This video applies a deformative logic to images taken from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” (1989), connecting them intertextually with the film “Under the Skin” (2013), which provides the music for the piece. It thus highlights and accentuates the violent, rageful gender dynamics of “The Little Mermaid”, reimagining it as a nightmarish scene of body horror […]
FATHOM THE BOWL: A lyric video made at the Embodying the Video Essay – videographic workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 8-15th, 2023. This was primarily an experiment in adding sound to a silent film sequence from DAVID COPPERFIELD (A.W. Sandberg, Denmark 1922) and in seeing how multiple screen editing might work like an audiovisual kind of harmony or polyphony […]
LULLAMENT: A video made at the Embodying the Video Essay – videographic workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 8-15th, 2023. This was an experiment in adding sound to a silent film sequence, partly in order to explore the spatial anchoring issues raised by using post-produced sound in an existing scene. In the original film sequence from […]
Exercise created by Dayna McLeod for the Embodying the Video Essay Videographic Workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 2023 Information on the exercise prompt at our Ways of Doing website:waysofdoing.com/resources/taste-and-smell/
Like in the phenomenon of phantom pain where we experience an organ hurting that is not physically part of our body so too does audiovisual material trigger our senses. I was particularly interested in how different bodies would experienced to be interacting with each other, my face with that of Eddie Constantine, ascorbic acid and the […]
Dayna McLeod’s exercise for the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop, Bowdoin College, 2023. Prompt questions: “Particular smells and taste have the potential to unlock memories. How might these senses contribute to our analysis of our media objects? How can these tangible and visceral experiences be communicated in audiovisual form?”
An exercise highlighting the presence of trees in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. Returning to the clip used in “Embodied Sound,” I brought many images of trees moving rapidly, which reminded me of looking through a car with the windows down; this is meant to stimulate a memory of an arboreal scent, one that may […]
Exercise created by Dayna McLeod for the Embodying the Video Essay Videographic Workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 2023 Thanks to Lucy Fife Donaldson for the cinematography Information on the exercise prompt at our Ways of Doing website: waysofdoing.com/resources/embodied-media-encounters/
An exercise focusing on my embodied emotional response to a key scene in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. I filmed myself watching 10 minutes of this sequence with two cameras trained on my face. This most openly vulnerable of responses led to a larger examination of spectatorship and memory.
Exercise created by Dayna McLeod for the Embodying the Video Essay Videographic Workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 2023 Information on the exercise prompt at our Ways of Doing website:waysofdoing.com/resources/onscreen-cameo/
An exercise adding Lima into a sequence highlighting “fallen world cities” in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.
Exercise created by Dayna McLeod for the Embodying the Video Essay Videographic Workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 2023 With thanks to Katie Grant, May Santiago and Pablo Torres for the original sound. Information on the exercise prompt at our Ways of Doing website:waysofdoing.com/resources/embodied-sound/
How does a caress sound like? Can we make an embrace audible? In this hug between me and my colleague and friend, the videographic scholar Daniel Pope, we two experienced intimate and intense contact I then tried to convey also to the viewer, in particular through acoustical means. I first tried to place contact microphones […]
An exercise adding my own sudden erratic breathing, recorded with a contact microphone against my throat, interlaced into a sequence in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. In particular, this exercise exposed how much nature is shown in a film otherwise thought to be very urban; see also Embodied Smell exercise.
Exercise created by Dayna McLeod for the Embodying the Video Essay Videographic Workshop, Bowdoin College, Maine, July 2023. Information on the exercise prompt at our Ways of Doing website: waysofdoing.com/resources/embodied-supercut/
In this supercut, I look at the exclamations (or ad-libs, as the music industry would call them) in K-pop music and music videos. They are sounds (or language) yearning to grow and fill space; however, by limiting their natural expansion through supercuts, it should provoke a unique bodily response and deliver a space (or metaverse??) […]
A supercut tracing the points in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men where the camera stops following the main character and diverts to something outside the film’s explicit narrative. Note: after completing this exercise, I discovered there is a 7th instance (right before Janice is killed). Crafted in Summer 2023 to fulfill the “Embodied Supercut” exercise […]
Made during ‘Embodying the Video Essay’ workshop, Bowdoin College, July 2023. Based on an audiovisual exercise designed by Dayna McLeod. For research purposes only.
I made this video at the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop at Bowdoin College in July, 2023. The exercise, designed by Dayna McLeod, had a list of parameters to help practitioners explore the potential taste and smell of the texts we study. Details about the exercise can be found at https://waysofdoing.com/resources/taste-and-smell/
More scholarly than the embodied cameo, this piece is an initial exploration of how we at times forget about television in telling the story of gay male representation, especially by granting priority to film history. While a film like “Cruising” occupies an infamous place in that story, the visual repetition and sonic layering here aim […]
I made this video at the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop at Bowdoin College in July, 2023. The exercise, designed by Dayna McLeod, had a list of parameters to help practitioners think about the embodied materiality of our media texts. In this case, I focused on the town of Onomichi itself. Details about the exercise […]
Made during ‘Embodying the Video Essay’ workshop, Bowdoin College, July 2023. Based on an audiovisual exercise designed by Dayna McLeod. For research purposes only.
I wanted to focus on the seams of scenes and shots touching, through multi-screen and look at how repetition effects the content. I was also drawn to the sound of the bullets when I cut the sound with the image, noticing that the aural power of the gunshot was not with Louise for her first […]
Using an endoscope, I bring a in-depth feminist reading to the landscape of Thelma and Louise.
I made this video at the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop at Bowdoin College in July, 2023. The exercise, designed by Dayna McLeod, had a list of parameters to help practitioners consider how we situate ourselves in relation to the texts we study. Details about the exercise can be found at https://waysofdoing.com/resources/onscreen-cameo/
Made during ‘Embodying the Video Essay’ workshop, Bowdoin College, July 2023. Based on an audiovisual exercise designed by Dayna McLeod. For research purposes only.
Prompted to collaborate at Embodying the Video Essay on an “unvoiceover,” I asked Hoang Nguyen and Will DiGravio to hum a portion of Madonna’s “Hung Up” and then added my own humming to have a third sonic layer. The already startling beauty of this scene from a “Starsky & Hutch” episode, which recalls Josef von […]
Made during ‘Embodying the Video Essay’ workshop, Bowdoin College, July 2023. Based on an audiovisual exercise designed by Dayna McLeod. For research purposes only.
I had used contact mics in 2018 as part of a residency sponsored by Media@McGill at Ada X in Montreal with Nik Forrest and Jackie Gallant. We were experimenting with my vaginal canal as recording studio and did some recordings to figure out what Uterine Concert Hall was and was not using a contact mic […]
I made this video at the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop at Bowdoin College in July, 2023. The exercise, designed by Dayna McLeod, had a list of parameters with the aim of reorienting participants with their media object(s) for use in the workshop, particularly with regards to sound. Details about the exercise can be found […]
A supercut exercise for “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop at Bowdoin College 2023.
Initially, I used various levels of opacity to create a much more sentimental supercut about masculine movement and gay desire. I also excerpted a song from “Call Me by Your Name” that emphasized sentimentality (see embodied supercut #1). But then I decided I wanted to do something more formal than felt, restricting myself to the […]
I made this video in preparation for attending the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop at Bowdoin College in July, 2023. The exercise, designed by Dayna McLeod, had a list of parameters with the aim of re-familiarizing participants with the main media object they would explore during the workshop. Details about the exercise can be found […]
Made in advance of ‘Embodying the Video Essay’ workshop, Bowdoin College, July 2023. Based on an audiovisual exercise designed by Dayna McLeod. For research purposes only.
I started off this supercut thinking I wanted to collect instances of characters touching each other in Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991). However, because I didn’t want to re-show any part of the attempted rape scene, I started cutting out all of the men and focused on when Thelma and Louise touch each other. […]
