Reflections on how we came to make our keyword video (1/2)
Initially, we (Erika, Erin and Monika) intended to extend our project on “Face” to a keyword video about “Face.” Broadly, we thought the topics we could address would be some of the questions we raised about ownership, self-presentation, representation, femininity, and mediation in a cinematic format.
Potential Topics
- face and/vs skin, tissue
- frozen face - indicative of loss of control, super-control
- face and social consequences/the judgment of others - “emotional outburst”, “appropriate display of emotion”
- various identity politics:
- full and partial face transplants
- patient’s desire for particular info regarding skin donor
- fake identities (creating an identity using stock photos - buying someone’s face)
- selling your face/image (models)
- masquerade, veiling, passing
- as reflection
- for identity formation
However, one of the issues we wanted to tackle as well was how to make the video. A question that came up as we thought about the topic we wanted to address, face, was that some of the very practices we were looking to critique we thought were in some ways embodied in the existing keyword videos made and available in the FemTechNet archive. We brainstormed how to address this by thinking about what the video should/could do.
What should the video do? (possibilities)
- explicitly draw on theorists and make a video that discusses "face" from various feminist perspectives using text and images
- contribute (+support) the DOCC project by making a video in a "talking head" format explicitly drawing on theorists who have discussed "face"
- critique the existing videos (implicitly or explicitly)
- critique of wider issues of identity and face
- offer a disclaimer highlighting awareness of limits of the medium
We came up with a few different forms that we thought might help us convey these messages in a way that was not reproducing our own, or someone else’s, face. We also discussed not having any representations at all, but rather telling stories of faces through words only.
Options on our form:
1. Drawing of face with omniscient narrator(s)
2. Unfolding words -- through chatroom-style story to which people are simultaneously contributing; unfolding of paper
We hoped through the intertwining of form and content, we could address recurring themes. We opted against making a “keyword” video with a talking head, as we considered that the content and form are both central to meaning of the film.
Themes:
- face isn’t singular
- multiple aspects
- multiples ways of making appearances (gender, class, nationality, age, etc.)
- face is both material and social
- appearances matter (timing, location, physicality, etc.)
- face is a strong signal of identity/personhood (endurance/change)
- face as metaphorical language (facing something, losing face, saving face, giving face)
Stories:
- Getting someone else’s face, face transplants - Erin
- Buying a stock photo to create a secondary persona - Monika
- Creating and using avatars on message boards - Erika
So how did we get to critiquing MOOC videos? This move was actually smooth -- around the time that we were thinking about what sort a hook we could use for our keyword video,
Erika and Monika learned that UCSD had signed an agreement with Coursera to start developing MOOCs and that there were movements to help professors develop themselves as MOOC presenters. The open letter from the San Jose State University Philosophy Department protesting the requirement to use Harvard University professor Michael Sandel’s Justice videos as pedagogical tools for their classes had also recently been published.
This got us thinking about the way that a MOOC presents a professor as a particular kind of “face” that does a particular kind of labor separate from the professor her/himself. MOOC videos often follow the "talking head" model of TED talks, where a lone speaker lectures to an audience. TED talks are recorded, then uploaded so that anyone with Internet access can watch the talk, regardless of where they are and what time of day it is. We surmised that there are certain assumptions about how video images of these figures would be received and used, namely that they would be treated respectfully and would not be subject to remixing or editing which could significantly alter the message intended by the speaker. In the case of Coursera, there was also the issue of branding, where a professor’s face could be appropriated to represent not only the university of employment but also the MOOC company itself.
Using After Effects, we inserted the Justice video, which was in full color, in the space of the computer monitor. The juxtaposition between black-and-white/color, the fact that the students made comments in the form of speech bubbles rather than through voice-acting while Sandel’s voice can be heard throughout, and certain lines of dialogue served to highlight the gap between students and teacher and the lack of interactivity in the MOOC model. At one point, the video repeats itself, pointing out the potential for each video to be edited by third parties for purposes other than those originally intended. The repetition is also meant to highlight the differences in labor type performed by a professor who must go through the act of giving a lecture and managing a classroom and the type of labor performed by the video image of the professor which can serve to obscure the first type of labor. Finally, the video ends with the open question of who or what Michael Sandel represents in our project: Harvard? edX? UCSD? FemTechNet? Does he get a say in who or what can claim him as their face? Does he have any claims of ownership to his image?
-EC/MSJ
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