Teaching Multiple Difference in a Video Production Classroom

_______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Report Information from ProQuest January 21 2016 22:24 _______________________________________________________________ 21 January 2016 ProQuest Tabla de contenido 1. Teaching Multiple Difference in a Video Production Classroom................................................................... 1 Bibliografía........................................................................................................................................................ 6 21 January 2016 ii ProQuest Documento 1 de 1 Teaching Multiple Difference in a Video Production Classroom Enlace de documentos de ProQuest Resumen (Abstract): Electricity is the tool of the video artist --what oils are for the painter. The video artist must understand electronic circuits, electromagnetic formations, electrical signals, feedback, and video textures to visualize the graphic qualities of the medium. Some film and video teachers will disagree with me on this: traditionally film and video practice have been separated from theory. I think such a separation between artist and theoretician perpetuates the old ideology of the alienated artist, conditions the way artists are viewed in our culture, and shores up the dominant social relations of cultural production. In this postcolonial time, with ethnically and sexually diverse artists emerging, it is especially important to demystify the mass media and guide students toward the development of their own audiovisual discourse, their own creative process. An artist aware of the different audiovisual practices existing in our society is more capable of serving as a cultural worker to transform the society. An example: two gay male students in the same video class, whose work differed. Dave was interested in exploring how drag was perceived in gay culture and Jeffrey was into figuring out how pornography shaped the sexuality and relationships of gay males. Dave was a documentarian who went to the bars and found visionary middle-aged drag queens who were re-evaluating their work as performance artists. I told him that he needed to establish one-to-one relationships with his subjects. We talked about colonizing the "other" and how his fascination for drag queens could lead him to create an "objective documentary" that would replicate the patriarchal model. Dave became a good friend of Mae, his character, and got access to Mae's personal space because of the conversations they had before the shooting. During the process Dave realized that he wanted Mae to appear in his video not as a drag queen who performs in a bar, but as a character in a fictional narrative interwoven with documentary footage, giving to the video a structure which subverted traditional documentary and fictional forms. I look back to my first film classes, when I barely spoke English and was trying to figure out how an Arreflex 16 worked. As a Cuban exile/immigrant studying in the United States, I had to confront a great lack of knowledge about my cultural, ethnic, class, and sexual identities. What I experienced as a student has shaped the way I practice as a teacher. I need to make sure that my students make works not to satisfy my personal taste, but to figure out their own audiovisual discourse. I don't believe in good or bad pieces but in understanding where the student is in his or her process. From there, critique can become a way for students to engage in dialogue that will further their audiovisual development. Bringing this dialogue into the classroom helps them see how their subjectivity conditions their own audiovisual practices and how they must become sensitive to the subjectivity of their classmates' practices. Enlaces: Get it at Duke Texto completo: For the last two years I have been teaching film and video at Columbia College-Chicago, where there is a highly diverse student population. I am myself an Afro-Arab gay male Cuban expatriate. I consider myself also a privileged professor working at an institution where I can develop my teaching from the understanding of difference. As a teacher, I am aware of the authority I inherit every time I enter a classroom, but I do not want to be seen as an authoritarian figure who comes to class to impose my views upon my students. I like to be seen as one who comes to the classroom to guide them in understanding themselves and in the production of audiovisual images. The learning process has individual rhythms and points of view. To take the class as a whole to advanced levels, the teacher must allow students to understand that their learning process is a product of their own personal experiences. 21 January 2016 Page 1 of 6 ProQuest My teaching rests on the understanding that the construction of audiovisual images is always associated with power. The film and television industries are controlled by an economic power that conditions the production of images, which tend to represent the outlook of a given sector. Other sectors of the society do not have the economic means to construct, distribute, and exhibit images as do the mass media. How do these sectors receive mass produced images and how can they produce their own? The students also need to be positioned in relation to technology and the ideological implications of technology. Most of them come to class with an understanding of audiovisual images through what they have seen on TV and in the movies. I have to explain to them that they can draw on the mass media, but need to analyze who produced the images we see there, and how. Video has a history that is tied to electricity, mathematics, photography, sculpture, painting, writing, architecture, film, computer, radio, and other media. As a video artist, I believe that we must know and teach a comprehensive history of the technology we are using, in relation to different stages of social development and to various other technologies. Electricity is the tool of the video artist --what oils are for the painter. The video artist must understand electronic circuits, electromagnetic formations, electrical signals, feedback, and video textures to visualize the graphic qualities of the medium. Some film and video teachers will disagree with me on this: traditionally film and video practice have been separated from theory. I think such a separation between artist and theoretician perpetuates the old ideology of the alienated artist, conditions the way artists are viewed in our culture, and shores up the dominant social relations of cultural production. In this postcolonial time, with ethnically and sexually diverse artists emerging, it is especially important to demystify the mass media and guide students toward the development of their own audiovisual discourse, their own creative process. An artist aware of the different audiovisual practices existing in our society is more capable of serving as a cultural worker to transform the society. It is also important to teach about audience identification, which varies according to ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and physical abilities. There are points of reference in the audiovisual image which activate the experiences of different audiences. With the emergence of ethnic TV in the United States, we are becoming more aware of the role culture plays in the production and reception of images. Thinking about this helps students put their own experience to work. We must break with older understandings of the audience when talking about video, which permeates our everyday lives. Banks, supermarkets, hospitals, galleries, and the police use video to map their own territories of operation. Malls use video walls, and in department stores we can see video sculptures next to products as part of the sales display. Video is not a medium to be seen only in a dark place during a given time. It reaches into many cultural spaces, and its creative possibilities depend on this fact. Unfortunately, some schools of thought have made video an alternative to film. Single channel video is what a lot of programs are now teaching, and film viewing conditions the arrangement of the single channel audience. The video is seen on a television set and the audience sits in front of the monitors as it is positioned when watching a film. I think we have to break out of this TV convention to understand the possibilities of video, which has invaded our houses, work places, banks, stores, even the streets. I discuss with students these formal aspects of the medium, beginning with space as part of our everyday life. We talk about public and private spaces and how they are shared. We talk about banks, supermarkets, and stores as public places and about how the existence of video cameras in these places intrudes into the private space of the individual. Some do not feel invaded, but others begin to talk about how people who dress in certain ways are perceived as robbers, and about the role of "race" in social perceptions. The concept of invasion allows us then to talk about how the camera can enter communities, constructing images from a foreign point of view. Looking from within is subjective, too, but closer to the experience of the communities than the looking of "objective" documentarians. I ask students to think about the relationship they have with their communities, and what they need to question when they look at others. 21 January 2016 Page 2 of 6 ProQuest Taking the concept of space to another level, I propose that they view the body as a map. Usually the students think of anatomical drawing, and soon we are engaged in a discussion about gender, sexuality, and their representation in audiovisual images. We may talk about self mutilation, plastic surgery, or the power relations established in sexual intercourse. I propose that the students experience the construction and rhythms of their spaces. Then I encourage them to take the camera and fragment space according to their individual perceptions. They make a piece in which they get closer to what they perceive and want to express in their own way. For me as a teacher, it is more important to see my students working on their process than to present them with a problem and a formula for solving it. Lesbian and gay students often propose ideas for dealing with their own bodies, spaces, and sexual explorations, or with issues that concern them. I try to meet individually with them, as I do with all my students, so they can feel free to talk about their personal situations. One stereotype about Lesbian and Gay video makers is that their work is only about sex. This assumption is grounded in the idea that the lives of lesbians and gays are about sexual practices and nothing else. It is interesting to see how many lesbian students are more concerned with issues of the family, the female body, and gender politics, while the gay male students are interested in dealing with gay male erotica, transvestitism, and the individual lives of gay people. When a student approaches me with an idea for a video I have to position myself in relation to that student. It seems that since I am very open about my sexuality, students feel confident talking to me about their projects. One must take into consideration, when advising gay and lesbian students especially, that sexuality intersects with class, ethnicity, culture, and gender politics. I try to explore these connections as they re-evaluate their original ideas. This allows students to find the bridges that will connect their personal visions with the problematic they want to express in their work. Although none of my film and video making teachers were gay, I was encouraged to produce works related to my sexual identity. The problem was that I had nobody with whom to discuss in depth the aesthetic issues that arose. Queer aesthetics is a realm still denied in the academic world, a subject not many people know how to talk about. I am not an expert in it, but it is important at least to acknowledge that the sexual identity of the maker shapes the formal, textual, poetic, metaphoric, and symbolic levels of an audiovisual text in the same way as do ethnicity and class. And now there are books, articles, films, and videos 1 that explore the queer aesthetic, and can help the teacher prepare students to communicate with queer images and understand why they want to do so. An example: two gay male students in the same video class, whose work differed. Dave was interested in exploring how drag was perceived in gay culture and Jeffrey was into figuring out how pornography shaped the sexuality and relationships of gay males. Dave was a documentarian who went to the bars and found visionary middle-aged drag queens who were re-evaluating their work as performance artists. I told him that he needed to establish one-to-one relationships with his subjects. We talked about colonizing the "other" and how his fascination for drag queens could lead him to create an "objective documentary" that would replicate the patriarchal model. Dave became a good friend of Mae, his character, and got access to Mae's personal space because of the conversations they had before the shooting. During the process Dave realized that he wanted Mae to appear in his video not as a drag queen who performs in a bar, but as a character in a fictional narrative interwoven with documentary footage, giving to the video a structure which subverted traditional documentary and fictional forms. Jeffrey's project took him into the analysis of pornography, and the use by gay males of erotic films. He came to a critique of porn images: although they are necessary, they do not allow much room for personal relationships. He included himself and his friend in the video, accentuating the reason why he wanted to make it in the first place. Both students worked hard to produce excellent and very distinctive works. I look back to my first film classes, when I barely spoke English and was trying to figure out how an Arreflex 16 worked. As a Cuban exile/immigrant studying in the United States, I had to confront a great lack of knowledge 21 January 2016 Page 3 of 6 ProQuest about my cultural, ethnic, class, and sexual identities. What I experienced as a student has shaped the way I practice as a teacher. I need to make sure that my students make works not to satisfy my personal taste, but to figure out their own audiovisual discourse. I don't believe in good or bad pieces but in understanding where the student is in his or her process. From there, critique can become a way for students to engage in dialogue that will further their audiovisual development. Bringing this dialogue into the classroom helps them see how their subjectivity conditions their own audiovisual practices and how they must become sensitive to the subjectivity of their classmates' practices. Video as an art form emerged as a critique of television culture. If students become aware of the critical position of video, their production of images will reflect critically on TV, as well as explore video language itself. The video apparatus has freed itself from the tyranny of television. Video documentaries and video narratives break away from television modes. The video camera enters spaces that were closed to television and film cameras. It produces images instantaneously. The immediacy of the video image permeates the narrative and produces a transparency that is unique to the medium. Video has become a democratic tool. Television is in the hands of corporations; video is in the hands of a lot of people. We have seen in the last fifteen years videos produced by grass roots organizations, communities, and people of all ages, genders, sexualities, and cultures. Video has provided a social space where the production of information transgresses the television format. Alternative producers like Paper Tiger TV and Deep Dish TV, public access stations across the country, closed circuit television, satellite video transmission, community mobile video units, and other forms have emerged within that social space. I try to advance these democratic possibilities in my teaching. NOTES 1 See, for instance: How do I Look? Queer Film and Video, edited by Bad Object-Choices Staff (Seattle: Bay Press, 1991); Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video, edited by Martha Gever, Pratibha Parmar, and John Greyson (New York: Routledge, 1993); the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival catalogue; and the New York Experimental Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival catalogue. Illustration (Video camera) Materia: Curricula; Education; Gays & lesbians; Human relations; Interpersonal communication; Personal relationships; Photography; Video equipment; Título: Teaching Multiple Difference in a Video Production Classroom Autor: Ferrera-Balanquet, Raul Título de publicación: Radical Teacher Número: 45 Páginas: 47 Número de páginas: 0 Año de publicación: 1994 Fecha de publicación: Winter 1994 Año: 1994 Editorial: Radical Teacher Lugar de publicación: Cambridge Materia de publicación: Education 21 January 2016 Page 4 of 6 ProQuest ISSN: 01914847 Tipo de fuente: Scholarly Journals Idioma de la publicación: English Tipo de documento: Feature Características del documento: Illustration Número de acceso: SFLNSRTCH0902RTDR819000012 ID del documento de ProQuest: 218827515 URL del documento: http://proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/218827515?accountid=10598 Copyright: Copyright Radical Teacher Winter 1994 Última actualización: 2014-04-26 Base de datos: ProQuest Central 21 January 2016 Page 5 of 6 ProQuest Bibliografía Citation style: Council of Science Editors - CSE 7th, Citation-Sequence 1. Ferrera-Balanquet R. Teaching multiple difference in a video production classroom. Radical Teacher 1994 Winter(45):47. _______________________________________________________________ Contactar con ProQuest Copyright  2016 ProQuest LLC. Reservados todos los derechos. - Términos y condiciones 21 January 2016 Page 6 of 6 ProQuest