Jujube/thesis-drafts

Thesis proposal: Writing the Image

latest: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17f8B3_IX4SmDIgM4GAb3n6-JAGGVsB6zSEMUwA72DLw/edit#

My thesis is a memoir in which I reflect on my practice as a writer and filmmaker. It weaves together the personal and the intellectual — namely, my study of film as a medium of expression, union and empathy. I have been jotting down paragraphs since September 2019. There is no particular structure at this moment, but I have noticed recurring questions and the emergence of themes, which are:

What are the images that I have held onto over the years?

How do I use words to express these images?

What are the meanings and the feelings these images carry?

Why do I write?

How do I (learn to) express with filmmaking?

The free-writing can be seen on this page: jujube/memoir2.

I will start to produce via editing and re-writing and substantiate my observations with the text I read and the films/plays/lectures I reviewed as well as realizations from my making. Some key words I have identified are:

narrative, emotions, emotional intelligence, self-knowledge

definition of medium, understanding the image, making without knowing all, craft

solitude, loneliness, spiritual diaspora, trancendance

References

Things I have read and notated:

• Campany, D. (2007) The cinematic. London: Whitechapel (Documents of contemporary art, 2007: 5).
• Chee, A. (2018) How to write an autobiographical novel : essays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Kern, S. (2004) A cultural history of causality : science, murder novels, and systems of thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Farr, I. (2012) Memory. London: Whitechapel Gallery (Documents of contemporary art).
• Mamet, D. (1992) On directing film. New York: Penguin Books.
• Merewether, C. (2006) The archive. London etc: Whitechapel etc (Documents of contemporary art).
• Miall, D. (2011) Emotions and the Structuring of Narrative Responses. Poetics Today 1 June 2011; 32 (2): 323–348. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-1162704
• Nussbaum, M. (1988) Narrative Emotions. Ethics, Vol. 98, No. 2., pp. 225-254.
• Shouse, E. (2005) Feeling, Emotion, Affect. M/C Journal 8.6. <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php>
• Stallabrass, J. (2013) Documentary. London: Whitechapel (Documents of contemporary art).
• Voìgt, Ellen Bryant. Image. New England Review, Vol. 13, No. 3/4, 1991, pp. 254–268. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40243421.

Things I have in the process of reading/notating:

• Bird Cloud, Anne Proulx
• Limbo, Dan Fox
• The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson

Form & concept

Selected Statuses. A zine I made during the first year consisting of 50 selected status updates that I posted on Facebook from 2013-2018.

Christian Boltanski: Reconstitution [1]. "Heavy brown cardboard box with title printed in black on label pasted to lid, containing 18 items."

A return to some early thoughts

Jujube/memoir

Photos

do they serve as illustration, prompts?

a plastic bag with Chinese label

sketching a room: a series

still from Scene 1

TBC

Annotated Bibliography

This is a synthesis of some materials I have read so far. The annotations are colloquial at the moment. As the synthesis continues I plan to become more precise with the literature and succinct in my annotations.

feelings

• Jujube/synopsis#United_by_Feelings
• Jujube/synopsis#Feelings.2C_Emotion.2C_Affect
• Jujube/synopsis#David_S._Miall:_Emotions_and_the_Structuring_of_Narrative_Responses

I want to evoke feelings. I believe it is shared human nature and thus a way to foster empathy. Empathy comes from compassion (understanding and love) for the self.

I can now say this, with certainty and humility, that I want to surround myself with understanding and thus create a world where people understand each other. If you see me in you, and if I see you in me, perhaps the world will suffer less.

A few people whose judgement I trust have told me, "nobody can ever understand you in totality," which I have come to agree. In trying to be understood, I finally become able to understand myself. And that's where I connect self-compassion and empathy.

memories

• Jujube/synopsis#Siegfried_Kracauer:_Memory_Images.2C_1927
• Jujube/abstracts-non-text#Play:_salt <--a one-woman play instead of text

Memories are images strung together. Words construct images — words come to me via memories.

A few people told me that my writing touches or bring to mind images.

That's how poetry works, I suppose.

I want others to understand, through these images, something about me, something about themselves.

the making of images without language

• Jujube/synopsis#The_Cinematic_.28DoCA.29
• Jujube/synopsis#Film:_A_Very_Short_Introduction

"A film is a story or a proposition... that is shaped, angled, finite, intended, whether it is a documentary, an art installation, a bit of gritty realism, or a full-blown fantasy... A film-maker is a person who makes such things."

I encountered the camera not through intention, but chance.

If you ask, "why the camera," I would say:

I took a chance. I connected the dots from my past. I was curious.

And I have been privileged to stay with it, hold it, test it. I have become decisive and considerate with its help — I am an ally, and more importantly, a student.

"And why film?"

I discovered time through film. I unearthed my intention about image-making. In writing and in making films I am drawing a very, very large circle, some sort of infinity that help me understand my being in this world.

I ask more concrete questions through the things I make:

Do narrative and personal memory ever come together? Is that the form of the Memoir? Or Must one become fictionalized?

How to evoke the sense from memory? (Is this a how question?)

Or, if I want to evoke feeling, should I construct a story around it?

causality, narrative, dramatic logic

• Jujube/synopsis#Stephen_Kern:_A_Cultural_History_of_Causality_.7C_Chapter_5:_Emotion

Causality is important in determining narrative. Different time periods (cultures) tend to favor different causality. (Perpetuations of the unhealty, unresolved kind seem irresponsible.)

• Jujube/synopsis#David_Mamet:_On_Directing_Film

Narrative, in the dramatic sense, follows dramaturgy.

other

In writing the thesis I am also finding its epistemological position and discursivity. Rather than creating new knowledge, I emphasize the understanding and revisiting of existing knowledge. In a way, can films heal? If so, how so?

Feedback

03.10 https://pad.xpub.nl/p/jueartemisrita