Audiovisual Pieces Research Articles

Los Diarios de viaje en los Festivales Franco chilenos de videoarte: una aproximación documental desde el autorretrato y la autoetnografía.

Los Diarios de viaje were audiovisual pieces produced for Festival Franco chileno de videoarte (1981-1992) that were presented as a visual diary of the experience of Chilean video artists in France and French artists in residence in Chile. These pieces can be understood as a unique corpus that sharply observed, with political insight and formal audacity, the difficult social and artistic conditions of the 1980s in Chile. This article argues that studying these video works may create a parallel space to the testimonial documentary production of those years. They establish their narrative operations centered on the self, where such documentary quality is constructed from an autobiographical approach, specifically in the modalities of autoethnography and self-portrait.

Towards a Politics of Recognition: Exploring the Symbolic Contexts of Material Agroecological Transitions

Scientific debates on agroecology highlight the relevance of appropriate narratives as a means to widen and amplify agroecological transitions in the material world. However, it is actually far-right discourses—often linked to populist political proposals—which, though not majoritarian, are reaching broad and growing diffusion among both rural communities and farmers. Research focusing on the symbolic mechanisms around food systems’ transitions are scarce. In order to address this gap, an exploratory research project was developed to identify responses to different messages and audiovisual languages favorable to agroecological transitions, through the dissemination of three brief audiovisual pieces among specific socio-professional profiles linked to food systems, together with an online survey. The results obtained (n = 524) show significant differences in the responses to open questions collected, regarding socio-economic diversity expressed in the axes male/female, urban/rural, farmer/not farmer and organic/conventional farming. Responses from conventional farmers express a need for developing a “politics of recognition” and repair that would acknowledge the unfair, subordinated role that farmers and rural communities feel in the current globalized food system. The paper shows the need for further empirical research on the issue, covering different territories and socio-economic and cultural profiles, in order to fully understand the symbolic mechanisms underlying material, agroecological transitions.

Verification of the Public Discourse and Accountability of Mayors on Local TV: The Case of Ecuador

The purpose of the research is to determine the veracity and contexts of the statements of Ecuador's mayors using fact-checking methodology. The research questions are: Are the public testimonies of mayors presented in local television news programmes true? What are the circumstances in which mayors present their speeches? To what extent does local journalism contextualize the mayors' statements? The research is descriptive and relational, using qualitative methodology based on the Ecuador Chequea protocol, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. A sample of audiovisual pieces broadcast between February 2020 and March 2022 was obtained. The statements are grouped in 10 axes, showing correspondence with the functions determined in the law. The statements of the governors are true, the proximity helps direct accountability, but weaknesses such as excessive prominence, publicity and short-term interests can be appreciated. Analyses of the quality of the declarations are needed, in broad pieces and with the corresponding cultural and political contexts. Efforts to make public administration transparent is a key aspect of open and e-government that will be achieved as long as citizens' information literacy is achieved.

From the maloca to the screen. Narrative connections between the oral tradition of Múrui-Muina amazonian community and interactive audiovisual content.

The Uitoto community of the Colombian Amazon have used stories as a central axis of their culture and survival, using stories in different forms that have been passed from generation to generation, with the belief that the word is healing and world-creating. Stories have been told in different formats, times and genres but have a special purpose; connecting the past and the future to create a new reality.From this study, the potential of the indigenous narratives of the Muinane people to be adapted in interactive audiovisual productions is highlighted, through a content and structural analysis of five Eikɨ, which are riddle-songs used during the autochthonous rituals of the Múrui-Muina. Particularly, the Eikɨ used during the ball game ceremony, collected and translated by researcher Laura Areiza Serna (Ayaɨngo), are examined in her research Eikɨ jɨkanote: preguntar por el canto-adivinanza. Recognizing a close relationship between Eikɨ with some interactive audiovisual pieces such as video games or interactive movies. The result of this research shows the narrative richness of the Múrui-Muina that in its variety can influence interactive narratives. Taking indigenous knowledge and advances outside the limits of their territory and language, transforming and inspiring interactive audiovisual content that preserves the indigenous word.

DeepHistory: A convolutional neural network for automatic animation of museum paintings

AbstractDeep learning models have shown that it is possible to train neural networks to dispense, to a lesser or greater extent, with the need for human intervention for the task of image animation, which helps to reduce not only the production time of these audiovisual pieces, but also presents benefits with respect to the economic investment they require to be made. However, these models suffer from two common problems: the animations they generate are of very low resolution and they require large amounts of training data to generate good results. To deal with these issues, this article introduces the architectural modification of a state‐of‐the‐art image animation model integrated with a video super‐resolution model to make the generated videos more visually pleasing to viewers. Although it is possible to train the animation models with higher resolution images, the time it would take to train them would be much longer, which does not necessarily benefit the quality of the animation, so it is more efficient to complement it with another model focused on improving the animation resolution of the generated video as we demonstrate in our results. We present the design and implementation of a convolutional neural network based on an state‐of‐art model focused on the image animation task, which is trained with a set of facial data from videos extracted from the YouTube platform. To determine which of all the modifications to the selected state‐of‐the‐art model architecture is better, the results are compared with different metrics that evaluate the performance in image animation and video quality enhancement tasks. The results show that modifying the architecture of the model focused on the detection of characteristic points significantly helps to generate more anatomically and visually attractive videos. In addition, perceptual testing with users shows that using a super‐resolution video model as a plugin helps generate more visually appealing videos.

Aesthetic Representation of Antisocial Personality Disorder in British Coming-of-Age TV Series

TV series’ depictions of mental disorders have received considerable scholarly attention. However, few studies have considered the role of aesthetic elements in representing mental disorders. Therefore, in this study, we analysed how aesthetic features influence the representation of “psychopathy” in British coming-of-age TV series through the case study of The End of the F***ing World. We chose to analyse psychopathy due to its over-representation in the media and its often-mistaken conflation with the actual mental disorder of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). We applied an aesthetic methodology in our analysis. We analysed the series in terms of language, appearance, behaviour, music and sound, technical devices, and intertextuality, closely observing three sequences of various episodes that correspond to the character’s symptoms, diagnosis, medication, and treatment. Our findings show that the aesthetic characteristics, characters, and events of the plot can act as expressive means through which the experience of living with a mental disorder can be accurately represented and simultaneously entertain viewers with drama and suspense. The series challenges the reductionist perspective and previous stereotypes of audio–visual pieces related to ASPD, suggesting that future TV series can better represent mental disorders with the correct use of television aesthetics and cinematic devices.

Interreligious Dialogue in Public Service Broadcasting. A Case Study in Catalonia (Spain)

This text addresses how the media deals with interreligious dialogue based on the case study of the Catalan public television stations. Our theoretical framework revolves around the concept of mediation, which is regarded as a communicative concept that emphasizes the socializing power of the mass media as well as its potential contribution to social cohesion. A quantitative and qualitative analysis is presented of a sample of 41 multi-religious audiovisual pieces broadcast between 2015 and 2018, which were located in the Corporation’s on-demand online service. The religious diversity that currently exists in European cities is reflected in the media content. Although it is true that the Catholic religion features in 63% of the sample, it only becomes the focal point on less than half of the occasions in which it appears. The religious options with more presence are Catholicism in relation to Islam and atheism in relation to Catholicism, but these cases only account for 26.8% of the sample. Interreligious dialogue appears as the main focus of the discourse in only 14.6% of the sample and, in general, the tendency towards a Euro-Catholic-centric discourse has been detected.

Viral Dissemination of Content in Advertising: Emotional Factors to Reach Consumers

Social media has become a relevant content dissemination channel in recent years. Each user has the capacity to potentially reach others, and in this way, social media challenges the traditional distribution of content through mass media. The advertising industry has had to adapt to this new ecosystem and develop audiovisual pieces specifically tailored to this environment as part of their communication strategies. These pieces aim at achieving not only views but to engage viewers in sharing content with their contacts. Recent research indicates that there are certain aspects of human behaviour related to emotions and motivations that have an impact on the decision to share information, news and content with others. However, there are few studies analysing how the features of the content shared influence that decision. This article presents the content analysis results of the 100 most widely shared advertising viral videos around the world from 2011 to 2015 according to Adweek. The analysis was conducted from an emotional perspective in order to establish the common features of the most shared videos and to identify the frequency in which emotional narrative resources are used.

Profesionales y posverdad: La responsabilidad colectiva como arma contra la falacia digitalizada

Main theme: Post-truth, also known as emotive lie: a new term that describes the intentional distortion of reality, thus intending to create and guide a tendency of public opinion to influence the ideas of society. This definition and the reality it represents has a growing presence and importance in modern life: the election of Donald Trump, the rise of separatisms, Brexit or the irruption of the far right are first-line issues, tainted by the specter of post-truth. Logical development of the matter: It is common to check the social networks every morning to find, in statistical fashion, a lie in motion. A hoax known by its author and unquestioned by those who share it: illustrated news equals reality. Altho ugh resorting to lies in politics or for ideological reasons is far from being a recent development, the way in which this phenomenon has grown and become uncontrolled as an element of influence in public opinion is what has led to its metamorphosis in the term «Post-truth». Author’s point of view and contributions: Interconnectivity should shield us from manipulation by professional propagandists, but it has made us more vulnerable to puerile and simple lies…information that would be easy to deny, but which are protected from it by collective laziness and accelerated lifestyle. Research limitations/implications: Although the research focuses on a single case, it offers an approximation to the value that these audiovisual pieces have when being used as a tool in a communication strategy of a brand, which allows the brand to manage its intangible values easily. Implications and conclusions: After decades of consolidated and successful democracy, society faces, for the first time, a threat that can only be effectively fought by ordinary citizens. The propaganda and educational effort that would be needed to solve it from the institution’s level reaches the unthinkable extreme of forced reeducation for the standardization of criteria. It is necessary, instead, to create in the greatest number of people, the awareness of the need for self-training in critical reading and data verification, given the growing irrelevance of the journalist as a mediator. Or if that fails, work is needed from the media to reverse their loss of credibility.

Viral Dissemination of Content in Advertising: Emotional Factors to Reach Consumers

Social media has become a relevant content dissemination channel in recent years. Each user has the capacity to potentially reach others, and in this way, social media challenges the traditional distribution of content through mass media. The advertising industry has had to adapt to this new ecosystem and develop audiovisual pieces specifically tailored to this environment as part of their communication strategies. These pieces aim at achieving not only views but to engage viewers in sharing content with their contacts. Recent research indicates that there are certain aspects of human behaviour related to emotions and motivations that have an impact on the decision to share information, news and content with others. However, there are few studies analysing how the features of the content shared influence that decision. This article presents the content analysis results of the 100 most widely shared advertising viral videos around the world from 2011 to 2015 according to Adweek. The analysis was conducted from an emotional perspective in order to establish the common features of the most shared videos and to identify the frequency in which emotional narrative resources are used.

Service Learning. Analysis of a university experience

En este artículo se revisan los fundamentos pedagógicos y sociales de una experiencia de Aprendizaje Servicio (ApS) llevada a cabo en la Universidad que resultó muy satisfactoria. En dicha experiencia se combinaron dos asignaturas (de dos Facultades distintas) y participaron 120 alumnos, 10 profesores y 12 entidades del tercer sector que trabajaban sobre situaciones de exclusión social. El objetivo era materializar un ApS a través del cual: 1) El alumnado trabajase en situaciones reales de esas entidades, para favorecer la inclusión de minorías (Diversidad funcional, Inmigración, LGTBI, etc.). 2) Realizase piezas audiovisuales con el propósito de sensibilizar y transformar el imaginario social al respecto. Dicha experiencia se examina a través de la vivencia concreta de uno de los grupos de alumnos (concretamente, el que tutorizó el autor de este artículo). Para escudriñar dicha experiencia se ha realizado un trabajo de campo que, además de otras acciones, fundamentalmente, se sustenta en entrevistas a representantes de todos los colectivos participantes en aquel proceso de aprendizaje: alumnado de las dos facultades, profesorado de las dos facultades, tutor y representante de la entidad colaboradora. Los datos evidencian las múltiples potencialidades educativas de este modelo de aprendizaje. Y los argumentos socio-pedagógicos que se esgrimen, muestran un proceso formativo muy adecuado, particularmente, para la enseñanza superior, y pretenden animar al profesorado universitario a su implementación.

Hacia un modelo de rúbricas para la evaluación de aprendizajes en productos audiovisuales, en función del perfil de egreso de la Carrera de Comunicación Audiovisual y las especialidades de Cine y Televisión de la Universidad UNIACC

El estudio se focaliza en torno a un componente crucial en los procesos formativos: la evaluación, sus prácticas e instrumentos. Se desarrolla un marco teórico acerca del Modelo Educativo de Universidad UNIACC, el respectivo perfil de egreso de las especialidades de Cine y TV de la Escuela de Comunicación Audiovisual, y el enfoque denominado Evaluación para el Aprendizaje (EpA) como base de una reflexión crítica y optimización de los criterios, escenarios e instrumentos (rúbricas) referidos a evaluar la realización de piezas audiovisuales. Se trata de una investigación de enfoque cualitativo que, mediante entrevistas semiestructuradas a docentes, expertos en la materia y grupos de discusión con estudiantes, recoge datos que permitan fundamentar un modelo conceptual y procedimental focalizado en la resignificación del proceso evaluativo hacia la construcción de rúbricas con enfoque holístico que propone el modelo EpA. Conclusivamente, se discute sobre la necesidad de repensar el proceso evaluativo, en particular en este tipo de carreras, donde buena parte de los procesos y productos suponen no solo una apropiación técnica, sino además el ejercicio de la creatividad estética y el desarrollo artístico. The study focuses on a crucial component in the training processes: assessment, its practices and instruments. It provides a theoretical framework about the Educational Model of UNIACC University and the profile of graduation of Cinema and Television majors of the School of Audiovisual Communication. Additionally, the Assessment for Learning (EpA in Spanish)* approach, as a basis for critical reflection and optimization of the criteria, scenarios and instruments (rubrics) required for assessing the making of audiovisual pieces. This is a qualitative research that, through semi-structured interviews with teachers, experts in the subject and discussion groups with students, collects data to support a conceptual and procedural model focused on the resignification of the assessment process towards the construction of rubrics with holistic approach proposed by the EpA model. Conclusively, we discuss the need to rethink the assessment process, particularly in this type of degrees, where a good part of the processes and products involve not only a technical appropriation, but also the exercise of aesthetic creativity and artistic development.

Entre Memorias (Between Memories)

Eudosia is still searching for her husband’s remains in the highlands of Ayacucho, Lucero has been in prison for 25 years now for the crime of terrorism against the Peruvian state, and since 2009 the commandos of the counterinsurgency unit Chavin de Huantar recreate and commemorate their heroic military actions to save a nation from the threat of terrorism. Twelve years after the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its final report about the atrocities committed during the internal armed conflict (1980-2000), memories of this period seem more contested than ever.
 This film explores the complex legacies of twenty years of violence and war in Peru through practices of remembering. In three audio-visual pieces made in collaboration with relatives of the disappeared, insurgents of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) and members of the Armed Forces, this documentary aims for creating an on-screen dialogue between memories, which in practice remains elusive.

Zostań MovieStarPlanet! – czyli o partycypacji kultury dziecięcej w kulturze cyfrowej

This article reflects on the specificity of contemporary children’s participation in digital culture. It comprises study results, whose aim was the reconstruction of children’s culture created by children during internet communication in the MovieStarPlanet service. The communication in the service has been treated as an example of a new dimension of children’s culture and, as such, it is the subject of the present study. The adopted study procedure mainly comprised the netnographic method and revealed many original examples of children’s culture. Among the creations published by children in the service, the following were distinguished, among others, multimedia images (ArtBooks, arts), several short audio-visual pieces, animated photos, stylings (looks) as well as text thematic games published on the forum. The analysis of children’s e-folklore allowed formulating conclusions on the communal and creative functioning of children in a selected web place, a rich variety of themes and types of undertaken communication initiatives and the existence of specific features of children’s language suggesting the existence of the internet aspect of children’s culture.

Las construcciones de las imágenes de salta. Articulaciones entre noticias y ficciones cinematográficas

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar cómo es que se construyen diversas imágenes de la ciudad de Salta, a partir de la indagación de noticias, como producciones televisivas, y de ficciones cinematográficas. Es decir, modalidades con que se representa visualmente a la ciudad tanto en clave informativa como ficcional. La metodología es cualitativa, emplea la teoría de las Representaciones sociales, la Semiótica audiovisual, los aportes provenientes de la Socio-semiótica, además del estudio de las imágenes y de la construcción de identidades locales. Se toma como corpus de análisis las producciones ficcionales de Alejandro Arroz Luz de invierno e Historias de las orillas y tres piezas informativas audiovisuales que se relevaron de canales televisivos locales y que referencian sobre todo el barrio denominado 'Gauchito Gil', perteneciente a la zona sudeste de la ciudad de Salta. Se espera poder construir una mirada que atraviese formatos audiovisuales diversos y que funcionen como estrategias metodológicas para abordar la topicalización de las ciudades en las producciones audiovisuales en sus diferentes formatos. El trabajo pretende así colaborar con los estudios sobre ciudad, modalidades de representación en el campo audiovisual y las formas en que las memorias se construyen y se reentraman en los procesos identitarios locales atendiendo a dos modalidades de construcción diferenciados, dando cuenta del espesor temporal de las representaciones que se ponen 'en pantalla'. De esta manera, se tratará de caracterizar los modos de la confrontación distributiva simbólica sobre los sentidos de la ciudad de Salta.

Tuning-in

This article describes the idea and method of ‘tuning-in’ as a component of environmental arts practice, developed during my participation in the Landscape Quartet research project. It describes how such an approach includes awareness of the different senses and kinds of awareness, and how artistic responses to specific spaces and locations can be developed through sound and music. This includes outcomes that range in scope from live performances and/or sound installations on-site, electroacoustic compositions, and audiovisual pieces.

Considerações sobre a adaptação para ao audiovisual: ficção noir

The purpose of this article is to deal with the matter of audiovisual adaptation as an intersemiotic phenomenon and of “cultural translation”, focusing on a genre whose historical trajectory is an example of the dynamics of the absorption, transformation, and recreation in the relationship between cinema and literature: the noir. Three Brazilian audiovisual pieces will be evaluated: the films A Grande Arte (The Great Art), by Walter Salles Jr., and Bufo & Spallanzani, by Flavio Tambellini; and the televised miniseries Agosto (August), directed by Paulo Jose.

Gender Arrangement of Audiovisual Technoculture: An Approach from Technofeminism

The increasing development of the new technologies of the information and the communication forces to thinking about which are the forms of domination in the field of the gender relations that emerge of these processes and, in addition, to produce technofeminist practices to contribute to question and to modify these forms of domination. In this work the process of investigation-action of the project Generatech: for an agencement of gender in the audio-visual tecnoculture is presented; which aims to question the present dominant imaginary of gender relations in current patriarchal society. This action is realized through the production and diffusion of audio-visual pieces using the technologies of the communication and the information. In the project gender agencement is promoted through constituting a network of associations, groups and persons to extend and to defend the free distribution of knowledge, experiences and technological skills in the field of the reflection and critical action on the relations of gender and sexuality, assuming that the transformation of the relations of power in the area of technology and gender must be done through the transformation of the cultural field in which these develop.

MuPAI animado: propuestas educativas para adolescentes sobre técnicas de animación en la creación audiovisual

Con este articulo se pretende compartir la experiencia de la introduccion de las tecnicas de animacion mas habituales en la creacion audiovisual, entre los contenidos del proyecto educativo Vacaciones de cine, en sus ediciones de 2009. Tecnicas como el fl ipbook, el stop-motion o la pixilacion han sido utilizadas por los participantes de la actividad, en la realizacion de piezas audiovisuales. Debido a la buena acogida de este proyecto, se ha decidido poner en marcha actividades similares en otros contextos; las cuales seran brevemente descritas a lo largo del presente articulo. Para finalizar, se expondran unas conclusiones sobre la relacion existente entre el publico adolescente y el empleo de las tecnicas de animacion como recurso expresivo.