Sixth Annual IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections American University Washington College of Law
Panel II: New Forms of Organizing: Women Reinterpret the Legal, the Educational and the Political
I had to leave for an appointment I couldn't cancel and so missed lunch and the second panel.
So hop on over to Rebecca Tushnet's blog and read her post. That's what I'll be doing. I may edit this post with my comments later, after I have a chance to read her notes.
Sixth Annual IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections American University Washington College of Law
Panel I: Is There a Text in This Work? Transformation Beyond the Written Word
Moderator Francesca Coppa introduces the subject by suggesting that fanfiction has started moving out of copyright conferences and into literary criticism, while new media forms are just beginning to get attention. Women are "trained" to keep fan practices -- fanvids, role play, etc --under wraps, while men have brought works foward sooner -- fan films, D&D, etc. have had more public exposure. The panel will focus on areas of "invisible" activity.
Sixth Annual IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections American University Washington College of Law
Keynote
The keynote on Friday (last Friday, now) was by Rebecca Tushnet, fan and lawyer, who teaches at Georgetown. Tushnet's keynote is posted on her blog. Which is great, because I suck at taking notes, as previously mentioned. I used to have great note-taking ability! Sigh. Anyway, she also posted notes to the other panels, which I will link to and probably excerpt as well.
I'm new to watching and "reading" vids, but the vids she selected intrigued me, and two rather blew me away
First was "Handlebars," a Doctor Who vid by flummery .
This was one of the vids I loved. Coppa used it to explain how vidders can both link video footage to lyrics to illustrate points, but also as a demonstration of how a vidder can use the changing dynamics of a song to build a thesis, an argument. This one does so rather brilliantly. Watching this, I finally got why people love Doctor Who. It helps that I've seen enough episodes to get the general gist, but more so than many vids, which are very dependent on the viewer being intimately familiar with the source footage in order to convey meaning, I think this one does a good job of conveying at least basic meaning even to someone unfamiliar or casually familiar with the source. The doctor seems lighthearted and innocent but can be a diabolical weilder of power. That's crystal clear from the progression of the vid.
And I think this illustrated to me why the vid I reviewed the other day didn't quite do it for me: both "Handlebars" and "Let it Rock" explicitly link footage to lyrics in ways that can be a little spot-on for my tastes (though "Handlebars" does it with more subtlety overall than "Let it Rock"), but "Handlebars" has a much clearer narrative thesis in mind than "Let it Rock." It's saying something about the source text and about the characters that isn't necessarily inherent in the footage alone. It makes a point.
The second vid was "Martina," a Veronica Mars vid. I can't for the life of me find this vid online. Nevermind, did a little more digging. The vidder is darlulu and the vid is here (scroll down). The song is basically a woman's voice over the sound of footsteps, a rhythm that changes, speeding up and slowing down. It's a creepy song, but I didn't feel like the vid was very accessible to anyone who hadn't seen the show. This isn't necessarily a fair way to judge fanvids, so I'll leave it up to those of you who are more familiar with VM than I am to let me know if it's a good VM vid. Mostly, it just seemed like a lot of footage of Veronica walking around in dark alleys. Coppa mentioned that in context, Veronica was hunting a serial rapist after being raped herself, and that the vid was a critique of the source's lack of acknowledgement that this would have had some kind of impact on the character.
The second vid to knock me out was "Uninvited," a Silence of the Lambs vid by Shalott (astolatI think?)
This vid made this song completely creepy, and it wasn't a creepy song to me before. Talk about the visuals transforming the audio.
Technically, the vidder manages to weave in footage from all three related films rather seamlessly and builds it into a coherent sort of ... love story. If you want to call it that. How about terrifying story of stalking and obsession? Here's one that doesn't rely too much on picture-to-lyric correspondence, neither is it merely a re-telling of the story. Pretty freaking amazing.
Next was "Circles," a West Wing vid set to an instrumental piece of classical music. Sadly, I really can't find this one. Thanks to splash_the_cat : this vid is by laurashapiro and can be found here.
I got what the vidder was going for, even thought the song choice was good, but it didn't really come off for me as well as the others, despite that I am probably more familiar with this source than all the others shown. It just seemed like a lot of walking around and talking heads, and didn't quite have the impact on me emotionally it probably aimed for. Without seeing the vid again, my critique is going to be shallow and useless, since you can't even see it to agree/disagree with me. Link me if you know this vid!
It was an example of a vid to an instrumental, but in my eyes the best instrumental vid I've ever seen was "Civil War" by meivocis. Then again, I think this is the only other instrumental vid I've seen:)
The last vid Coppa showed was a RPF type vid, "Piece of Me" song by Britney Spears, vidder obsessive24 . I can't find this one either, due to the fact that Britney has her own official video out for this song. Sigh. This one mashed together official music video footage of Britney with tabloid and paparrazi footage of her to really smart effect, changing the song from an in-your-face challenge to something sad and destructive -- Britney is herself being torn apart right before your eyes, and the viewer is implicated in that a little. It used Britney's own song to comment on the "character" of Britney Spears, which was interesting. (Thanks mhalachaiswords !)
The next presenter was Jonathan McIntosh, a digital artist and media activist, who brought a non-fannish take on vids.
