Creating a video essay is an intimate process, allowing you to engage with your subject on a profound, almost tangible level. While editing video essays, I’ve uncovered details I’d never noticed before – even in films I’d watched a dozen times. Dissecting an audiovisual object of desire and then reassembling it is both an act of sacrilege and worship, often leading to unique epiphanies. Even Steven Soderbergh takes the scalpel to his favorite films to deepen his understanding of them.

Then what could be more intimate, more revealing, and more affecting than placing yourself directly into the picture? This is precisely what Alice Lenay does in her video essay Twisties! (published in journal of media studies NECSUS), a recording of a live performance. Using chroma keying and overlay effects, Lenay inserts herself into footage of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, where American gymnast Kerri Strug famously performed a vault despite injuring her ankle on a prior attempt. Her resilience secured the gold medal for the U.S. team.

Lenay’s physical engagement offers an embodied exploration of how the athlete’s body is televised and how viewers develop empathy for this mediated image. At the same time, the contrast between the polished professionalism of the Olympic footage and Lenay’s low-tech recreation prompts us to question how cameras and editing techniques shape – and reshape – these bodies. Lenay’s tongue-in-cheek commentary and enthusiastic acrobatics add a welcome layer of irreverence to this wonderful example of embodied research.