The Textual, the Audiovisual, and Videographic Thought

This essay draws on the author’s experience as founding editor of the videographic Journal of Embodied Research (JER), as well as their own artistic research practice and critical theories of embodiment and identity, to examine shifting relationships among the textual, the audiovisual, and the videographic. Addressing each term in sequence, the essay builds on the idea of embodied research, and the experience of developing a style guide for JER, to rethink the textual and the audiovisual in the context of the videographic. As the space of videographic thought becomes ever more fluid and all-encompassing, it is incumbent upon filmmakers of all kinds to critically reexamine the ways in which video remains entangled with bodies, places, and the still-powerful technology of the written word. To support such a reexamination, approaches to academic filmmaking and the video essay should be put in conversation with practices of embodied research.