Ways of Doing Newsletter #2
June 2024
Dear Friends of WoD,
Welcome to our second newsletter!
What have you been doing?
Dayna has been a very busy little sausage, and is putting us all to shame. She has screened FoUBARthes: Death of the Author at the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), been working at an AI artist residency in Sherbrooke, is an instructor at Middlebury right now as we send this out, and is then heading to a conference on the future of cinema at Locarno Film Festival in August.
Alison and Colleen are attending the Asian Studies Conference Japan (ASCJ) conference in Tokyo in early July, with Alison presenting a new video essay on kaibyo eiga / 怪猫映画 / ghost cat films.
Colleen and Lucy both had works screened at the Marienbad Film Festival on June 15th, “Eye-Camera-Ninagawa”, and “Isn't That Going to Be Awfully Dull and Drab?” respectively. Lucy’s video essay was also runner up in the videographic criticism category of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Practice Research awards in April.
Colleen presented work on a panel and participated in a roundtable at the Kinema Club conference hosted at the University of Sheffield on June 13th, bringing videographic scholarship to the conference’s theme of “Borders, Boundaries, Edges, and Fringes in Japanese Film (Studies).” Earlier in May, she was interviewed by Will DiGravio for the The Video Essay Podcast for her contribution Kūki created for the Doing Women’s (Global) Film History (DWGFH) collaboration created and helmed by Alison. Her video essay “家” will be in the next issue of Tecmerin.
Alison and Lucy have published in the latest issue of Screen, Screenwriting, poetics, horror: Full Circle: The Haunting of Julia, and ‘Precision is key’: appreciating the labour of performance in RuPaul’s Drag Race, respectively.
All four of us met up in Yorkshire in June for a videographic retreat at a very old farmhouse where we schemed, plotted, and made. From there, we connected with Kevin B. Lee and recorded a session on exactly what we are doing with Ways of Doing for The Video Essay Podcast. The interview is forthcoming so please do keep a lookout for us on the podcast site.
In addition to the recording, we have also orchestrated some new resources to share. First, we have created a new page on our website, “Recommends,” in which we give you - can you believe it - some ideas for things to watch. We’ve put our first ten recommendations up there now - some we are sure you will be aware of, some you may not - and we plan to add to it in the future. Let us know if there are any video essays that you particularly rate and would love to see included.
Second, we are very excited to release the new installment in the Feminist Citational Practices series. This time we feature the influence of friend and inspiration Johannes Binotto. You can find the details of the exercise here. Examples of the exercise so far are here. Please do have a look at the exercise, and feel free to get making if you feel inspired. If you make a Feminist Citational Practices video essay you would like us to share, please do contact us and we will consider it for the Ways of Doing website. We look forward to seeing your potential contribution!
Have a fabulous summer,
Love,
WoD
The Ways of Doing Team
Lucy Fife Donaldson, Colleen Laird, Dayna McLeod, and Alison Peirse