English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

Before YouTube, before mediaminer.org, way back in the 20th century, some of the really obsessed "geeks" out there were already making self-produced videos by "poaching" (to use Henry Jenkin's term) VHS tapes. They borrowed video editors from their local high schools or colleges, spliced videos together, and dubbed over them with Nine Inch Nails. Or the like. I know this, because it was a fad at my school. (There's not much to do in Ashland, Ohio).
Once video editors came into being, fanvids exploded, as this presentation makes clear. Although few of the ones I watch come from videogame footage, the concept is similar: steal what's there, use your inherent/tacit/implicit rhetorical skills to "make it your own." Now that there's a hub for them, the fanvid awards committees have been swamped.
The fanvids I want to work with for the final project of this class are of a special type. I encourage everyone to be as weirded out as I am by searching for "Harry/Snape Slash" on YouTube. Some links are below. Not only do these put the idea of "auteur" back into play, but they challenge (in some ways...) the idea of suture Laura Mulvey and other Lacanian Feminists argue for. Here, the Male Gaze upon the Female Subject is absent, replace with...well, what...? And who are we to identify with? How can I tell? What knowledge of visual rhetoric do these amateur auteurs showcase? Where did they get that knowledge in the first place? Is it the same knowledge as writing knowledge? Will that knowledge transfer from one medium to another?
I gotta answer these questions before April 5th--this is my presentation for the PCA conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVxMyJVwNrA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92gX-2ilKvU (metacomentary)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6KDhsue2PI

I'm excited about this topic because I think that there feature film auteurs have actually lingered past "auteur theory" proper (e.g. Darren Aronofsky and Kevin Smith) and because the D-I-Y nature of emerging visual technologies can make the role of auteur extra easy to fill.

L-Train