Academic Publishing in the Digital Age [5]
HASTAC Forum, running NOW through November 16

Following from October's discussion of the importance of Fair Use [6], this forum will offer an opportunity to extend the dialogue about new challenges and opportunities in academic publishing today. As established print journals tend toward expensive and restricted subscriptions in response to current technological and financial conditions, a counter-movement is growing in support of online access to scholarship as a public good, led by open electronic journals and databases. Are traditional journals a relic of a pre-internet era, or does their publication model still have value in academia? How can either system be economically viable? Given that strict liability copyright standards are a hurdle for print journals, do electronic journals provide a necessary haven for the citation and transformation of proprietary artifacts and work? In a context where everyone can have a blog or home page, what do students and scholars need to know about the benefits and risks of self-publishing? And perhaps most importantly, what new possibilities for intellectual and creative work are capacitated by the web as a platform?

This goal of this forum is to explore the shifting definition of academic publishing in the digital age, as well as to consider the intellectual, creative and technical challenges which digital platforms pose for scholarly publication. The conversation will be co-hosted by HASTAC Scholars Chris Hanson of USC, who has worked for the online journal Vectors [7], and Julie Levin Russo of Brown, who works for the online journal Transformative Works and Cultures [8]. They will be joined by other members of these publications' editorial and creative teams, including Kristina Busse, Tara McPherson, Steve Anderson and Erik Loyer. Vectors is an international electronic journal that brings together visionary scholars with cutting-edge designers and technologists to propose a thorough rethinking of the dynamic relationship of form to content in academic research, publishing works realized in multimedia that expand the rigid text-based paradigms of traditional scholarship. Transformative Works and Cultures is an Open Access international electronic journal on popular media and fan communities published by the Organization for Transformative Works, and invites authors to embrace the technical possibilities of the web and test the limits of academic writing. Both publications are copyrighted under Creative Commons licenses.

We hope to facilitate a venue in which we may all ask and answer questions about the present and future of digital scholarship. Please come join the discussion at http://www.hastac.org/scholars/forum/11-02-08Academic-Publishing-in-the-Digital-Age [9]

I'm thrilled to be part of the editorial team that brings you the first issue of the new open access, international, peer-reviewed journal Transformative Works and Cultures! You can read the press release [14] or dive straight into the table of contents [15]. Many thanks go to our tireless editors, Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, without whom this project would never have come to fruition.

I'd like to call special attention to the feature I had the greatest hand in, an audio podcast [16] of the presentations and discussion from the post-"fandebate" workshop [17] at Console-ing Passions last Spring. It is our hope that sharing the event virtually will help inspire continuing conversations about gender and other inequalities in fan culture.

TWC is now seeking submissions for future issues including a special issue on video games and gaming. I've included the CFP below; please assist us in spreading the word!

Special Issue: Games as Transformative Works
Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol. 2 (Spring 2009)
Deadline: November 15, 2008
Guest Editor: Rebecca Carlson

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) invites essays on gaming and gaming culture as transformative work. We are interested in game studies in all its theoretical and practical breadth, but even more so in the way fan culture shapes itself around and through gaming interfaces. Potential topics include but are not limited to game audiences as fan cultures; anthropological approaches to game design and game engagement; on- and off-line game experiences; textual and cultural analysis of games; fan appropriations and manipulations of games; and intersections between games and other fan artifacts.

TWC is a new Open Access, international peer-reviewed online journal published by the Organization for Transformative Works. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and to promote dialogue between the academic community and the fan community. The first issue of TWC (September 2008) is available at http://journal.transformativeworks.org/ [18]. TWC accepts rolling electronic submissions of full essays through its Web site, where full guidelines are provided. The final deadline for inclusion in the special games issue is November 15, 2008.

TWC encourages innovative works that situate popular media, fan communities, and transformative works within contemporary culture via a variety of critical approaches, including but not limited to feminism, queer theory, critical race studies, political economy, ethnography, reception theory, literary criticism, film studies, and media studies. Submissions should fit into one of three categories of varying scope:

Theory: These often interdisciplinary essays with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame offer expansive interventions in the field of fan studies. Peer review. Length, 5,000–8,000 words plus a 100–250-word abstract.

Praxis: These essays may apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; or otherwise relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or historical frameworks. Peer review. Length, 4,000–7,000 words plus a 100–250-word abstract.

Symposium: Symposium is a section of concise, thematically contained essays. These short pieces provide insight into current developments and debates surrounding any topic related to fandom or transformative media and cultures. Editorial review. Length, 1,500–2,500 words.

Submission information: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/about/submissions [19]

I'm delighted to announce that I have been selected as one of this year's HASTAC Scholars [24]! I will be posting regular videoblog entries about web technologies and participatory learning here [25] starting sometime this week. I encourage you to engage with the work of all the HASTAC Scholars [26], as well as the organization's other exciting projects.

Also, I will be attending the LA Queer Studies Conference [27] on October 10-11. Allow me to call special attention to my panel, which falls bright and early at 9:00-10:30am on Saturday morning:

Mediated Queer Socialities and Identities
Moderator: Mary L. Gray, Indiana University, Communication and Culture

Julie Levin Russo [my correction], Brown University, Modern Culture and Media
Labors of Love: Economies of Identity in The L Word’s Fan-Driven Online Promotions

Alexis Lothian, University of Southern California, English
Doing Boys Like They’re Girls, and Other (Trans)Gendered Subjects: The Queer Subcultural Politics of “Genderfuck” Fan Fiction

Jill A. Bakehorn, UC Davis, Sociology
Bordering on Activism: Authenticity and Identity Politics in Women-Made Porn

Last night I dreamed a brainstorming session for a "visibility"-themed vidshow, covering invisible characters, queer representation (complete with debates on where subtext ends and text begins), and ending with [32]lim [33]'s "Us" as a meditation on "mainstreaming" via its literally effaced footage. (I still don't think this tops my waking idea for a vidshow on cyborgs, which also culminates in vidding self-reflexivity.)

Obviously a sign that I should spend today finally finishing this post.

I rationalized attending [34]vividcon [35] by calculating the time and energy I would save catching up on the deluge of premieres through watching them all in one fell swoop. It certainly lived up to my expectations on that account! I plan for this to be the last recs post for a long while. Keep in mind that my taste in vids is idiosyncratic, and this is intended as an inventory of my subjective favorites, not as an objective hierarchy of craftsmanship.

In this vein, I made an executive decision to exclude stand-alone movie vids from this list of recs. While I saw a number of vids from single-movie source at the con that were individually captivating, I don't find movies very interesting on the whole, and thus I don't find movie vids very interesting as a genre.

Complete playlists for all VVC08 vidshows are helpfully compiled HERE [36].

My Winner's Circle
For all my disclaimers, I imagine this resembles many con-goers' top three (1 and 2 were the selections for in-depth review). The marked similarities here are telling: in addition to Summer Glau, all these vids feature perverse relationships, cleverly manipulated and/or external footage, and a gradually emerging reveal. The latter strategy has a particular payoff in the reception context of VividCon. Typically, one would click through to a vid motivated at minimum by the framing information in the author's post, and often by the supplementary comments of a reccer as well. A premieres show, by contrast, guarantees a captive audience "unspoiled" by any paratexts, creating different narrative opportunities from the internet's temporal and spatial dispersion. And yes, I am about to spoil you.

vidder(s): [37]sweetestdrain [38]
title: Gloria [39]
music: Patti Smith
fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
focus: Sarah/Cameron
availability: download (xvid), imeem
summary: People say beware, but I don't care.
comments: The premiere of this vid alone was worth the price of admission: watching surprise lesbian robot porn unfold was an unforgettable encounter. Already thrilled with butch Sarah at the beginning (remember how [40]dualbunny [41] taught us that Starbuck IS Pink? well [42]sweetestdrain [43] makes a convincing case that Sarah Connor IS Patti Smith), I may never recover from how thoroughly I was bowled over by my own kinks as the story developed. [44]jagwriter78 [45] recently coined the term [46] "vidfic" -- I think we have here an exemplar of that mode. I'd venture that this is the greatest femslash vid made to date.

vidder(s): [47]obsessive24 [48]
title: Climbing Up the Walls [49]
music: Radiohead
fandom: Supernatural, Heroes, Firefly/Serenity
focus: Sam/Dean Winchester, Nathan/Peter Petrelli, Simon/River Tam
availability: download (xvid, wmv), imeem
summary: Siblings. "I am the pick in the ice."
comments: My lack of patience with either Winchesters or Petrellis had me rolling my eyes when this started. My date whispered, "I don't think this is a vid about 80% boys, I think it's a vid about INCEST." Well THAT I can certainly get behind! As the author notes, this is open to multiple readings (and various commentaries are linked) -- personally I experience it as gleefully cracktastic, but I'm aware that there's a darker morality tale lurking within if one takes it seriously. For the uninitiated: these are three wildly popular pairings in fandom, not simply three random pairs of siblings -- this is a metavid about a topical fannish phenomenon. Here's to the queer frontier.

vidder(s): [50]bradcpu [51]
title: Tear You Apart [52]
music: She Wants Revenge
fandom: Firefly
focus: Simon/Kaylee (River)
availability: download (xvid, wmv), imeem
summary: It feels so right.
comments: This vid is fiendishly disorienting until the POV coalesces. Exquisitely edited, deliciously disturbing, and perfectly River. Smart notes by [53]bradcpu [54]: "I tried to make a vid that would look and feel fractured, but not really tell the viewer why it looks fractured until the final segment of the vid. Hopefully the first 2/3 of the vid looks different on a second viewing. I tried to push the River POV by using lots of jump cuts and medical shots (tons of secondary source); and by connecting sexual desire to violence and Reavers, because I would imagine it would have all looked the same in River's head." It worked.


Additional Top Ten Premieres (includes Also Premiering and Fuck You! challenge shows)

vidder(s): Seah + Margie
title: Handlebars [55]
music: The Flobots
fandom: Doctor Who
focus: Ten
availability: download, imeem
summary: I'm the Doctor. Look me up.
comments: I was skeptical that I'd enjoy another vid to this song after spending so much time with [56]kiki_miserychic [57]'s BSG 4.0 Handlebars, but it turned out to be refreshing to experience it with a close internal POV. There was another Handlebars vid in Premieres, [58]deejay [59]'s Iron Man version, which I also enjoyed (but see above re: not putting movie vids on the list). This is the consummate portrait of a megalomaniacal hero, or, why The Doctor is a jerk.

vidder(s): [60]buffyann [61]
title: This World [62]
music: Zero 7
fandom: BSG
focus: ensemble
availability: download (imeem coming soon)
summary: This world is still afloat, we still have hope.

vidder(s): [63]nightchik [64]
title: Beautiful Struggle [65]
music: Talib Kweli
fandom: Harry Potter
focus: Harry
availability: download
summary: Life is beautiful. Life is a struggle.

vidder(s): [66]kuwdora [67]
title: King of Spain [68]
music: Moxy Fruvous
fandom: Little Mosque on the Prairie
focus: Amaar Rashid
availability: download, imeem
summary: It's not the spiritual enlightenment he was expecting.

vidder(s): [69]heresluck [70]
title: Strength in You [71]
music: Kim Richey
fandom: Gilmore Girls
focus: Lorelei/Rory Lorelei + Rory
availability: download, imeem
summary: I swear I'll be there forever.

vidder(s): [72]cesperanza [73]
title: Supersmart [74]
music: The Headstones
fandom: SGA
focus: meta
availability: download (divx), imeem
summary: Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

vidder(s): [75]keewick [76]
title: 32 [77]
music: Regina Spektor
fandom: SGA
focus: Teyla
availability: download
summary: 32 is still a goddamn number.

vidder(s): [78]kiki_miserychic [79]
title: Special Death [80]
music: Mirah
fandom: Deadwood
focus: Joanie Stubbs
availability: download (divx), vimeo
summary: A terrible mistake was made.

vidder(s): [81]aycheb [82]
title: Scarlet Ribbons [83]
music: Sinead O'Connor
fandom: Buffyverse
focus: slayers
availability: download (divx), imeem
summary: She will not sleep on a bed of bones. / Your faces, O my sisters! Your faces filled of light!

vidder(s): [84]lierdumoa [85]
title: How Much Is That Geisha in the Window? [86]
music: "Boyd's Journey" by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman on the Ravenous (1999) Original Soundtrack; Adam Baldwin, Nathan Fillian and Gina Torres in the "Firefly Extended Gag Reel"
fandom: Firefly (2002), w/ additional source from Serenity (2005), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and Gone with the Wind (1939)
focus: Invisible Asians
availability: download (imeem coming soon)
summary: Fuck you Joss, you racist asshole.


Top Ten Club Vivid Premieres

vidder(s): Abby
title: I Will Survive
music: Gloria Gaynor
fandom: BSG
focus: Number Six
availability: [please help me find it!]
summary: As long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive.
comments: Frankly, this vid isn't very well constructed, but it doesn't matter because the concept is pure genius. Its wrongness made me dance and scream and short-circuit.

vidder(s): [87]laurashapiro [88]
title: Shut Up and Drive [89]
music: Rhianna
fandom: Doctor Who
focus: Martha (Martha/Ten, but I'm ignoring that)
availability: download (divx), imeem
summary: Martha > you.

vidder(s): [90]charmax [91]
title: Smiley Faces [92]
music: Gnarls Barkley
fandom: Torchwood
focus: Jack, ensemble
availability: download, vimeo, imeem, youtube
summary: Team Torchwood and "how hard this life can be."

vidder(s): [93]kuwdora [94]
title: Hold Music [95]
music: Architecture in Helsinki
fandom: So NoTORIous
focus: Tori Spelling, Mimi LaRue (her pug) and one of her BFFs, Sasan (Zach Quinto)
availability: download, imeem
summary: For the 98% out there who don’t know anything about the show: It’s a semi-autobiographical comedy about Tori Spelling’s life.

vidder(s): [96]f1renze [97]
title: Television, Television
music: OK Go
fandom: The Sopranos
focus: ensemble
availability: [not posted yet]
summary: Give up the world, give up your life, 'cause you cannot fight the television.

vidder(s): [98]mamoru22 [99]
title: A Little Less Conversation [100]
music: Elvis Presley
fandom: Boston Legal
focus: Denny/Alan
availability: download (xvid, mp4), imeem
summary: Because Denny IS Elvis in every way that counts.

vidder(s): [101]millylicious [102]
title: Don't Cha / Seether [103]
music: Party Ben (Pussycat Dolls + Veruca Salt)
fandom: Buffyverse
focus: Buffy/Faith
availability: download, imeem
summary: Two slayers, two seperate paths.

vidder(s): [104]counteragent [105]
title: Ladies Night [106]
music: Kool and the Gang
fandom: multi
focus: hotness
availability: download (xvid, wmv), youtube
summary: Professional competence is sexy.

vidder(s): [107]foomatic [108]
title: Girl 4 All Seasons [109]
music: Northern State
fandom: multi
focus: hotness
availability: download (divx), imeem, youtube
summary: Girls kick ass.

vidder(s): [110]dualbunny [111]
title: Party Join Us
music: "Shin Chan" ending theme
fandom: She-Ra
focus: ensemble
availability: [not posted yet]
summary: [112]dualbunny [113] was DRESSED UP as She-Ra at Club Vivid. Enough said.


Top Ten New-To-Me Vids (does NOT include Action, AMVs, and Second Bananas, which I didn't attend -- sorry!)
Honestly these categories are somewhat arbitrary, as I later discovered that I HAD demonstrably seen a couple of these before -- certainly they were less familiar than those below.

vidder(s): [114]xandra_ptv [115]
title: They [116]
music: Jem
fandom: Big Love
focus: sisterwives (and Bill)
show: Ensemble
availability: download (xvid, wmv), imeem
summary: The problems and paranoia of living the polygamist lifestyle.

vidder(s): [117]laurashapiro [118]
title: The Lonely People [119]
music: MystiQuintet
fandom: Doctor Who
focus: Rose
show: End of the World
availability: download, imeem
summary: What is the cost of a better life?

vidder(s): [120]charmax [121]
title: Don't Stop Me Now [122]
music: Queen
fandom: Doctor Who
focus: The Master
show: Sense of Play
availability: download, imeem, youtube
summary: Sometimes an evil genius just needs to let his hair down and have some fun.

vidder(s): [123]sisabet [124]
title: Doctor Who on Holiday [125]
music: Dean Gray
fandom: BSG, Farscape, Doctor Who
focus: Cylons, Peacekeepers, Daleks
show: Club Vivid
availability: download [currently broken]
summary: Remix of [126]sockkpuppett [127]'s mashup Sci-Fi Friday in a Blender.

vidder(s): [128]counteragent [129]
title: In These Shoes [130]
music: Kirsty MacColl
fandom: Alias
focus: Sydney, Nadia, Rachel [femslash subtext]
show: Nearly New
availability: download, imeem
summary: "In these shoes? I don't think so." Sydney and Nadia and Rachel supporting each other and being awesome.

vidder(s): [131]andrastewhite [132]
title: Baby, You Can Drive My Car [133]
music: The Beatles
fandom: Heroes
focus: Hiro/Ando
show: Joy
availability: download (divx)
summary: "Our life of legend begins!"

vidder(s): [134]giandujakiss [135]
title: The Real Slim Shady [136]
music: Eminem
fandom: Starsky & Hutch (mostly)
focus: Everything but the redheads.
show: Hip-Hop
availability: download (wmv), imeem
summary: This vid is a shaggy dog story. You have been warned.

vidder(s): [137]mamoru22 [138]
title: Without Me [139]
music: Eminem
fandom: SGA
focus: David Hewlett
show: Hip-Hop
availability: download, imeem
summary: David Hewlett, how are you so awesome?

vidder(s): [140]wistful_fever [141]
title: Chasing Arizona [142]
music: "Meds" by Placebo
fandom: Fall Out Boy RPS
focus: Pete/Patrick AU
show: Push the Envelope
availability: download, imeem, youtube
summary: Pete is in love with his best friend. Life is great. Only... his best friend isn't real.

vidder(s): Hana no JudgeHolden Productions
title: Lost in an Anime Dream [143]
music: Jump by Madonna
fandom: ROD TV, Lost in Translation, Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift, music video for "Jump"
focus: Charlotte
show: Push the Envelope
availability: download
summary: [144]counteragent [145] - "This vid not only merges live action and anime and real-person source in a technologically riveting fashion, it also speaks to both the isolation and connection engendered by our relationship with modern media."


Top Ten NOT New-To-Me Vids (that I haven't gotten around to reccing previously)

vidder(s): [146]heyiya [147]
title: The Future Stops Here [148]
music: Rabbit in Your Headlights by UNKLE featuring Thom Yorke
fandom: 28 Days Later, Children of Men, V for Vendetta
focus: dystopia
show: Push the Envelope
availability: download (mov, avi), imeem, vimeo
summary: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face. Forever." - George Orwell

vidder(s): [149]halcyon_shift [150]
title: Big City Life [151]
music: Mattafix
fandom: Dark Angel
focus: Max
show: Hip-Hop
availability: download
summary: It's all good, all the time.

vidder(s): [152]mranderson71 [153]
title: This Is Matrix Life [154]
music: “This Is Your Life” by The Dust Brothers feat. Tyler Durden
fandom: The Matrix Trilogy
focus: Fight Club mashup
show: Nearly New
availability: vimeo (with download)
summary: Action-sarcasm.

vidder(s): [155]di_br [156]
title: All the Small Things [157]
music: Blink 182
fandom: The Daily Show + The Colbert Report
focus: Jon/Stephen
show: Push the Envelope
availability: download, youtube
summary: This is a video about the friendship between Jon and Stephen... It's NOT meant to be a slashy vid, but these two don't make things any easier for me, OH NO!

vidder(s): [158]newkidfan [159]
title: The Tree [160]
music: Chanson de L'Arbre by Autour de Lucie
fandom: SGA
focus: McKay/Sheppard
show: Push the Envelope
availability: download (rar), imeem
summary: Since the day John left him, Rodney hasn't moved.

vidder(s): [161]keewick [162]
title: Martina [163]
music: Meryn Cadell
fandom: Veronica Mars
focus: Veronica
show: Push the Envelope
availability: download
summary: Knock on wood.

vidder(s): [164]jarrow [165]
title: About Schroeder [166]
music: No More Kings
fandom: Farscape
focus: John/Chiana
show: Nearly New
availability: download, imeem
summary: Chiana tries to understand John, but he isn't reaching back.

vidder(s): [167]beerbad [168]
title: Early Winter [169]
music: Gwen Stefani
fandom: Grey's Anatomy
focus: Lexie/Meredith Grey
show: Nearly New
availability: download, imeem, youtube

vidder(s): [170]beerbad [171] (with [172]jarrow [173])
title: Promiscuous Girl [174]
music: "Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland
fandom: BSG
focus: Kara/Laura
show: Hip-Hop
availability: download (wmv), imeem, youtube
summary: OTP, baby!

vidder(s): [175]fan_eunice [176] + [177]greensilver [178]
title: Papa Don't Preach [179]
music: Madonna
fandom: Torchwood + Doctor Who
focus: Jack/Master, Jack/Ianto, with Ten as "Papa"
show: Nearly New
availability: download (divx), imeem
summary: Jack is keeping his baby... yeah, we went there.

It's important to us that Media Fetish: The Vidshow! [184] be not only a fleeting local event, but a permanent virtual installation that the community can share. To that end, I have much belatedly transcribed excerpts of our remarks on the vids to post here. The full playlist is in the original entry; cut are a handful of vids where our observations are already more or less documented online, as well as familiar background information. Apologies for the abridgements, and for the sustained inelegance that comes of translating our extemporaneous performance to text. We were having a great time!

~ Julie Levin Russo and Francesca Coppa


FEMINIST FETISHISM

:: California Crew : Oh Boy [185] : Quantum Leap ::

FC: There's a lot of female desire on that screen. Quantum Leap, like much genre television, follows this formula that fans often talk about: what they call the "bimbo of the week" phenomenon, where a man who has a thru-arc gets to meet a new, narratively disposable woman every week, who we see once and then never see again. By editing the women together, the Cali Crew has created this sort of swamp of physical desire -- all of the women appear in this three minutes -- and so, rather than have this sense of them as a disposable entity, what you actually get is a picture of them swamping the lead (pushing him, shoving him, holding him down, grabbing him). And I would say that what they've done is figured the female audience, that they've actually created a narrative space for themselves by editing this swamp of desiring women, of the female fans themselves, onto the screen.

JLR: It's so perfect with the lyrics, too -- "you don't know what you've been missing" -- writing that audience and their desires and what they value in that narrative back into the text.

FC: And also the women, right? "You don't know what you've been missing," because women don't matter on television. They come into the story, they go out of the story, and it's OK that we never see them again -- now we do, and in this kind of tidal-waving force. Obviously it also constructs Sam Beckett, the lead, as an object of physical desire, so that he is very much NOT the agent of the reception of all this lust.


:: Rache & Sandy : Hot Hot Hot [186] : multifandom ::

FC: The subtitle of "Hot Hot Hot" is "A Fannish Taxonomy of Hotness." One of the things I want to be clear about is that, in addition to women as filmmakers, this is privileging a distinctly female way of seeing. What the Media Cannibals made "A Fannish Taxonomy of Hotness" do, and what you're really wanting to do when you watch this vid: they are showing you how the desiring female fan watches television. And one of the things that they're doing is constructing patterns. It's essentially showing the tropes that the female fan community has fetishized and found sexy -- which is not how women are supposed to watch television.

JLR: The last thing I wanted to emphasize about this is that it takes some history to get to this vid, because it's the work in community building that has come before it in other vids, and also in other aspects of fandom and fan fiction, that have created this taxonomy that's recognizable to people that they can then catalogue. In multifandom vids that use so many sources I'm always also tempted to read them as allegories for fans themselves. I think part of what it's saying in creating this largely joyous collection (there's a lot of dancing in this vid) is: "look how much fun we're having -- we're really hot!"

FC: I think that's true. And I think the argument of the vid is that television, properly viewed, is a fountain of polymorphous perversity. You also notice that the prettiness is very polymorphous -- there were straight couples, men, women, gay couples -- some that are in the text (Queer as Folk), some that are constructed. There's no limitation on the way that the sexuality goes, and some of that stuff is intended to be sexual in the text and some of it's not, or at least not to the degree to which fans are willing to admit.


:: Media Cannibals : Detachable Penis [187] : The Professionals ::

FC: This vid stages the fan's love/hate relationship with television. The Professionals is a British cop show, and clearly we love the show and we love these guys, and yet the distinctively female aesthetic of the vid is both enjoying them showing off their penises, but also is a critique of violence and all sorts of other phallocentric stuff.

JLR: The reason I really wanted that vid in this show, which is about media technology as a fetish, is that it demonstrates the way that masculinity is a prosthesis. In the buddy cop show, which is all about the really intense homosocial relationship between these guys, there's so much anxiety around stabilizing their masculinity that it just erupts in all of these phallic images: their guns and their knives, these accessories that they need in order to feel appropriately manly. And so "Detachable Penis" is viewing the technologies that this TV show is using, through this fan technology, to create a critique or an argument about that (and its gayness).


VIDDING VIDDING

:: [188]laurashapiro [189] & [190]halcyon_shift [191] : I Put You There [192] : Giles, original animation ::

JLR: This vid gives a little bit of the background about the motivation behind the kinds of queer and feminist readings we've been playing out in this show, because it offers the media fetishist's position of deep love for this televisual object that's indifferent to her existence. But it's talking about how vidding as a technology, and in this case literally animation as a technology, is a way of asserting agency over those representations, and reinserting the fan back into that story. The particular object is Giles, but I don't think it has to be Giles, it could be anyone, and I don't think it necessarily even has to be a character: you could also read it as, in a broader sense, about the absence of female fans' desires and stories from those narratives, and the way that vids, through reappropriating those images, can insert those desires and stories back in.

FC: You can see that in something like "Oh Boy," the figuring of female desire -- that's the grandmother of this vid.


:: Seah & Margie : Walking on the Ground [193] : multifandom ::

JLR: This vid screened at VividCon, which is a fan convention for vidding that's been going on since 2002. So I think you can see in this vid a certain historical consciousness about this art form. It tells the story of fans' engagement with media technologies through clips of the ways that screen texts have represented technologies. I think it's very overtly framed politically in terms of struggles between fans and the industry: with every new technology, they're trying to put the brakes on what fans are doing with it, and at every stage, fans have refused and have continued appropriating these videos, moved into every new technological form to do bigger and more beautiful things with it.

FC: This vid is so clean and beautiful that it's hard to notice how complex it is. There's a framing narrative of a slide projector, and this is a shot from M*A*S*H, of them showing one of those films that they used to show in the mess hall -- there's about ten layers in this video! I think it's really easy when you're watching this vid to disregard the framing narrative of the [changing screens].


:: [194]counteragent [195] : Destiny Calling [196] : vidding ::

JLR: This last metavid we're showing is a quite recent vid which was made as a tribute to vidding. On the one hand, this is very much just about vids=joy, the headline of this vid -- a simple celebration of a bunch of vids that this newbie vidder really really loves. At the same time, I think it's very much a product of this moment, since YouTube and since "Closer" leaked on YouTube, of vidding coming into some consciousness of what its intervention is in this larger world of DIY media, and how it looks to the outside world, and what it's actually doing that's unique and important. So I think through highlighting this vidder's personal canon of great vids, you'll see it's explicitly framed as a statement of what is awesome about vidding [today].

FC: It's sort of the grassroots version of me traveling around with my talk. Vidders are perfectly capable of articulating their own rationale for why they want to be included in the process.

JLR: I think the ideal viewer of this vid is someone who's actually seen most of the vids that are in it, and so has a sense, when those are referenced briefly, of the larger work. The reason that right now there can be a vid that references so many other vids from so many different fandoms is because digital video and internet video have set the stage for vidding itself to become a sort of fandom. With VividCon (the convention) and with the accessibility of vids, I think they've really captured the imagination of a lot more fans, and so fans have become interested in the form of vidding and in watching vids for the craft and not necessarily because they're saying something about the particular show that they watch.


GENDER TROUBLE

JLR: This brings us to the last group of vids that I call Gender Trouble, which I think actually depend on this whole history that has come before, in terms of the tradition of feminist critique, but also in terms of the increasing dialogue between vidding as a subculture and other forms of internet video and mainstream concerns about the media. And also [in terms of] the increasingly advanced technologies that people are using to vid, and the cross-pollination between different aesthetics and techniques. These vids are putting all of those elements, both historical and contemporary, together to make what I hope you will think are very beautiful and complex artworks that are making really interesting arguments.


:: [197]absolutedestiny [198] : I Enjoy Being a Girl [199] : Alias, Buffy, BSG, Firefly, Veronica Mars ::

JLR: I think this is a very playful question about what actually it means to be a girl, and how femininity is represented. One of the things I think it's trying to suggest is that our work as viewers and fans has the potential to redefine what it might mean to be a girl through the particular elements of these televisual texts that we are drawn to and that we celebrate. It's responding very positively to a new genre of television -- the "ass-kicking girl genre teen show" -- and celebrating a revised notion of what femininity could appear as on television and in the viewing practices of fans.


:: [200]sockkpuppett [201] : Vogue [202] : 300 ::

JLR: This is a vid which I think again asks the question: how is femininity represented? But as you'll see, in a much different way.

FC: Twice, both in this and "Being a Girl," you're getting violence being aestheticized as dance as a kind of feminist refusal. This is an incredibly violent movie, and there's a kind of refusal to see it as a rampage of murder, and instead to cast it as the dancefloor. It actually is staging a different way of seeing -- so is "Being a Girl," by the way: as much as it's giving credence to a new kind of femininity, it is also refusing the violence of the narrative and positing that as a certain kind of dance routine. It's staged as a musical spectacular, and saying: we like musical spectacular! And luminosity's doing that with "Vogue," with its attention to the body. She's looking at all these warriors, at how beautiful they are, and framing the battlefield as a dancefloor, which in some ways is making it camp by refusing its overt meaning about seriousness, masculinity (all the swords are phallic). So I think it is really staging a feminist way of seeing, and a feminist puncturing of the incredible pomposity of Frank Miller's 300, with its incredibly violent pretentious kind of narrative.

JLR: I think it's making a pretty convincing argument that what 300 is actually about is the spectacle of male bodies, and the way that really feminizes masculinity, because they're there just to be half-naked and making these beautiful movements on this beautiful, shiny screen -- that's all surface. I think what she's saying is: if we're going to go see 300, we're seeing shirtless men.

FC: I've been arguing in other venues that television, with its bringing of the body into the private sphere of the home, and allowing you to pause and fast-forward, has allowed women some of their first ability to fetishize without being in public space where they could get hurt. In other words, men have been able to congregate in public space to look at women's bodies in a way that women have not been able to do the reverse. And I think actually bringing certain modes of viewing into the house, into the domestic sphere (the VCR), has allowed you to look real close when you could not get to men and look at them real close. You could make an argument that this is a kind of reverse objectification.


:: [203]obsessive24 [204] : Piece of Me [205] : Britney Spears ::

JLR: I think this presents in a lot of ways a much more pessimistic analysis of the representation of femininity, and particularly of the role of audiences within that. It delves quite deeply into the violence that media technologies can visit upon women, and really asks us as fans or viewers to think about how we might be complicit in that.

FC: This is what the world without fan vidding looks like, right? Unfortunately this is what mainstream values will do to you.

JLR: This vid is actually quite unusual in being about a real person rather than about TV or movie characters. One of the reasons people don't often make real person vids is because of the difficulty of finding enough footage, which is why there are a lot of stills of photos and magazines and also very pixellated, bad quality YouTube videos that are incorporated into this vid. But I actually think that the way that makes you aware of the materiality of those different media technologies gives it a lot of richness.

FC: This is Britney's song. I think what's interesting about it is that she has an actual music video illustrating her song that puts more weight on the resistant phrase "do you want a piece of me?" i.e. "I'll take you on -- I'm up for a fight." And I think the vidder is saying that it's a pose, you're not going to win the fight. There's a sense in which the actual song is a pretty noble attempt on Britney's part to portray her media trouble as a kind of belligerence. I think the vidder is suggesting that that's a game you can't really win, and in fact the extent to which she herself is complicit in these images -- that posing that challenge to the viewer from that side of the camera is a failed attempt.

JLR: I think one of the wonderful things about this vid is that, through making a vid about Britney to a Britney song, it gives her a voice. But at the same time, as you were saying, it's ultimately not very optimistic about whether she does really have a voice within this system, and whether her agressive stance in this song is actually going to get her anywhere.

Josh Guilford: I think that one of the really interesting things about a lot of these videos is that they seem to raise issues about that question of voicing, about that question of democracy value that's latched onto video production. I think it's important that they're not the kind of video like Britney Spears videos that only deal with this issue as publicity and exposure, but also that the operation and function of a video like "Closer" in the context of YouTube, this new context of distribution and dissemination, brings up all these issues which people were reluctant to discuss surrounding censorship and surrounding different contexts of reception.

JLR: Right now there's a really intense conversation going on among the vidding community about visibility and about publicity, and what kind of publicity we're prepared to take on, and what are the costs and benefits of that process.

FC: I think that one of the ways in which vidding is interesting for women is to give them the behind-the-camera role, to take them out from being the subject of the gaze and turn them into the women behind the camera. And so what's odd about the visibility is that on some level part of the anxiety is that vidders, if they figure themselves at all, will figure themselves in these kinds of allusive ways, or will figure themselves in identification with men (I'm Spock). But the way that the art is becoming visible, the women don't want to be visible, and I think they don't for the Britney Spears reason. Despite the traditional sense that wants the camera on women, they don't want to be on camera, they want to control the camera. [...] And I think that for a community that was so much about vidding itself as taking control of the camera, so much about shifting where your position was to stay behind it, that then this moment of visibility is a particular problem for women vidders. In remix culture there seems to be less debate about whether or not to take the fame and money when it comes than the women, and some people say it's because we're too invested in a kind of utopian gift community at our own loss, that it will actually hurt us to continue to do this stuff non-profit. But I do think your point is closer, I think women are more suspicious of visibility, and feeling that it leads you to the Britney Spears place, maybe too close to the wrong kind of visibility, and that we're willing to trade not getting anything.

Lynne Joyrich: It's just so interesting that they're facing the same issues now as a producing community as what they're dealing with, because if vidding is so much about taking the private consumption of TV but making it public, or showing how public forms of mass culture actually relate to your private desires, it's all about that play of public and private. But then they have to figure out themselves: how do I deal with my weird relationship between publicity and privacy?

JLR: It's a really good point that explicitly part of the question that's happening is how do we represent ourselves to the larger audience, very literally. It's part of the use of technologies like imeem, which is a media sharing site that a lot of vidders have adopted who were willing to have their work seen and linked to by people outside of the community, and also of what Francesca's doing by going on tour to contextualize vidding for a lot of different audiences. There's some sort of consensus that we have to take charge of the way we're represented in the same way that we've taken charge of that in these screen texts.

[ 06 April 2008 ]