Abstract
The paper will use the video, MOONRABBIT, (Liston, 2012) to build an argument about subjective video archives of wide-reaching cultural events, exploring their dual deconstruction of public stories and the video archivist’s own subjectivity. Reflecting on the production and reception of MOONRABBIT, the paper will unpack the effect subjective engagement has on the stability of dominant cultural stories and that of the individual archivist’s identity.
MOONRABBIT constructs a subjective archive from filmed eBay purchases, found objects, rudimentary studio assemblages and personal recollections that relates to two public stories about the moon: the Chinese Yutu moon rabbit myth and the first NASA landing on the moon, through my own super-localised associations made during an art residency in Beijing.
The paper explores how MOONRABBIT uses materials from a personal archive such as a poster of the moon landing, to interrogate well-known public narratives of that event. Liston terms these subjective mediations of collective narratives ‘self-ish’, deliberately provoking the negative connotations of self-orientation the paper seeks to move beyond. First examining how ‘self-ish’ archives disrupt the dominant narratives they address, she then looks at the potential such archives have to disrupt the self through the entanglement of subjective associations and official knowledge of the public realm.
Liston’s current practice-led research, It Matters What Stories We Tell to Tell Stories is concerned with temporary constellations of meaning that produce the individually felt sensation of knowing, offering this as alternative to ossifying forms of public knowledge. MOONRABBIT exemplifies the particular use within this research of text, sound and moving image as method for producing momentary collisions of meaning that differ from stable representations of public stories.
MOONRABBIT constructs a subjective archive from filmed eBay purchases, found objects, rudimentary studio assemblages and personal recollections that relates to two public stories about the moon: the Chinese Yutu moon rabbit myth and the first NASA landing on the moon, through my own super-localised associations made during an art residency in Beijing.
The paper explores how MOONRABBIT uses materials from a personal archive such as a poster of the moon landing, to interrogate well-known public narratives of that event. Liston terms these subjective mediations of collective narratives ‘self-ish’, deliberately provoking the negative connotations of self-orientation the paper seeks to move beyond. First examining how ‘self-ish’ archives disrupt the dominant narratives they address, she then looks at the potential such archives have to disrupt the self through the entanglement of subjective associations and official knowledge of the public realm.
Liston’s current practice-led research, It Matters What Stories We Tell to Tell Stories is concerned with temporary constellations of meaning that produce the individually felt sensation of knowing, offering this as alternative to ossifying forms of public knowledge. MOONRABBIT exemplifies the particular use within this research of text, sound and moving image as method for producing momentary collisions of meaning that differ from stable representations of public stories.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Visible Evidence |
| Subtitle of host publication | The international conference on documentary film and media |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Aug 2015 |