Audiovisual Pedagogies. Introduction: the inexhaustible text

Abstract

In the pages of this journal in 1975, Raymond Bellour conjectured whether ‘we might […] ask if the filmic text should really be approached in writing at all’.1 Bellour came to this rhetorical question in the final paragraph of ‘The unattainable text’, an essay that explored the fundamental incommensurability of moving images and linguistic discourse, grappling with some of the challenges of writing about moving images. However ironic Bellour was being in his suggestion that film analysis might be more effective in moving-image form than in writing, the implications of his proposition have only been taken up belatedly. Christian Keathley, using Bellour’s ‘The unattainable text’ as his point of departure, has discussed ‘how the language and style of film criticism are being changed in an era whose multi-media capabilities have expanded exponentially beyond what they were a generation ago’.2 Might these same expanded ‘multi-media capabilities’ change the language and style of film pedagogy too? We think so, because for us, they already have. In this dossier we reflect on our successful use of audiovisual assignments in courses for students at various levels, from new undergraduates to advanced graduate students. While the phrase ‘audiovisual pedagogies’ seeks to encompass all of the ways that digital video, video editing, computer gaming, virtual reality and various other new media promise to transform how we teach cinema and media studies (while bridging the presumed divide between critical studies and creative production),3 the audiovisual essay – or video essay – is the particular focus of this dossier.