Iluminace 2020, 32(2):53-69 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1665

Netnographic Cinema as a Cultural Interface

Chloé Galibert-Laîné
SACRe / ENS de Paris-PSL University

This article introduces the notion of "netnographic cinema" and contextualizes this contemporary filmmaking practice in the light of Lev Manovich's 1997 article "Cinema as a Cultural Interface". First, I present a corpus of contemporary experimental films that are entirely made of appropriated online media and argue that it is productive to interpret this new filmmaking practice in the light of the history of ethnographic cinema. The second part of the article offers a comparative close-analysis of two netnographic films made from the same online material, but adopting different formal strategies for representing that material: Penny Lane's feature-length The Pain of Others (2018), and a medium-length desktop documentary that I produced in response to Lane's film, entitled Watching the Pain of Others (2019). Finally, a third part articulates why such "netnographic" films can be understood as "cultural interfaces", as defined by both Lev Manovich and Indigenous scholar Martin Nakata. The results of the article are twofold: an original theoretical angle is proposed to approach a contemporary filmmaking practice, which is described from the perspective of a practitioner; and a classic article by Lev Manovich is revisited and actualized with considerations to recent developments in the field of Post-Colonial and Indigenous Studies.

Keywords: Experimental Cinema, Online Ethnography, Lev Manovich, Cultural Appropriation, Videographic Research

Published: June 1, 2020  Show citation

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Galibert-Laîné, C. (2020). Netnographic Cinema as a Cultural Interface. Iluminace, 32(2), 53-69. doi: 10.58193/ilu.1665
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