Jujube/thesis-drafts
Thesis proposal: Writing the Image
My thesis is a memoir in which I reflect on my practice as a writer and filmmaker. It weaves together the personal — from childhood memories to identity struggles — and the intellectual — namely, my study of film as a medium of expression, union and empathy. I have been writing towards this essay since the beginning of the academic year, taking inspiration from my text on practice from the last term. (jujube/text-on-practice-2019) In the generative phase, my writings resemble journal entries (jujube/memoir2). A month into the process, I have noticed recurring questions and the emergence of themes which, in return, guide my writing. I will start to produce focused writing (via re-writing) and substantiate my observations with the text I read (jujube/synopsis and jujube/abstracts-text), the non-text I reviewed (jujube/abstracts-non-text), as well as realizations from my making (jujube/scenes). The questions are:
- How have words and images influenced my practice?
- I seem to have wanted to evoke feelings all these years. What feelings are these?
- What is my relationship with words? Why do I write?
- What is my relationship with images? How do I (learn to) express with images?
- Why am I making films?
- How did I come to this choice?
- How has the research of the medium informed me?
- How do I deal with the difficulties?
I have identified certain keywords for my thesis:
- narrative, emotions, emotional intelligence, self-knowledge
- definition of medium, understanding the image, making without knowing all, craft, confidence as an artist, artisthood
- solitude, loneliness, spiritual diaspora, trancendance
I refrain from an academic tone. My mode of address is that of an essayist who speaks with "I". I will demonstrate the academic integrity with the content and bibliography.
References
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
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
"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
Causality is important in determining narrative. Different time periods (cultures) tend to favor different causality. (Perpetuations of the unhealty, unresolved kind seem irresponsible.)
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?