Video Lectures
Why are video lectures listed in a Recommended Reading list? Well, a lecture is literally a reading. And let’s be honest: most academic lectures take this etymology very seriously and are no more than the translation of the written word into vibrating vocal chords. The lectures listed here however are both enlightening and required viewing / reading.
Analyse and Invent (Adrian Martin & Cristina Álvarez López)
Analyse and Invent: Audiovisual Essays as Creative Film/Media Research. That is the full title of this feature-length lecture by the video essay dream team of Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López. It includes comments and thoughts that were also featured in their writings for Transit, NECSUS and MUBI Notebook.
Watch the complete lecture online.
In Reference To Visual Essays (Kevin B. Lee and Kogonada)
Two prominent practitioners of the video essay, Kevin B. Lee and Kogonada, were invited by the Berlin film festival to talk about their craft. They were interviewed by Oliver Baumgarten during the 2016 Berlinale.
Watch the complete talk online.
Creative Constraints, Material Thinking & the Academic Videoessay (Alan O'Leary)
“Who is doing the thinking? Who is being the scholar?” These are some of the interesting questions being posed – and answered – by Professor of Film and Cultural Studies Alan O’Leary in this hourlong video lecture. He describes in some detail his personal experience at the Scholarship in Sound & Image Workshop (a yearly event in Middlebury, organized by Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell).
Watch the complete talk online.
10th anniversary of video essays (Kevin B. Lee)
Kevin B. Lee has been at the vanguard of the video essay form for more than a decade. He looks back on his personal experience in the field and on the history and the state of videographic criticism as a whole in this lecture delivered at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart (Germany).
Watch the complete talk online.
Desktop Horror (Shane Denson)
In the winter semester of 2018/2019, Kevin B. Lee organized a lecture series at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, Germany. One of those lectures was delivered by Shane Denson: he focuses on “desktop horror” and connects that subgenre to notions of the post-cinematic.
Watch the complete talk online here.
Framing: The Essay Film as Theoretical Practice (Laura Rascaroli)
In this talk dating back to the end of 2015, Laura Rascaroli (Professor and Co-Head of Film and Screen Media at University College Cork, Ireland) takes a close look at the act of framing in essay films.
Watch the complete talk online here.