Research Statement

Research Questions

How do videographic methods, especially the split-screen setup, engage Chinese or other cross-cultural media, and what do they show about the limits, biases, and potential of such comparative analysis in the visual format against unequal archival and cultural contexts?

Context

As a creator-researcher, one of the things that excites me most about the Parametric Summer Series is the adoption of an arbitrary rule for each exercise, beyond the ones that would, one might argue, visually or conceptually capture the essence of the original work. This, for me, represents a gesture of deliberately introducing vulnerability to a research process, and in this citational practice, to the concept of 'thinking alongside' as well. However, sitting at my desk with the newly announced Laird’s constraint before me, this arbitrary aspect I have appreciated and enjoyed throughout the summer has created an apparent dilemma for me.

For the latter half of the exercise, participants were asked to choose two media works spaced exactly 54 years apart (based on Laird's temporal choice between Helter Skelter (2012) and Vertigo (1958)) and arrange them in a split-screen format to 'create some form of dialogue' in between. Setting out with the aim to consider both how to employ videographic methods on Chinese materials and whether employing such methods would advance us beyond mainstream discourse of film and media studies as well as advance the method itself, I arrived at an unfortunate realization: 54 years is a really long time to expect any coherent media archive to survive in most places. For Chinese media specifically, the history of the archive is simply too short to accommodate a 54-year span with strong works at both ends, regardless of where I started. Therefore, inevitably, I would need to pair Chinese media with non-Chinese media, and the 'dialogue' that emerged would be cross-cultural.

Therefore, I revisited Laird’s video for inspiration and to consider how the cross-cultural dynamic unfolds within this split-screen approach. It’s quite a persuasive setup, where we, voluntarily or not, develop a kind of 'mobile eye,' moving back and forth (or left and right) between different gazes and glimpses: not just responding to the gender dynamics being played out but actually performing them ourselves. As Catherine Grant argues, such 'mobile eye' is exactly part of what gives videographic criticism its very legitimacy (Baer and van den Oever 2024). More specifically, the dispositif emerges through a series of similarities and synchronizations (Álvarez López and Martin 2015), some of which are so striking that they become almost uncanny. For example, looking at the sharp, downward-pointing triangular shapes created by the V in VistaVision’s studio logo and the W’s in WOWOW’s logo that opens the two films, I felt very guilty of acting like a conspiracy theorist, believing for a moment that there had to be some deliberate connection between these two works to make them speak together so powerfully. Could there be influences? Or, are we witnessing a Japanese female 'commercial' director casually pulling off a feat commonly thought to belong only to those white, male, Euro-American, critically acclaimed auteurs? Questions like these couldn’t help but surface for me, questions concerning context. The spontaneous emergence of these questions, rather than their answers, revealed invisible forces at work. It revealed to me the existence of a warped gravity behind the beguiling appearance of an 'innocent' split screen. Non-western, marginalized, peripheral texts are perpetually circumscribed by the gravitational pull of dominant cultural paradigms despite the layout’s promise of side-by-side equality.

This gravitational pull becomes possible, perhaps inevitable, when context is sacrificed. When vocalizing her findings from a video-making process in a written form, Catherine Grant writes, 'when all else is stripped away from these films, my selection of material for these video montages clearly points to an underpinning sense of animals as a significant reference point for conceptions of transhumanism' (2019). By identifying this 'stripped away' quality, she highlights a decentring process that removes embedded narrative and ideological frameworks, creating a more poetic mode of analysis and 'writerly' experience for viewers. Grant’s thoughtful acknowledgment of this process reveals videographic research as fundamentally involving trade-offs: certain things must be lost for others to be gained. And oftentimes, what gets lost involves crucial context—the 'ideological'—thus inadvertently creating space for dominant paradigms to reassert their interpretive authority.

However, context is utterly essential for asking meaningful questions about the pertinence of videographic methods in Chinese film studies and all research areas traditionally considered peripheral. Therefore, building on what Colleen Laird brilliantly opened up in her video, I wanted to push this exploration further: using videographic methods to examine cross-cultural, diasporic media while paying special attention to the split-screen methodology. This is what the parametric approach enables and creates the perfect stage for: forging new knowledge while demonstrating genuine respect and care for the foundational methodological contributions of an inspiring other.

As a result, I chose a dancing sequence from the 1999 Chinese New Year Gala broadcast on TV and placed it alongside a scene from the 1945 Hollywood classic Anchors Aweigh, where Gene Kelly is iconically dancing with the Jerry mouse. After placing them side by side with this approach, I deliberately guide the audience’s attention toward a simple imperative twice: watch for joy. This approach admittedly closes off some of the inclusive, attentive dialectic space that Laird’s original video fostered around gender dynamics and the myriad 'gazing opportunities,' but it serves my exploration of what actually gets perceived and received in a cross-cultural split screen. By responding to the call to watch for specific motifs and, more importantly, to deliberately engage in the labour of comparing, I hope some answers might emerge for viewers: what can we really learn from such comparisons? How can it advance our understanding of relationships between distant subjects—especially given layers of invisible yet omnipresent cultural bias and the ease with which digital technology lets us collage anything together?

Methods

This project draws on the tradition of videographic criticism, particularly parametric approaches that foreground constraint-based creativity. It adopts a practice-as-research methodology, treating the video essay as both an analytical tool and a creative artifact, and emphasizing iterative making as a mode of inquiry. The work is also informed by feminist citational practices, positioning itself within a lineage of care and acknowledgment by responding to and building upon contributions from scholars such as Catherine Grant and Colleen Laird. Finally, it engages with disciplinary frameworks from film and media studies and cultural studies, using cross-cultural and diasporic media texts to interrogate dominant paradigms and peripheral archives.

Outcomes

This research demonstrates how videographic methods can expose the gravitational pull of dominant cultural paradigms even within ostensibly egalitarian formats like split-screen. It reveals the trade-offs inherent in videographic criticism—what is gained and what is lost when context is stripped away—offering methodological insight into the limits and possibilities of this approach. It also provides a cross-cultural perspective, showing how comparative videographic work can illuminate biases and asymmetries in global media archives. Finally, it offers pedagogical value by modelling vulnerability and openness in scholarly practice, encouraging others to embrace parametric constraints as generative rather than limiting.

Impact

Apart from pursuing this inquiry on its own, by making visible the tentative, experimental, work-in-progress qualities of academic video essays that are usually concealed, it creates space for others to approach their work with similar vulnerability and openness. This transparency about process fostered by a parametric approach becomes an act of care—both for those who will encounter this work and for the broader scholarly community that too often demands the performance of certainty over the cultivation of genuine understanding. In revealing the messy, uncertain, and deeply collaborative nature of knowledge-making, it invites others into a more caring and vulnerable mode of academic engagement, one that prioritizes collective learning and mutual support over individual achievement.

Bibliography

Álvarez López, C. and Martin, A. (2015) ‘The audiovisual Essay as Art Practice’. NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies. 4, pp. 81-83. 

Baer, N. and van den Oever, A. (2024) ‘Split Screens: A Discussion with Catherine Grant, Malte Hagener, and Katharina Loew’. In: Baer, N. and van den Oever, A., eds, Technics. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press B.V, pp. 263-276. 

Grant, C. (2019) ‘Beast Fables: A Videographic Study of Cinematic Deer and Transhuman Children’. The Cine-Files. 14. 

Peer Reviews

All reviews refer to the original research statement which has been edited in response to what follows

Review 1: Accept submission for publication with no amendments.

ng’s videographic work, Watch for Joy, is a deeply considered and methodologically insightful response to the parametric challenge. The project is anchored by powerful self-reflexivity, beginning with the author’s candid acknowledgement of the 'dilemma' posed by the 54-year constraint. This highlights a crucial materialist perspective; the search for content reveals that the very availability of media archives under such constraints is a profound underlying challenge that shapes the boundaries of videographic inquiry. Rather than simply working around this archival gap for Chinese media, Zhang thoughtfully transforms it into the central inquiry of the piece. The work’s central thesis astutely diagnoses a warped gravity within the seemingly neutral split-screen format, where dominant cultural paradigms can inadvertently overshadow peripheral texts when context is stripped away. This critical awareness sets the stage for a compelling exploration of cross-cultural videographic practice.

The true innovation of Watch for Joy lies in its sophisticated advancement of the split-screen method itself. Zhang correctly identifies the form as inherently spatial-temporal, and the video pushes this concept in new directions. By employing rotoscoping to trace and isolate figures from their original backgrounds, Zhang deconstructs the cinematic image, creating what might be termed a temporal hierarchy of 'video-frame-element.' This technique elegantly demonstrates how a film-text can be remixed not just spatially across the screen, but temporally, by moving beyond the frame to isolate and re-contextualize specific gestures and figures. The result is a dynamic interplay where historical distance is both emphasized and collapsed.

Thematically, the work is guided by the simple but effective imperative to 'watch for joy.' This deliberate instruction serves as a crucial intervention. Instead of allowing for an entirely open-ended comparison that might default to established analytical frameworks, Zhang channels the viewer’s focus, compelling a specific form of comparative labour. This focus allows nuanced, multi-layered connections to emerge. Thematic links, anchored by the shared language of dance, are pursued with a keen eye for subtle intertextuality, from the choreography of bodies to the clever visual rhyme between a rabbit motif referencing the Chinese zodiac and the animated animals of the Hollywood classic. This videographic dissection and reflection powerfully showcases how videographic criticism through the split screen can generate new knowledge.

Ultimately, Watch for Joy is a rigorous experiment. It not only forges a meaningful dialogue between disparate media texts but also offers a potent meta-commentary on the ethics and politics of videographic comparison. Its call for a more vulnerable and caring mode of scholarship, one that reveals its process and uncertainties, is both timely and welcome.

Review 2: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement (these should be outlined in detail in the review).

Zhang’s submission articulates a compelling and original research inquiry rooted in the constraints of the Parametric Summer Series. The central question—how videographic methods might be applied to Chinese media and whether such methods can advance both the field and the methodology itself—is clearly stated and thoughtfully developed. The author’s recognition of the archival limitations posed by the 54-year constraint transforms a logistical challenge into a critical intervention, reframing the exercise as a reflection on media historiography and global archival disparities. This reflexive approach positions the work within broader debates in videographic criticism and global media studies, and foregrounds the ethical and political stakes of comparative media practice.

The submission demonstrates a strong engagement with existing scholarship, particularly the work of Catherine Grant, Colleen Laird, and Álvarez López and Martin. Zhang’s citational practice is not merely referential but dialogic, embodying the ethos of 'thinking alongside' these scholars. The work builds on Laird’s split-screen methodology and Grant’s reflections on videographic process, extending them into a cross-cultural and diasporic context. The author’s self-aware critique of dominant paradigms and the gravitational pull of Western frameworks adds a valuable layer to the discourse, situating the work within ongoing conversations about decolonizing media studies and expanding the scope of videographic inquiry.

Zhang’s methods draw from a rich intersection of disciplinary fields, including Film and Screen Studies, Cultural and Media Studies, and videographic criticism as an emerging research practice. The use of split-screen composition, rotoscoping, and motif-based comparison reflects a sophisticated understanding of audiovisual form and its analytical potential. The methodological choice to foreground vulnerability and process aligns with feminist and post-qualitative research traditions, offering a refreshing alternative to the performance of certainty often demanded in academic work.

The work offers several important contributions to the field. First, it advances the split-screen method by demonstrating how spatial juxtaposition can be enriched through temporal and gestural isolation. Second, it models a form of videographic criticism that is affectively attuned and ethically guided, inviting viewers to 'watch for joy' and engage in comparative labour with care. Third, it foregrounds the politics of context and the risks of erasure when working across cultures and archives. These insights are valuable not only for scholars of videographic practice but also for those working in transnational media, archival studies, and comparative aesthetics.

While the submission does not yet detail concrete plans for dissemination or impact beyond academia, its potential is clear. The work’s emphasis on vulnerability, care, and transparency in scholarly practice resonates with broader movements toward inclusive and collaborative research cultures. Its critique of archival inequality and cultural bias has implications for media education, curatorial practice, and digital humanities. Future dissemination through academic screenings, workshops, or online platforms could amplify its reach and foster dialogue across disciplines and communities.

The bibliography is appropriately selective and relevant, citing key figures in videographic criticism and media theory. However, the submission would benefit from a more formal structuring of the statement to align with the required format. The current version reads more like a reflective essay than a structured research statement.

Zhang’s Watch for Joy is a methodologically innovative and intellectually generous contribution to videographic research. It exemplifies the spirit of the Parametric Summer Series by embracing constraint as a site of inquiry and vulnerability as a mode of care. While the submission needs to be revised to follow the correct format, its conceptual depth, critical reflexivity, and formal experimentation make it a standout piece. I strongly recommend acceptance, pending structural revision to meet the submission guidelines. 

All reviews refer to the original research statement which has been edited in response