2024/1 - #Open

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Editorial NECSUS: Spring 2024_#Open
Pape,Toni; Beugnet, Martine; de Cuir Jr, Greg; Keilbach, Judith; Loist, Skadi; Vidal, Belén; Virginás, Andrea (2024) , S. 1-3
Cooperation or conflict? Merging documentary filmmaking and oral history practices in The Eastside Project
Fisher, Ted; Mitchell, Don Allan (2024) , S. 116-134
Rigorous formal oral history practices have great academic and cultural value but tend to produce recordings rather than stories. Conversely, ‘creative documentary’ practices have reinvigorated traditional nonfiction film production but are often arbitrary in viewpoint and emphasis. Can using an open archive reconcile and re-energise these two practices? In 2022, we began filming video interviews for a new digital oral history archive at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. In this paper, we address essential conflicts between traditional oral history methodology and documentary filmmaking and how these practices can complement each other.
Open Scholarship: A Portfolio on Funding, Globalising and Enhancing
Pooley, Jefferson; Hoyt, Eric; Conway, Kelley (2024) , S. 13-32
Opening up science as a work: An international comparison of openness to society and openness of publication
Ottolini, Lucile; Noel, Marianne (2024) , S. 135-156
The last twenty years of open science advocacy and the more recent proliferation of programs and funding have shown that open science has become a veritable mantra. The term relates to a variety of initiatives and dimensions, from opening up the institutional governance of institutions to opening up access to scientific articles, research fields, data production, and so on. As mentioned in the call for proposals in this special issue, the diversity of these initiatives makes it difficult to carry out a comparative analysis.
“I say! Neither a Whore nor a Saint”: Transgender memory, Spanish popular television, and media histories in Veneno
Horvat, Anamarija (2024) , S. 157-179
In March 2020, the series Veneno was released on the streaming platform Atresplayer Premium, immediately becoming one of the biggest media sensations in Spain. The series centres on the life of the television star Cristina ‘La Veneno’ Ortiz Rodríguez, who shot to fame during the 1990s. Herself a transgender woman, Veneno was frequently an object of both public fascination and mockery, with her life as a sex-worker and gender-identity often relayed in the media through sensationalistic and dehumanising terms. By focusing on a figure who was an object of public fascination, but whose experiences of discrimination were often trivialised, the series Veneno not only humanises its central protagonist, but also acts as a commentary on the broader history of transgender representation in Spanish media and as a re-evaluation of la Veneno’s own legacy as a prominent media representative of the trans community. In turn, this focus on both mediated and hidden histories of transgender experience reflects a broader turn in the Spanish televisual and cinematic landscape, which has shown a marked focus on excavating and recreating local LGBTQI histories, as is evident from recent television series such as Bob Pop’s Maricón perdido (TNT, 2021), Miguel de Arco’s Las noches de Tefía (Atresplayer Premium, 2023) and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s Vestidas de azul (Atresplayer Premium, 2023), as well as in Pedro Almodóvar’s Madres paralelas (2021). In the case of Veneno, the recreation of transgender history also intervenes into current political discourses on transgender rights, with even Spain’s then-vice president Pablo Iglesias recommending the series to his followers on Twitter during a period of intense public debate surrounding the so-called ‘Ley Trans’ or ‘Trans Law’, which came into force in 2023. Drawing on this, this article will examine the ways in which the series intervenes into contemporary discourses surrounding trans rights, as well as how it comments on broader questions of transgender memory and the history of transgender media visibility within the Spanish context.
Game engines: Optimising VFX, reshaping visual media
Livingstone, Tom (2024) , S. 180-201
Game engines have emerged as a significant site of convergence for several visual media pipelines, from XR to animation and In-Camera VFX (ICVFX). However, they are a computational medium – the images they produce are the derivative by-products of their management of computational complexity. Focussing on the game engine-dependent production technique of In-Camera VFX, this article will explore the ways in which game engine visuality incorporates and re-mediates a great deal of the phenomenological and epistemic characteristics of photographic visuality, in a way that de-prioritises visuality as a sensed and embodied experience. The article offers an outline of the image pipelines of photographic and game engine visuality, emphasising the difference in their relations to external phenomena, profilmic reality, and processes such as data management and computational optimisation. The article discusses the production logistics of ICVFX with specific reference to the ‘magic cutaway’, a trope that represents, in its ubiquity, the successful optimisation of both film production and ‘real time’ rendering within the virtual production context. The article will then offer a case study to open up not just the aesthetic impact of ICVFX, but to reflect on the de-prioritisation of photographic, lens-based images – correlated as they are to embodied ocular perception – within visual media. Speculating on the epistemic impact of a predominantly computational, as opposed to ocular, visual regime, this article will conclude by drawing insights from critical algorithm studies and the broader field of digital humanities.
Queer bare lives: Melodramatic form and biopolitics in Michael Mayer’s Out in the Dark
Wan, Mingyuan (2024) , S. 202-220
This paper considers how the melodramatic form of Out in the Dark is employed to subvert the biopolitical discourses concerning queer migration across the Israel-Palestine border. In the diegesis, the queer Palestinian refugee is gradually stripped of his human rights, security, and legitimacy during border crossing, gradually being reduced into a state of ‘bare life’. I contend that the film Out in the Dark represents queer bare lives to subvert the homonationalist discourses employed by Israeli state power. The melodramatic form of Out in the Dark alters the recognition of the victim/hero/villain and cultivates novel spectatorial sensibilities via aesthetics. Ultimately, I show how the film associates queerness with the confluence of nationalism, militarism, and heteropatriarchy on both sides of the Israel-Palestine border, which offers a critique of biopolitical governance over the lives of queer migrants.
The environmental footprint of animated realism: An ecomaterialist exploration of contemporary digital animated documentaries
Formenti, Cristina (2024) , S. 221-241
Despite animation techniques being highly material, the environmental impact of animation is understudied. This essay starts bridging the gap by investigating the making of digital animated documentaries through the lens of ecomaterialism. In particular, it brings to light how the quest for realism that prompts the production choices of creators of such works often comes at a significant cost to the environment. Indeed, many present-day digital animated documentaries prove unsustainable, because multi-layered, wasteful, and excess-informed modes of production that foresee a squandering of resources tend to be adopted when making them. In so doing, the need for animation-focused green protocols is made apparent, especially since, paradoxically, due to animation being a craft-oriented medium, such non-environmentally friendly approaches tend to be encouraged within the industry.
Becoming a Netflix nation: Extroversion, exportability, and visibility through a case study of Maestro in Blue
Aitaki, Georgia (2024) , S. 242-265
The two sides of VR utopia
Kim, Da Ye (2024) , S. 266-276
Why (film) festivals? Virtual reality experiences at a crossroads
Bédard, Philippe (2024) , S. 277-286
On reaching and creating your audience: VR artist Nemo Vos on the role of film festivals
de Valck, Marijke (2024) , S. 287-295
Dutch artist Nemo Vos discusses his approach to VR and his vision of the role played by film festivals in making VR available. Reflecting on the premiere of his work 8 Billion Selves at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2024, Vos addresses both the challenges and advantages of exhibiting VR at festivals. Looking to the future, Vos outlines his vision for a series of co-created VR works, each featuring a different artist and aiming for distribution in theatres to achieve economic sustainability for the medium. The artist emphasises the responsibility VR artists themselves have in creating awareness and cultivating audiences, and details how he uses co-creation and collaboration with other art forms to elevate VR from a niche technology to a mainstream artistic form.
The future of the screen: Exploring Venice Immersive with Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac
Boato, Anja (2024) , S. 296-307
Within the Venice Film Festival, a dedicated section for immersive works was introduced in 2016, quickly gaining competitive status alongside traditional cinematic works. Venice Immersive serves as both an exhibition and promotion venue for XR and a forum for discussing pivotal market issues. This interview with the Venice Immersive creators and curators, Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac, delves into the early stages of the section, its objectives, the challenges faced, and the major issues within the immersive works market.
Formalism expanded
Davies, Byron (2024) , S. 308-315
On Distant Viewing
Braida, Nicole (2024) , S. 316-322
The Sensorium of The Drone and Communities
Gaeta, Amy (2024) , S. 323-328
Insomnolence: The Sociability of Sleep at Agora Hydro-Québec
Pape, Toni (2024) , S. 329-339
Navigating new horizons: Openness, blogs, and media studies
Diecke, Josephine; Matuszkiewicz, Kai (2024) , S. 33-50
The transformation of established academic publishing systems is reshaping the landscape of media studies and emerging publication formats are challenging traditional habits. This article examines open access publication practices through the prism of the Open Media Studies Blog (OMS Blog). With a praxeological lens, the study delves into the sociotechnical dimensions of this shifting media studies publication environment. Central to our inquiry is the concept of ‘lived’ open science. Our open science philosophy guides content curation, format selection, and engagement strategies, shaping the very essence of our scholarly endeavors. By placing our own editorial practices under the microscope, we engage in a form of self-reflection that elucidates the challenges and triumphs of embracing openness. We probe the boundaries of openness, recognising the intricate interplay of financial, technical, social, political, and strategic factors that shape our scholarly endeavors. This study also examines the evolving roles of authors, editors, publishers, and readers in response to evolving scholarly demands. We question whether we are prepared, supported, and empowered to challenge prevailing structures that uphold inequality.
Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen, an interview with Doreen A. Ríos
Dekker, Annet (2024) , S. 340-348
The exhibition Liquid Spaces: Politics of the Screen, curated by Doreen A. Ríos for the Bienal Universitaria de Arte Multimedial (BUAM) in Ecuador, delves into the dynamic nature of environments shaped by digital technologies. Underscoring the complexities of screen interfaces and their societal implications, Ríos explores the concept of ‘liquid spaces’, where boundaries blur and definitions remain elusive, reflecting perpetual change. Set within the Latin American context, the artworks address themes such as extractivism, surveillance, and technocapitalism. The exhibition features a diverse range of artworks, including painting and virtual reality, through which the relationship between the body and the screen is discussed, while highlighting audience engagement and interaction as integral components of the viewing experience. Drawing from her previous curatorial endeavors, in an interview with Annet Dekker, Ríos reflects on the transformative influence of screens on perceptions and realities, suggesting that screens serve as modern oracles and their users as potential shamans navigating the digital landscape.
Sitting, standing, dancing with our screens: An introduction
Galibert-Laîné, Chloé (2024) , S. 349-354

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