that were used for diagnosis and training purposes until recently.
Games can play us : the power of disempowerment in "emotional engineering"
(Lusofona University, 2017) Filipe, Eva R.; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
With the paradox of interactive emotion as astarting point, this study will try to understandwhat is the cause for this limitation of videogames’ emotional power, identifying some requirementsfor it to be overcome. Through thissingling out, the concept of disempowerment isdrafted as a model for theoretical inquiry, criticalcounterpoint and set of practices that standopposed to the forces that go through, defineand are themselves firmed on the diverse layersof the interactive experience. Beyond tryingto grasp the emotional potential yet to realizeand how the rupture with the established andexpected practices may unlock it, the proposalof the disempowerment model will overflow theinside of the game experience. From its constructionwithin a game to its use on discourseabout video games, its importance on broaderand interwoven dynamics will be highlighted. Allalong the way, a critical proposal will gain shape,which will seek to, cyclically, magnify videogame’s power as a medium of experiences andthe power of the medium as a cultural object. Keywords: Video games; agency; interactivity; immersion; subversion; emotional engineering; disempowerment.
La colorimetría cinematográfica aplicada a los nuevos formatos periodísticos televisivos : el caso del programa español lo de Évole
(Lusofona University, 2022) Barrientos Báez, Almudena; Caldevilla-Domínguez, David; Blanco-Pérez, Manuel; CICANT (FCT) - Centro de Investigação em Comunicação Aplicada, Cultura e Novas Tecnologias
With the irruption of multi-screens that the Netflix era has brought about, a good part of the old visual formulas, especially television and reporter ones, have become outdated. This is especially observable in television formats strongly linked to reporter journalism, such as Spaniards around the world, Street travelers and others. In recent years, a trend of adaptation of cinematographic codes to television products has already been perceived, but the Covid-19 pandemic and the ban on theatrical exhibition in cinemas around the world has precipitated a change in the model of consumption. This article presents an investigation on a nuclear element: the cinematographic colorimetry used in journalistic television programs, specifically, one of the most watched journalistic programs on Spanish television: Lo de Évole.
Rust, mold and cracks : post-dualist approaches on spaces and images
(Lusofona University, 2023) Gervilla, Lucas Rossi; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Using the piece of video art “Rust, Mold, and Cracks”, created by the author, this paper addresses questions related to space, ruins, and different temporalities. Calling upon the authors Georg Simmel and Milton Santos, the text proposes an approach to ruins that goes further than dualist concepts such as abandoned/not abandoned, or modern/outdated. It also discusses the role of Nature in this scenario. In light of this situation, space and time are under mutable reorganisation, as pointed out by David Harvey. Different arrangements between them shall produce diverse modernities. Considering images as objects resulting from this spatiotemporal modification, this article comments on their accumulation.
British stereo photographers in Spain : Frank M. Good
(Lusofona University, 2016) Fernández Rivero, Juan Antonio; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Unlike French stereo photographers, who flooded the market with Spanish views, the most important British publishers and photographers rarely made Spanish views. Quite possibly this was precisely because of the rapid market penetration of the French, such as Gaudin, Ferrier and others, and in spite of the leading British photographic houses, such as Frith or George W. Wilson, also wanting to include Spanish views in their catalogues. The photographer Frank Good would be the only British photographic editor to make a collection of some importance of Spanish stereoscopic views during the first decades of the history of photography, visiting and photographing the cities of San Sebastian, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia, Seville and Cordoba. About one hundred views, of which more than half are of Cordoba and Seville, do not include, strangely, cities such as Madrid, Toledo and Granada.
Contracts of making, viewing and listening : researching in and through films
(Lusofona University, 2020) Ranjan, Ram Krishna; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
This paper tells the story of Contracts of making, viewing and listening, a 17-minute film that has emerged as part of my ongoing doctoral study in Artistic Research in Film. Taking the Bengal Famine of 1943 as a site-event, the doctoral research focuses on investigating and experimenting with epistemologies and ontologies of expressions emanating from a space of subalternity, especially Dalits. Contracts of making, viewing and listening can be seen as an artistic intervention into Satyajit Ray’s Distant Thunder – made in 1973, the film tells the story of effects of the Famine in rural Bengal through the eyes of a Brahmin couple. The artistic intervention was geared towards both critically reading the film from the lens of Dalit consciousness, and to explore ways of writing that critique in the language of the film itself. By retracing the journey of Contracts of making, viewing and listening, this paper focuses on how research is performed in and through the medium of film in this intervention, its multiple conceptual/material contingencies, and ultimately what it proposes in the context of artistic research.
Animating poetry : whose line is it anyway? : creation and critique of shared language in poetry animation
(Lusofona University, 2019) Hanna, Susan J.; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
This paper provides a detailed analysis of an example of personal practice in the creation of collaborative contemporary poetry animation as an example of Ecstatic Truth. It cites a rationale for translation, transcription and remodeling of poems into new animated visual and sonic experiences. This investigation into creation and critique of shared language between poetry and animation includes critical commentary and some historical context, as well as supplying comparative exemplars from poets, animators and collaborators. It suggests that poetry animation is an emergent genre in its own right, and that this has expanding potential for engaging specialist and non-specialist audiences.
The importance of digital filmmaking and how it affects education in filmschools
(Lusofona University, 2017) Stewens, Simone; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
The present document discusses the impacts and changes brought about by digital technologies and the transformations they entail for the different areas of film production, development and education. By focusing on the particular case of one school – The Cologne Film School (ifs) – and how this school as embraced digital disruption, the paperscrutinizes all areas that are shocked by the digital and how film schools can and should react.
Ventura : a character’s mental landscape as history
(Lusofona University, 2017) Cordeiro, Edmundo; ECATI - School of Communication, Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Pedro Costa’s last film, Cavalo Dinheiro [Horse Money, 2014], continues the work with Ventura in a way that could be seen to overtake Vanda’s role in his series of films since Ossos [Bones, 1997]. In Juventude em Marcha [Colossal Youth, 2006], by means of «the power of the false» (Deleuze), Ventura is a stratigraphic character, the result of a confrontation between fictional and documentary powers which permanently shifts, in Ventura himself, the actually existing Ventura from the invented Ventura. This builds a portrait that, with the ritornello of the film — Ventura's insistent recitation of a love letter —, moves across centuries of Portugal and world’s history. But in Horse Money, both concentration and fragmentation increase. There are all kind of coincidences and clashes between the past and the present time, which are presented in a glossolalia, voices that spread memory everywhere, as in the final sequence in the elevator, when we have Ventura and a soldier of the 25 April Revolution completely mummified, transformed into a golden statue. I want to highlight the everlasting present created through the length of time and the scarcity of space (we don’t get out of the elevator for a prolonged period of time). This is not a time that corresponds to confusion or delirium; this is the time built by the film, and I will particularly focus my paper on this coincident mental and historical landscape that, by entailing the body and the life of a person transformed into a character, allows to the filmmaker to ride through history with Ventura’s horse-money (‘money’ is the name of Ventura’s horse left in Cap Vert). We have no predefined thoughts and Pedro Costa does not provide us with any exits, but “the nerve-wave that gives rise to thought” (Artaud, via Deleuze) mixes with the noise of the tremor of the elevator that continues without stopping.
VAST/O : exploring the use of expanded animation for a shared physical understanding of spatial phobias
(Lusofona University, 2019) Woolf, Natalie; Martins, Carolina; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies; HEI-LAB - Human Environment Interaction Lab
This paper looks at materialities of expression through expanded animation. In particular, it details the development of a creative approach for the production of artworks for an installation that will provide a shared understanding of spatial phobias and their physical and psychological symptoms. It brings together the approach of the two authors and their individual research topics. Combining experiential phenomena of particular materials (placing animation within surfaces and technologies), and spatially distributed reading of comic book panels. The physicality of still and moving images and their distribution/placement will be explored, leading to the expansion of animation contexts. Drawing on various makers and practices, the article explores the use of abstract comics and text as static panels and animated drawing, on-site location, and the intervention of various media technologies and other materialities to recognise their effectiveness and impact as a spatially engaged method of reading. The work developed was applied in an interdisciplinary installation titled VAST/O. The artwork is based on some theoretical approaches from literature and animation, thematically drawing on Gaston Bachelard’s notion of vastness, built upon an analysis of Baudelaire’s poetry, and addressing spatial phobias. It seeks to identify a way forward for the communication of the realities of phobic experiences.
Augmented reality to enhance nonopposite reality awareness : lexical relations amongst primary teaching
(Lusofona University, 2020) Baptista, Adriana; Morgado, Celda; Costa, José António; Azevedo, João; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Lexicon allows particular cosmovisions built up with varied semantic, formal and pragmatic-discursive relations (Coseriu, 1991; Teixeira, 2005). In teaching context, these variations are often replaced by dichotomous and decontextualized proposals of lexical organisation (Baptista et al., 2017). We hope changing some teaching practices, based on complex lexical relationships research, and on new didactic resources. Firstly, we account for the diversity of existing lexical relations (Choupina et al., 2013), considering different linguistic criteria (Lehmann & Martin-Berthet, 2008). Then, we present an exploratory study to see if primary school pupils’ mental lexicon is intuitively organised in a dichotomous way. Departing from three bimodal narratives where words show opposition relations, although not exclusive, within the story, sometimes oppositional relations become similarity relations. These relationships allow to group words such as word class, worldviews, sociocultural references. Although this approach starts with antonyms and synonyms in second grade classes (according to Portuguese primary school curriculum, Buescu et al., 2015), we registered varied students’ responses, reflecting a mental lexicon escaping the dichotomy of certain oppositions taught in a decontextualized way. Thirdly, we propose an augmented reality tool that allows children (and adults) to watch visual narrative representing actions from written narratives. As a matter of fact, within particular contexts, words may not relate to each other in an opposite way. If intuitive knowledge on words isn’t confined to rigid perspectives, teaching shouldn’t lead that way, but to promote a critical thinking approach supporting education for citizenship.
Towards a participatory approach : reversing the gaze when (re)presenting Refugees in nonfiction film
(Lusofona University, 2020) Beiruty, Rand; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Living in Germany during the peak of the “refugee crisis”, I was bombarded with constant reporting on the topic that clearly put forth a problematic representation of refugees, contributing to rendering them a ‘problem’ and the situation a ‘crisis’. This reflects in my own film practice in which I am frequently engaging with Syrian refugees as protagonists. Our shared language and culture made it easier for us to form a connection. However, as a young filmmaker, I felt challenged and conflicted by the complexities of the ethics of representation, especially when making a film with someone who’s going through a complex institutionalized process. In this paper I explore how reflecting on my position within the filmmaking process affected my relationship with my film participants and how this reflection influenced my choice of documentary film form. In order to do that, I use what Chapman and Sawchuk (2012) refer to as “Research-from-Creation’’ where research data is generated through the production of, in this case, a short documentary titled Nudar.
Against animated documentary?
(Lusofona University, 2016) Roe, Annabelle Honess; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
Animated documentaries have been written about in a mostly positive way that explores the way the form enhances and expands the documentary agenda. This is true of scholarly and academic writing as well as that in the popular press and film reviews. However, some authors have taken issue with the ascription of the term ‘documentary’ to animated documentaries. In addition, there are potential issues regarding audience response to animated documentary and the technical proficiency of the films themselves as they become more ubiquitous. This chapter explores the existing, and potential objections to and criticisms of animated documentary and suggests that a more ‘360-degree’ discussion of the form will enrich the scholarly discourse on animated documentary.
A pile of ghosts : a cinematic heterotopia of spectral urbanization
(Lusofona University, 2022) Raidel, Ella; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
A Pile of Ghosts (2021) is an artistic hybrid film in-between fiction and documentation created through the process of the art based research project Of Haunted Spaces. This research on Chinese ghost cities was a journey in exploring locations and looking for protagonists for the film, that would embody the urbanization processes surfaced as the phenomena of haunted cities by the spectral production of capitalism. As the process of filmmaking goes, settings and castings are staged to re-enact situations that have been observed during the field trips that were undertaken in many parts of China. The search for the unknown narrative keeps modifying and displacing the semantics of the film script. Therefore, in A Pile of Ghosts the line between documentary and fiction, a discursive space, is created in which facts, analyses and references are fused. This is not only to scrutinize the social reality and to render its discourse, but also to foster an aesthetic dimension from reexamining the convention of filmmaking and its representations. It is the method of a performative documentary to enact and re-enact situations and sites to reveal the contradictory characteristics of global urbanziation. The research process is transformed into the making of the film from field research to scriptwriting and casting. The protagonists are appearing in changing roles as construction workers, real estate agents, and investors to enact the realities of capitalism. On the threshold between the visible and the invisible, the haunting ghost of capitalism is materializing in the poiesis of the film, lurking in the limbo zone of fiction, reality and the performative.. Keywords: Artistic Research, Documentary Film, Performative Documentary, Urbanisation, China, Hybrid Cinema, Experimental Cinema.
The uncertainty war : applying entrepreneurial practices to microbudgeting for short films
(Lusofona University, 2018) Salazar Cavazos, Sergio; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
The following paper offers an analysis of the development process of “Roof Knocking” (2017), a studio short film set in Gaza, spoken entirely in Palestinian Arabic, produced in Estonia, with a given budget of €5,000 euros. The purpose is to introduce a set of practices based on entrepreneurship principles that can apply to similar projects, serving filmmakers to build resources timely and mindfully. Short films can prove a producer’s capacity to find and maximize resources. By implementing entrepreneurial practices in short film production, filmmakers can fight uncertainty while working at micro-budget level in Europe. The methodology used to compile the relevant data based upon the Lean Startup’s build-measure-learn feedback loop. The decisions made by the producer while projecting “Roof Knocking” are measured by risk, and later translated to budgeting strategies. A reflection on creative industries and independent filmmaking in Europe supports the author’s analysis. The film’s value chain modification creates an arena for innovation, with easier access for new actors but facing greater competition. Project management is fundamental for the entrepreneurial producer. Applied entrepreneurship prove its feasibility in the film industry. The producer’s intention is to offer an alternative approach to film producing that puts the budget in the background, being the support but not the core of a movie. Meditation and lateral thinking are practices to attach upon reflecting the producer’s decisions, including the ability to see beyond plausible mistakes. The vision of the producer is to propose a scheme to build productions upon resources available (tangible and intangible value), identifying and cutting costs since the early stages of development.
Memories in decay : 360º spatio-temporal explorations of the past
(Lusofona University, 2017) Debackere, Brecht; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
The present case study focuses on 'Memories in Decay' is a 360º immersive experience which explores what happens when the past meets the present using the cinematic medium of the future: omnidirectional video. This project is a VR documentary which does not only transport the immersant – the 'spectator' of an immersive experience – to the ruins of a long-forgotten place, but also balances between past and present, providing access to a different time through the use of oral histories and archive photos and documents. In the paper, the author not only discusses the potential of VR but how it affects tradicitonal cinema and its processes.
Tecno-animismo ou a existência mágica de objetos técnicos
(Lusofona University, 2021) Fernandes, Manuel Luís Bogalheiro da Rocha; CICANT (FCT) - Centro de Investigação em Comunicação Aplicada, Cultura e Novas Tecnologias
Se, por um lado, a noção clássica de artefacto pressupõe objetos inertes e uma confiabilidade entre o usuário e os usos que podem ser extraídos dos objetos, por outro lado, reconhece-se a suspeita de que os objectos técnicos e os seus esquemas operatórios, as máquinas e as suas soluções “artificiais”, encerram em si um carácter inautêntico e adulterador, como se de uma potência própria de astúcia e de engano se tratasse, capaz de, no limite, se emancipar e se processar de forma autónoma, independentemente dos usos e das apreensões que os humanos, seus operadores, possam fazer. O imaginário ocidental da técnica ter-se-á assim constituído sob pressupostos que, a par das leis formais da mecânica ou da matematicidade fria que governa qualquer gramática de códigos, projectaram uma dimensão mágica e especulativa naquilo que de artificial permite manipular a produtividade original da natureza. Com o surgimento das tecnologias digitais e a informatização geral dos artefactos, essa dimensão adquiriu forma naquilo que Philip K. Dick considerou a tendência do tecno-animismo e que, mais tarde, seria materialmente concretizada pela computação ubíqua e pela internet das coisas na era do chamado capitalismo cognitivo. Neste artigo, procuramos abordar o tecno-animismo como uma estética especulativa que, ao projectar uma vida própria nos objectos técnicos, lhes inscreve uma alteridade e uma estranheza que potencia perspectivas para além dos usos e relações habituais que se dão por garantidas e que escondem os objectos, assim como para além das estratégias políticas ou comerciais que os mobilizam. Encantar objetos técnicos é, por um lado, criar uma possibilidade para os suspender dos seus fluxos instrumentais e, por outro, instalar um realismo mágico ou problemático que perturba as articulações de uma realidade mera e exclusivamente humana.
Designerly modus of wandering and shared film creation in “Corpos Palimpsésticos" : artistic creations in times of socio-affective contingencies
(Lusofona University, 2021) Almeida, Flávio; Ferraz, Renata; CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies
“Corpos Palimps sticos”1 emerged in 2020, in a moment of worldwide pandemic due to Covid-19 and because of the end of our relationship as lovers. Soon after our separation, and thanks to the call for proposals of the Residency Program “Residências em Residências Circolando / Central Elétrica 2020 – FASE 2”, the idea of mourning the separation through a creative gesture was born. The fruition of artistic objects in their physical places has been interrupted due to the restriction to people gathering in closed spaces. This new reality has forced artists to rethink the format of their works so they could reach a public that, without the usual places, is now reterritorialized in a digital environment. Thus, the project’s goal was the production of video-performances and the constant online sharing of our creation process. The project had an interdisciplinary approach, and although design and filmmaking were the privileged areas, the work also included text creation, photography, music, and scientific research. We will analyse here existing approaches of creation methods such as co-creation in documentary, art-based research, art thinking and a recontextualization of design thinking in order to reframe these modes of creation in “Corpos Palimps sticos”. By using more than a single methodology, we are interested in a process where our areas of research/creation can dialogue randomly in a non-hierarchical way. Once the residency was over, we systematized the creation process that gave rise to this text. Finally, we created the term “Designerly Modus of Wandering” and used the term “Shared Film Creation” of a previous research to base our creative journey in the areas of design and film creation.

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