[Commlist] Frames Cinema Journal, Issue 18 "Phone Camera at the Intersection of Technology, Politics, and Transmedia Storytelling" published

*/Frames Cinema Journal/*

*Phone Camera
at the Intersection of Technology, Politics, and Transmedia Storytelling*

*Issue 18, Summer 2021*

**

*Co-Editors-in-Chief: *Lucia Szemetová and Jacob Browne

*Book Review Editor:* Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal

Dear colleagues,

It is with great enthusiasm which we announce that Issue 18 of /Frames 
Cinema Journal /“*Phone Camera at the Intersection of Technology, 
Politics, and Transmedia Storytelling 
<http://framescinemajournal.com>*”, has now been published!


This issue centres on the phone camera, a device which has garnered 
increasing attention, both as an effective political tool amidst recent 
and current global events, and as an apparatus facilitating new 
communicative strategies. For years, too closely associated with the 
vernacular, the phone camera has evaded critical attention. However, the 
varied formulations of phone camera recordings and their recycling 
attract ever more scholarly attention. The phone camera offers a 
particularly insightful viewpoint on changing modes of cinema, helping 
to better understand the technological, ideological, and aesthetic 
shifts through non-normative uses of visual media. This issue 
contributes to the growing scholarship on the device and its use by 
filmmakers, granting it the attention it deserves as a powerful and 
creative deployment of modern technology.


The works included in this issue offer a range of timely studies of the 
phone camera, looking at the intersections between phone footage as 
narrative or aesthetic device in both documentary and fiction films. The 
articles examine the ways in which the phone camera challenges the 
boundaries of media studies, moving nimbly between platforms and 
remediated formats; the phone camera’s ability to document major 
political events from the ground up, from a panoply of perspectives; as 
well as the transformative potential for the transnational dissemination 
of such footage, and its consequent impact.


What is striking when surveying the articles and features collected here 
is the sheer variety of issues and approaches suggested in 
considerations of the phone camera. The utopian note sounded in 
explorations of the phone camera as a vital part of the 
citizen-activist’s toolkit is countered by its potential to allow the 
tendrils of surveillance to reach further and further into our everyday 
activities, its connectivity both liberating and confining its users. 
Equally, the device’s accessibility yields not only new possibilities 
for artistic or personal expression, but also a limitless potential for 
artifice and inauthenticity, a world populated by catfishes, trolls and 
fake news factories. No single keyword or theoretical gesture will 
completely unlock the phone camera, and so it seems appropriate that 
this issue has generated more featurettes and shorter pieces than 
previous editions of /Frames/, as though the academic gaze itself is 
unavoidably diffracted when directed through the lens of the phone camera.


Our *Features *section’s articles highlight the works of filmmakers 
engaging with phone footage while also tracing a tension around identity 
and the individual that emerges from the apparatus. Focusing on a named 
and well-known theoretician-practitioner, *Lawrence Alexander* examines 
the iPhone as both artefact and tool of media archaeological enquiry 
through Hito Steyerl’s /Abstract/ (2012). *Tanya Shilina-Conte*, on the 
other hand, focuses on Ana Nyma’s (Anonyme) documentary practice and 
explores phone footage in the framework of global anonymous cinema. 
Bridging the two, *Stefka Hristova *suggests the case study of smart 
phone selfies, which operate both as portraits, expressive of personal 
identity, and as data-prints, tools for tracking and tracing 
individuals, arguing for a continuity between 19^th century 
anthropometric processes and contemporary mass surveillance and 
biometric enterprises.**

*
*

Our *POV* section presents exciting accounts of the possibilities 
offered by the phone camera. It divides into two pairs of perspectives, 
the first of which includes personal insights into the phone camera’s 
role in projects aimed at fostering self-expression. Thus, *Samuel 
Fernández-Pichel* reflects on the Patio 108 project, a collaborative 
platform that relies on short video testimonies recorded with cell 
phones mainly from the margins of Seville, from his dual perspective 
both as a participant and as a researcher. *Iakovos Panagopulos* gives 
his own professional insight on the Storylab’s series of 
ethnomediaological workshops to Tejon Native Americans tribe members 
using mobile devices to tell their stories. The second pair of POV 
featurettes examine the role of the phone camera in the media circuit 
around specific recent events. In her piece on the circulation of phone 
footage of the August 4th 2020 Beirut port explosion, *samira 
makki* reflects on the afterlife of death images in their recycling and 
recirculation. *Jenny Gunn* examines the usage of the smartphone by 
rioters documenting their participation in the insurrection of the 
Capitol on January 6th, 2021.


The *Film Featurette* section brings into attention a number of key 
films, both fiction and non-fiction, that are essential in any 
discussion of phone camera scholarship. Again taking up the issue of 
self-fashioning, *Tomas Elliott* considers the politics of sharing 
selfies in /Visages Villages/ (2017), the ensemble piece from Agnès 
Varda and photographer JR. Through /Midnight Traveler/ (Hassan Fazili, 
2019), *Miche Dreiling* explores the aesthetic potentiality of handheld 
footage, including use of the smartphone camera, in documentary film 
practice. Similarly, *Max Bergmann* focuses on smartphone aesthetics in 
/Buddha.mov/ (Kabir Mehta, 2017), functioning as a self-reflexive 
commentary on documentary filmmaking and the mediation of oneself on 
social media. Moving on to fiction films, *Alex Damasceno* considers the 
aesthetic properties of the horror film /Sickhouse /(Hannah Macpherson, 
2016), composed solely of 10-second Snapchat videos, and the ways in 
which this formal approach defamiliarises the footage for the audience.


In our new *Scene Review* section, *Sam Thompson* takes up the issue of 
realism in relation to the phone camera, analysing the final sequence of 
Sean Baker’s /The Florida Project/ (2017), in which the film shifts to 
iPhone footage, to argue how the film offers a self-conscious commentary 
on the material conditions of filmmaking.


Finally, *Sarah Atkinson’s video essay* for this issue reflects visually 
on smartphone aesthetics in recent mainstream cinema, in terms of both 
subject matter and cinematography. It discussed films made on, for, 
about and with smartphones.


Our *Book Review* section features reviews of Lee Grieveson’s */Cinema 
and the Wealth of Nations/* (2018), David Martin-Jones’ */Cinema Against 
Doublethink: Ethical Encounters with the Lost Pasts of World 
History/* (2018), Lydia Papadimitriou and Ana Grgić’s edited collection 
*/Contemporary Balkan Cinema: Transnational Exchanges and Global 
Circuits /*(2020), Sady Doyle’s */Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: 
Monstrosity, Patriarchy and the Fear of Female Power /*(2019), Anna 
Backman Rogers’ */Sofia Coppola: The Politics of Visual Pleasure 
/*(2019), Dominic Lennard, R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance’s 
edited collection */The Other Hollywood Renaissance/* (2020), Jill 
Murphy and Laura Rascaroli’s edited collection *Theorizing Film Through 
Contemporary Art: Expanding Cinema* (2020), Olivia Khoo’s */Asian 
Cinema: A Regional View/* (2020), Warren Buckland’s */Narrative and 
Narration: Analyzing Cinematic Storytelling/*(2021), Libby Saxton’s */No 
Power Without an Image. Icons Between Photography and Film/* (2021).


With this issue, we are delighted to also be publishing the dossier 
*“Re-Discovering Kira Muratova”*, curated by *Dina Iordanova*. With this 
dossier, *Iordanova *offers an introduction to Muratova in her preface, 
and presents material emerging from the workshop *Kira Muratova @ St 
Andrews (2020)*. An audio essay by *Victoria Donovan* muses on what 
Muratova might have made of the age of lockdowns and social distancing, 
while video essays by *Masha Shpolberg *and *Irina Schulzki* consider 
her work in relation to the spaces of socialism and the cinema of 
gesture respectively. Finally, a POV Featurette by *Raymond De 
Luca* considers the blurring of distinctions between humans and 
non-humans in Muratova’sChekhovian Motifs (2002).

*ISSUE 18: *

*TABLE OF CONTENTS*


*EDITORIAL*

Letter from the Editors

*FEATURE ARTICLES*

*Facing Off: From Abstraction to Diffraction in Hito Steyerl’s 
/Abstract/ (2012)*

By Lawrence Alexander

*Phone Footage and the Social Media Image as Global Anonymous Cinema*

By Tanya Shilina-Conte

*Portraiture, Surveillance, and the Continuity Aesthetic of Blur*

By Stefka Hristova

*POV*

*The Smartphone Camera and Radical Urban Imaginaries in the (Post-) 
Pandemic City: The Patio 108 Initiative*

By Samuel Fernández-Pichel

*Returning to your Roots: Use of Mobile Shooting in an Ethnomediaology 
case study with the Tejon Native American Tribe in California*

By Iakovos Panagopoulos

**

*The Death Image as Commodity*

By samira makki

*Theorising Digital Self-Mediation and the Smartphone as Filmic 
Apparatus after 6 January, 2021*

By Jenny Gunn

*FILM FEATURETTES*

*Selfie-Portraits: Agnès Varda, JR, and the Politics of Sharing*

By Tomas Elliott

*Rear-facing camera: Cell phone cinematography in Midnight Traveler 
(Hassan Fazili, 2019)*

By Miche Dreiling

*Interfaces of Fiction: Buddha.mov (2017) and Smartphone Aesthetics*

By Max Bergmann

*Sickhouse and the “Snap Cinema”*

By Alex Damasceno

*SCENE REVIEWS*

*Escape to Totality: Realist Commitments in The Florida Project’s iPhone 
Finale*

By Sam Thompson

*VIDEO ESSAYS*

*Smartphone Cinematics: Contextual Essay*

By Sarah Atkinson

**

*BOOK REVIEWS*

*Lee Grieveson: /Cinema and the Wealth of Nations: Media, Capital, and 
the Liberal World System/*

Reviewed by Maria Fernanda Miño Puga

*David Martin Jones:/ Cinema Against Doublethink: Ethical Encounters 
with the Lost Pasts of World History/*

Reviewed by Sanghita Sen

*/Contemporary Balkan Cinema: Transnational Exchanges and Global 
Circuits; /**Lydia Papadimitriou and Ana Grgić//*

Reviewed by Anna Batori

*//*

*Sady Doyle:/ Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy and 
the Fear of Female Power/*

Reviewed by Srishti Walia

*//*

*Anna Backman Rogers:/ Sofia Coppola: The Politics of Visual Pleasure/*

Reviewed by Ana Maria Sapountzi

*//*

*/The Other Hollywood Renaissance; Dominic Lennard, /**R. Barton Palmer 
and Murray Pomerance*

Reviewed by Chris Horn

*/Theorizing Film Through Contemporary Art: Expanding Cinema; /**Jill 
Murphy and Laura Rascaroli*

Reviewed by Sam Thomson

*Olivia Khoo:/ Asian Cinema: A Regional View/*

Reviewed by Paulina Zurawska

*Warren Buckland: /Narrative and Narration: Analyzing Cinematic 
Storytelling/*

Reviewed by Matthew Bosica

*Libby Saxton: /No Power Without an Image: Icons Between Photography and 
Film/*

Reviewed by Jonathan Winkler

*DOSSIER: Re-Discovering Kira Muratova*

*Kira Muratova: The Magnificent Maverick*

By Dina Iordanova

*Watching Muratova in a Time of Social Isolation*

By Victoria Donovan

*Deconstructing Socialism in the Early Films of Kira Muratova*

By Masha Shpolberg

*Touch and Sight in the Films of Kira Muratova*

By Irina Schulzki

*The Pig’s Gaze: Human-Animal Mutuality in Kira Muratova’s Chekhovian 
Motifs*

By Raymond De Luca

Happy reading!

Lucia Szemetová and Jacob Browne

*Co-Editors-in-Chief*

*Special Thanks to:* Patrick Adamson, Sarah Artt, Jane Barnwell, Daniel 
Binns, Olivia Booker, Matthew Bosica, Emre Caglayan, Fatima Chinita, 
Ruth Farrar, James Fenwick, Dina Iordanova, George Larke-Walsh, Carla 
Mereu Keating, Shana MacDonald, Barbara Majsa, Matilde Nardelli, Forrest 
Pando, Steve Presence, Maria Fernanda Miño Puga, Tom Rice, Carolyn Tyler 
La Rocco, Ana Maria Sapountzi, Zoë Shacklock, Maria Velez-Serna, Sam 
Thomson, Leshu Torchin, Rebecca Trelease, Kim Walden, Jonathan Winkler, 
Ellen Wright. *Without your hard work this issue would not have been 
possible!*

**

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