Short Film

In studying media, mobility, and culture, I have become more acutely aware of the significance of immobility as well as mobility, and what one might mean for the other in the context of the digital world. Throughout the process of developing my visual artefact, I combined both practice and theory in order to create an effective investigation into this relationship between technology and the mobility of the self – of our ideas, identity, and creativity – which can, in certain circumstances, become immobilized and deprioritized alongside the incessant accessibility and mobility of technology.

In this essay, I will reflect on my practical process, the techniques employed, and the desired effect of my visual artefact. To follow, I will create a link between this practice and its theoretical aspect in order to shed light on how it acts as an overall critique to the easily assumed concept of mobility, rather than immobility, through media and technology.  

My artefact is a short film, developed to help articulate the overwhelming presence of mobile technology and the accessibility to the external world that comes with it, and how that can impose on the creative and mental development of ‘the self’. While the emergence of technology has enabled a new digital space for the sharing and dissemination of ideas – as defined by Castells in ‘the Network Society’ (2011) – apart from big media companies, Castell’s does not account so much for the individual process in which those ideas are developed. I argue, that this constant ability to share and be a part of an external, virtual world creates a pressure which immobilizes the individual creative process and therefore influences how effectively we express and represent ourselves and our identities when we do use these mobile devices. It touches on the idea of how the virtual world shapes the meaning of physical space, and in this case, somewhere private where creativity is usually fostered, such as a study or a bedroom, which has been altered to a public space. This virtual public space imposing on the private physical space, I believe, emerged more throughout lockdown when there were such physical boundaries that the only physical space that could host this public virtual space, was your own home. 

In my film, I tried to replicate the imposing feelings that the incessant presence of mobile technology have on my own individual creative processes. I did this by manipulating the creative things I love doing and getting lost in, to make them feel pressurized and agitating. The contradictory effect of these usually therapeutic and self-freeing activities is signalled by this presence of the laptop and the phone which are embedded throughout the film – and impose on this space of self-development and mobility. Having been inspired by the constant pressure to keep in touch virtually with friends during lockdown, where the hybrid of virtual and physical worlds felt most extreme, I included clips of me trying to play the ‘perfect piece’ on piano that I would be able to share with my friends and family. But because of the pressure of it being shared and recorded on my phone, I kept fumbling and wasn’t able to relax and play it for myself – which usually allows for a better piece. When, finally, the phone battery runs out, I am able to finish my piano piece and create something other than frustration on my sketch pad. This symbolises the freedom to pursue my creative and mental development through these practices without feeling the pressure of the virtual world and social life that is usually at my fingertips. It is here that I attempt to visualise a pleasant emptiness, an opening up of my mind and its ability to flow. I finally escape that feeling of being oversaturated with information and publicity through media that often comes with having a mobile device. 

The audio and visual aspects of this piece are very important – and are employed to mimic a similar feeling of being trapped in ‘the scroll’ which becomes repetitious, and for me, this repetition seems to speed up the more frustrated I get, until I am able to break away from it. The shots are up-close, helping to represent a trapped feeling, and symbolize the lack of time and attention we give things in the media when they are so abundant. The agitating audio paired with these creative practices have rhythm to help support this momentum, the uncontrollable feeling of being stuck in a loop, with the phone battery appearing where the phone is present to give a sense of time running out. The battery aims to spark a familiar feeling in the audience, who I’m sure all know how it feels to have a phone on 3%, to help them reflect on that pressure we feel to not let our phones die, for doing so would mean to become inaccessible.

I chose to shoot the whole film from my desk, in my small bedroom in London. I hoped that this would create a sense of personality, as it is my home and safe place where I feel I belong, and therefore would be more effective in communication that intrusion of the virtual world. I chose this despite the possibility of using a setting which might have been more aesthetic, bright, or convenient for my ‘vision’. At one point, for the final shot, I tried in many attempts to visualise the opening of the mind and creative freedom for expression, but worried about this as my room is very small and mainly claustrophobic to those who visit it. But because it is a space where everything is mine, to me it holds this potential for creative freedom and developmental thinking. There was some debate about whether this would translate into the last shot of the film, but because this is quite a personal depiction of feelings I’ve experienced, I argued that this subjectivity would give it more meaning. Luckily, I was able to use the university’s resources to realise my vision, though of course throughout the practice it changed from what I had initially visualized – something I accepted as part of the process.

My artefact was developed to help challenge the theme that mobile technology and media help to mobilise people. I do believe that media and technology are of course mobilizing, but like Certeau explains in ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’, the significance of something known, like a well-known story, lies in circumstantial detail, where the story can be reversed. I like to think of my artefact as a circumstantial detail which can create a counternarrative to mobility given the particular circumstance of the film. Certeau also explains that art and the creation of it itself does not hold sole significance, but its the response to it, through dialogue, which creates a narrative – where speaking about it becomes an ‘art of operation and an art of thinking’ (Certeau, p.89, 1980). This is what I hope my piece to incite – and according to Certeau, it is here that theory and practice can be present. 

In my artefact, mobile technology implies more than just being able to be constantly contacted. To me, it symbolizes a certain mobility and through that, the connectivity of the whole world. But it is this presence all the time which is problematic – in the context of the film, at least. The phone can symbolize the network society and ones’ place within it. As described by Castell’s, this network society operates in layers amidst cosmopolitan cities which can incite segregation and perpetuate inequality, through the nature of power structures and economic systems through which the network society exists (Castells, 2011). Who gets to choose what people see in media, and who gets to choose what information is disseminated? 

Through the increase use of mobile devices, comes an increased exposure to this hierarchical system with which the network society operates within. Certeau explains that “despite repressive aspects of modern society, there exists an element of creative resistance to these structures enacted by ordinary people.” These ‘repressive aspects of modern society’ can be seen as these networked infrastructures and therefore, Certeau’s theory helps to highlight the importance of creativity to help mobilize individuality and identity in responding to these systems. More importantly, it supports the significance of developing these creative practices and the mobilisation of ones’ self in not just representing themselves, but in responding to ‘repressive aspects of society’ (1980).

Bibliography

Castells, M. (2010) The Rise of the Network Society: Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Certeau, M. de. (2011). The practice of everyday life (S. F. Rendall, Trans.; 3rd ed.). University of California Press.