Audiovisual Cultures episode 1 – Introduction automated transcript

hello and welcome this is the first and what I hope will be a really interesting and diverse podcasts called audio visual cultures my name is Paula Blair and I’m the creator and host I am a scholar of film and visual culture primarily and I have many wide reaching contrasts I’m originally from Belfast in Northern Ireland so that explains the funny accent which is possibly a little bit I thank the sized up his opponent living in England for a few years now I have lived in Scotland for a little bit as well but at the Belfast accent is non negotiable and I will be changing so really the plan for this is this is really just an introductory ramble I suppose to give you a sense of what I’m trying to build I’m an academic and I have left academic teaching I’ve had it how to spell it spell of a house but also it was kind of the kick in the arse that I needed to have a go at other things because I was supposed to be at St I did a lot of I basically did that early career researchers saying and I joked around all over the U. K. taking temporary posts here there and everywhere else and going through sort of by itself right right poverty at times and facing homelessness and things like that because you don’t really get paid for summers and you kind of laughed another M. and radio biz your living hand to mice quite a lot of the time you even though I don’t know if I have funded P. it stayed there still a lot of economic difficulties around you finishing the peach state and also I’m from a working class family I’m not from a wealth of any kind and use it to sort of three years I had speech she funding where the most stable I’d ever had in my life at that point %HESITATION but anyway that’s that’s sort of a bit of personal server made I had a pretty hard roads and academia I sank and it was something I felt very passionate about I was trying to become an academic trying to make a difference on I felt more and more like it was reeling against a system that was designed to make people like me feel and I’m tired of feeling like a failure even though I’ve changed a lot in my life because given my background to make economic back right into my social background all these kinds of things I’m not the typical sort of person who would normally get a peak stadium never mind any kind of post grad study and certainly at the first as far as I’m aware of my family to have the first generation certainly one side of my family that’s ever going to university and I’m the first as far as I know that’s ever done post grad studies of any kind so to become a doctor by twenty seven when I did my PhD vice said the day after my twenty seventh birthday that’s pretty cool and I mean I have to verify that you and I am going to set the reset I think was far too young to see a PhD I don’t necessarily recommend doing one soul never mind in your twenties not nearly twenty sunny right but anyway this is a sort of a bit of a rumble and it’s more personal than I intended normally I scripts what I do but I thought I’d really just shoot the breeze because I wanted to say that I’m a person saying that some person with a life and with emotions since last year %HESITATION health issues and stuff but I’m really passionate about education about lifelong learning about critical thinking and operate every human being the best possible human in the best possible version of themselves that they can Babe I think media literacy of any kind is incredibly prescient at the moment and I’m saying this out on the thirty first of January twenty eighteen and there’s an awful lot of things going on in the world that I could be you’re hurrying to buy thoughts but I want to try and keep things as neutral as possible what I’m trying to deny that I’m kind of I don’t academia but I am still a scholar first and foremost I’m a scholar I am a researcher I am a writer does it as things I have always wanted to today I love knowledge I love learning new things I love finding stuff I eat I love making connections and finding new ways of understanding things and I really love helping other people can’t there as well so I still want to be part of everything even though I’m not involved in teaching directly anymore I started a YouTube channel a while ago because I have a bank of teaching materials and research materials and presentation form from many years of doing all of this on its setting stowed away in a computer not being uses anybody so I so I’ll take it on the computer and I make it useful for some people hopefully and also it’s just a way of building a profile and keeping in the game NO way because I’m not done yet and I I feel like I’ve got work to do in this world and I feel like I’m I feel a bit overwhelmed because I think a lot of a lot of the change of ID like to see in the world is beyond my reach and capability so I will do that I’ll fix that I feel that I can I think helping people engage with culture and engage with the systems and the world that are bigger than us but trying to negotiate with him in a way that we can live our lives and try to be okay with ourselves I think that’s the best any of us committee do you at the moment so that’s sort of what I’m trying to date but hopefully if any of your therapy are finding these recordings and you’re studying some form of film studies or humanities subjects in general that may be transferable hopefully some of this is if you see and will help you be a better scholar and I hope certainly I’ll make me a better scholar just sitting thinking about these things because I always find it teaching made me a better researcher and that’s really the one thing I miss about teaching failing energy from students and getting a question from a student that blind sight she is the best thing ever keeps us on our toes and it makes us to learn and I miss those things I miss the exchanges with students here thinking about stuff and finding stuff I used to and giving you information because that’s what it should be all about it as you know we are still in the equalization of R. ray yes and it should be a by finding you know ledge and exchanging that and I believe very firmly in those things I think there are some areas in academia certainly in the UK at the moment Wes rest cycles and the funding systems that are in place I find that the things that are privileged Arnott’s knowledge and are now learning and it isn’t for I think the reasons for finding stuff I tend on the things that are privileged aren’t necessarily going to help the human race develop any further in fact it just all seems like a capitalist venture but these are arguments that are much bigger than me on our night sort of feeling a system that I decided to stop our job so maybe I don’t have that much of a right to have the same anymore but it worries me what it does to people and certainly the state of a lot of people’s mental health because of the systems we are not allowed to just be good at something anymore you have to be the best and if you know the best and if you know winning all these grants and if you’re not publishing and all the top journals that are also open access and if you’re not publishing the X. three monographs every two months that you’re basically worth less and the systems and that’s extremely wrong and I think that there has to be resistance there has to be a revolution and I tried my best to start one what I was and it starts at just wrecked me because I was out on my own anyway so what I’m trying to do is I think it’s I visited two good friends and I retain where I used to have my first ever full time fixed term teaching posts within the university of Aberdeen and I met the most amazing friends when I was there and these are people who are still extremely dear to me and I hope that if we continue with this podcast I hope that they’ll be my guests at some point so that you can hear all the bite their amazing work my good friend Fiona noble he is a scholar of Hispanic studies and film and visual culture the last time we met up face to face you know she made a very good points that’s it’s really audio visual study so we we J. visual culture excludes the audio part of what we J. and she’s upset you right now I’ve been thinking about this myself but hadn’t Brady articulated it and it’s clear away is she had to that point so in a way of slightly neck the term I mean it’s not exclusive to anybody anyway but I I’ve kind of he was sort of taken not terminate so well that would be a good umbrella heading for a wider more inclusive fashion of studying the kinds of cultural light path that we work on because sentiment is changing very much you I’m from a very I had a very traditional ito film studies education as an undergrad on a semester students and then in my PhD I brown start now looked more visual art and I looked at a lot of convergence is between found on what was happening in our calories so I was looking at moving image production more broadly but even I thought I was still adding on each end to sculpture into life performance art into photography and painting you know it’s it’s there’s no real point trace on a massive thing for me is that the spelling of pine trees to solving them so it may not surprise you to hear and I will fly my colors here that I am utterly dismayed at the prospect of the U. K. leaving the European Union because not only am I north and Irish and I’m extremely worried about the border situation on the peace process but I just feel like this is the biggest piece projects the humanity has ever known and it was moving towards I’m not getting everything right of course not but it was moving towards a lack of borders and more fluid approach to being in a different place yes because what we consider as a nation it’s really if quite a new concept it’s it’s a fairly recent concept and so a lot of my work is actually where borders of all kinds are breaking to heighten my back as Coles old borders new technologies it’s a boy convergence is between things and and and distinctions between different media between places between different factions of society all of these different things they’re all starting to make some comment distinguishable and %HESITATION you know so that’s kind of the backdrop and it’s of of everything I’m doing at the moment it’s making me feel all the more stronger but fighting for these things and making these points but also fight for the worse of critical thinking and to not just accept what you’re told blindly but to demand demonstrations of truth claims so I have a kind of possibly an atheistic approach to things as well it’s I need to see evidence before I’ll just believe something I am in the process of of court plans to develop a website called audio visual cultures and I had plans to sort of I suppose and drips and drops started this podcast and I I kind of did it a sort of trial episode one but the sign quality is terrible because I had problems editing the recording and mostly for my own incompetence not the technology but also I have issues with technology because I’m working from a very old laptop that is struggling quite a lot at the moment and financially and I’m a bit restricted so I just council of Kuwait and by a mark back right now I so I have it so I I I have a peach tree on a kind and %HESITATION I am tidings were Monday he paced on a on a on a pay pal but I’ll come back to those at the end the idea for the website is to start loading it with teaching materials what I’m doing with my teaching materials as I am fixing them up I’m updating a lot of things and I’m also over the years when I was applying for jobs I would but I had an interview for a lecture Scheck I would actually design a home how to access specialist finally your mo Jo that was research lab at and you so I have this archive of ball chills that never actually really existed spot were things that I put together as well as much as I did design and data actually teach and temporary teaching post and I I’m kind of working my threat way through what I’ve already got a lot of thought I’m not happy with because as many of you may understand your academics yourselves a lot of it was thrown together in the haste with about five minutes to go because I was even though I was working about eighty hours a week at some points and I’m not exaggerating it still wasn’t enough because the workload was to have faith in the earliest posts I had spent until besides trying to get a bit quite because I’m desperately scrambling to get interviews for something a bit more permanent and you five months here ten months there that sort of thing and so I’m I’m fixing stuff up and I’m working on some new stuff that I never got to teach that I feel really passionate about it because of course like I said earlier I have come from a really traditional from space background so what I mean by that is basically a white man the most privileged people and Filmland stay you can think of that was my film education and very rarely %HESITATION are there any women filmmakers ferry very ready to to have access and and even when they did they were usually white but it was very few and far between and it was usually only when I did that I accept modernism or the I phone cards so I on the margins of production was the only time had real access to women in my film education so I had to basically re educate myself in film studies when I was teaching to address these problems and thought as well as something I feel is hugely passionate about it says visibility as wonderful and as easy as it is to teach with Hitchcock he doesn’t need any more exposure he doesn’t need any more pics written about him but there are so many incredible filmmakers of all kinds right there he are you worried say and I I think teaching certainly teaching things like just basic user introductory film analysis you teach in the book different shot types there are and why they function and why they might be used there’s no reason why you can’t use a film by anybody else other than a white cat for that there are so many ways to redress the balance is an actress in Maine that anybody here already has privileged places any of their privilege in fact it raises the sola if we are inclusive and I’m learning all the time hi to be better at being inclusive so I hope that that becomes apparent as we move forward so the website was to me and saying and I’m you know thinking about maybe even two words a publication on this the kind of guy used to studying audio visual cultures is something long term that I’d like to work on because Sam Thurston seminal film studies tech specs right there but I think it would be great to have something broader that is just more reflective of the FIA DG between different media and the twenty first century I do feel like my unpreparedness shows height Rambouillet and scruffy my mind actually is because I think that what I usually purchase S. Farley published compared to this but this is the real me and I think certainly for the introduction to the whole saying which may or may not be coherent Anna at this point Hey it’s it’s regardless that that sort of doesn’t matter because no one may ever listen to this but I hope somebody does at some point because an earnest I I I just I really feel strongly that this is something that can benefit us all I feel very partisan this world’s but if there is one thing I country its engine to technology and your marketing my stuff and be a voice and the technologies that use here are becoming a little bit more democratic all the time because yes there’s a certain privilege of being able to access them I think probably in the western world I am the sort of person who for very long time it felt like my voice was not valid it’s time that we take a better look back for shows I mean the whole mantra of take back control is something we can recreate him for ourselves any of us who have filed we’re not in control of anything and we don’t deserve to pay because that’s the attitude we’ve been given but I does say like that straight and I I mean I’m saying that myself and I still feel like that’s too arrogant of me but I’m going to say it anyway because I think unless somebody like me isn’t the most privileged person in the world but still has a lot more privilege than other people because I am able bodies and I am white and I am on the phone and I live in the U. K. and I am technically not a per person at the moment I have a voice and if I can use that voice to raise anybody else so and to give them visibility and to give them a platform and for me doing that as filmmakers and artists who are marginalized in some way here are not the focus of attention and I think should pay because I think every piece of culture is something that’s up for discussion and I don’t think the valuations of quality are useful all the time I think something that you could consider you a movie that’s so bad it’s funny that has something to tell us about culture I think that has something to tell us about it he gets to make stuff my plans basically are eight months to the end time this is where the money stuff comes in a different time I want to develop a website to centralize and host all of these things so to have a place where this podcast can be and to have a a place where a regular blog can be and to start building up courses on sayings and to generate some interest to start planning a big projects maybe a series of tax breaks on studying audio visual culture sh to start showing I coherent to lotus things are showing high flute things are quite tired but also how repulsed this kind of study conveyed because another concern of mine is set even Sir well into the twenty first St very noisy some studies for media studies or television studies or or any of these areas are largely it feels still considers to be soft subjects and they’re not taken seriously on often this is the consideration of prospective students I don’t wanna make too many assumptions or generalizations here because I thought that’s not fair but I have in my time come across many people who embody this where somebody is being sent to university even though they’re not necessarily university material or they just don’t want to go and they have to do something and these subjects are regarded as relatively easy or they’ve decided they want to be the next Quentin Tarantino so they decided J. Feldman so Mike or they think because they are a film buff that they’re gonna be good a film studies and that’s not necessarily the case either and as inclusive as I am trying to be in this I will keep coming back to some cities because that that is my training and from the statics is my kind of man yeah so what hi there will be a lapses of me going to that automatically the thing is is that parents on the shootings themselves %HESITATION often don’t appreciate the complexities of this and that many different areas the film studies alone can encompass but it’s it’s similar with any of the cognates subjects you television studies encounters a lot of the same issues because you see it’s industrial it’s economic it’s political and social it’s cultural it’s historical it’s also a philosophical there’s also huge waves of these studies where you can look at them three another kind of theories of cultural studies comes into quite a bit M. and a seven gender sexuality queer student queer studies queer theory I was just so many I think I made a huge lasts for one of the U. two videos I’ve done I’ve made a huge list and I think I’ve seen tell that stuff off there so many areas of study and a lot of them are really complex and to have the most six wild successes read afterward because that’s that’s I don’t I don’t really think that’s better but what I mean is is set to be the most effective at being a scholar in the area is to be able to understand and articulate quite a complex network of contacts through which to raids a piece of work I mean I think even for close textual analysis that is the case and I think anybody who shames otherwise is really very much mistaken and it does a solid job service and I don’t think we should avoid it but I can’t really sat up when what I. D. isn’t considered you sort of proper subject area and %HESITATION considers of a proper peach state because of what it’s saying because it is it’s it’s really very complex and then on the world we live in at the moment certainly for those of us in the last our lives are and added to their underpinned by they are driven in many cases by screen cultures in many ways we live in a mediatized culture he has to build understand the media you have to be able to understand the specific language to keep yourself right in the world a lot of times he fielded questions stuff to be able to say just know Axact absolutely everything you hear you know and and that’s just so important at the moment so the M. S. this podcast is ready to try and get some regular paint it’s going to be different I William to drop something every week I’ll try to make it on the same day every week and some weeks it will be there will be weeks when I’ll be ready to do an audio version of one of the videos that I’ve produced for you cheap and a lot of these are research papers of mine I am going to start %HESITATION taking some of my lecture material as well and I also have a series on you cheap by academic practice and which you know I kind of talk through the basics of critical thinking and essay writing skills exam preparation how to prepare for presentations that RSS and going into a bit more daft there’s going to be one so on a lot of the different things you need for preparation for larger independent projects like dissertations that are a bit more involved but also I’d probably do some honest PhD proposals and survivor as well that’s an accumulating scenery so I’ll probably be doing audio versions of all these things it’s not necessary to have a can is set for March every week which might be unusual should be weeks it’ll be more of interest to some than others but I hope that it will be varied enough that it be useful for everybody in the B. something for everybody I hope also importantly I think it’s important to say that I really want to hear from everybody you know I if if you’re right there if you’re hearing this answer some way that we can get together or try and do this over Skype we can have a conversation if I eat something of your choice you know if you’re working on a PhD at the moment if you’re writing it back or if there’s a particular issue that you want to talk about it such as disabled access and university space for what it’s like to be a person of color in academia where for your mental health issues that’s something that’s very close to my heart what it’s like to be working class and economically under privileged when you to post graduate studies and how you reconcile your financial situation and you need to work where you’re overbearing desire to be you have to exercise your mind ticket qualifications and two of her career to tradition of being an option for somebody like you any of those kinds of issues use a toll I suppose any pedagogical issues as well basically anything you think that should be heard and you would like to be hurt and if you’re thinkin that people like you you’re under represented as well this is a call light for anybody who feels like that to be yourself or merge Terry use this tiny pop form that I have helped me expand it helped me make it something bigger than just may be involved and you reach outside and and tell people the issues that they need to to know a price because I think it’s only when we raise each other up that everybody benefits if this can help even in a small way I mean I don’t know if this will ever go anywhere I don’t know if anyone will ever listen to me rambling on upright stuff and there are weeks as they say were it would be fired he structures and I’ll be reading something that I’ve scripted so the base may third and may just rambling it would be nice for other voices to be heard I really hope that you’ll consider it it’s an open invitation at the moment I’ll just use my personal email to get in touch I am gonna make a point of making one for the series but I haven’t done it just yet so I don’t care if you what I want to talk to baby in case I can’t use and somebody some stranger denture stuff so you can email me %HESITATION on basically all of my handles on all of that social media things a sappy buyer and if you know me you’ll you’ll you’ll know what that is and I use that for my email address as well it’s P. A. as in the vegetable B. L. A. I. R. and no I am not Tony’s daughter and Scott choke of course never gets old for me I had to actually refreshing when I get referred to as the Blair witch anyway P. A. B. L. A. I. R. P. but there is my Honda for everything so if you use that P. A. player at G. email dot com for night and I will make up an email address for audio visual cultures so if you would like to topped with me and have the option of being on this podcast it might be heard by hopefully one or two people and then please get in touch because it’s our therapists at our therapy see if she’s right there and it’s I hope to save space that you can say what you need to stay on I am always happy to learn and even if you do if you’re working on something at the minute and you’re trying to talk to you wanna talk at three and you want to use it as an opportunity to do that’s you know that’s just sort of skate currency work goes so I’m on Twitter on the same things so if you prefer to contact me without that’s fine it’s my Facebook but I I don’t really use Facebook all that often I have actively become bad at FIA spec cassette rainy and always makes the email the Twitter I’m you know I’m online content aside as well I am a PhD on us they say so importantly if anybody out there has a few quid to spare and you think you would like to sort of support something that might be useful and might keep somebody like me I live for but if that’s scientific and desirable thing you would like to J. and she can comfortably afford it then I have a picture on page so you can find me under that handle the RP A. B. L. A. I. R. M. P. H. E. on and I’ve been posting thanks there for a while now it from blog posts and other audio recordings of me in the past that aren’t very good quality and Abbott fifty years after making as well so the YouTube videos I’m pitching on as well it’s all in U. S. dollars and I have it set for monthly annoyance because I’m working on lots of stuff all the time and I think with the podcast I would be a way of me having a regular weekly right page because the videos I picked them up as they make them and sometimes there could be a month’s character like since the Christmas break scuppered me because I I went away and I did no work for two weeks and it was blessed I haven’t done not for such a long time you know so there was a a fellow months basically where I had made a video I’m paid up instead of a week before I went to play but then when I came back from holiday it took a couple of weeks to get the first thing ready so there is about a month’s gap between things on it and so that’s going to happen and here I want to stress it sort of just because there’s sort of nothing coming up on it I am working on stuff it just it’s taking me awhile because I’m working with really old clunky equipment to have a computer does shots south Stein every five minutes it’s not connecting to the internet for a while you know I have a user she’s she’s and I’m sort of coming up against and any money is really helpful anything I told is really appreciated you can choose whatever mind you want so it’s sort of just depending on circumstances on how much you think any of this is worse but it’s also a future investment because I really want to have a go at this website I have big projects that I’m trying to work on this while I’m putting a lot of energy into these kind of online alright pates because I’m trying to generate a profile and I’m I’m trying to get work right there so that people can see what I’m saying and hopefully consider supporting it so that I can then start writing these other things and trying to get some sort of income stream so it’ll be a massive help I have said it so that patrons pledging any amount to toll will get access to the transcripts I produce of the videos that I make because I write a script for myself to rage because as you’ve been able to hear and this raw on plans ramble I’ve just done I am reading around late and I will not stick to the point so I have to write myself description so I fret not anyway and I been putting a lot of work into the making them ready clear and readable but I also embed them with links to further information and if I have cited any tax or mentioned any films I give Phil bibliographical references for those as well so I. P. G. C.’s transcripts in PDF form they are accessible to anybody who gives me any money our role on patchy on on %HESITATION so if you want to just make a one off donation then I’ve got a pay pal told me set up so it’s again it’s forward slash P. E. I. Barrett’s it’s everything’s the same and at so you can see you can donate one off payments via PayPal I think that it’s just set up for starting but I don’t know if you can take if you want to do it in another currency that might be fine I think it’s set up for sterling and I cannot thank anybody enough if you do that sure it is summer I’m trying to purchase accessible study it’s for anybody who’s interested in audio visual cultures are finding it more but does so F. here students F. here at school if you’re anybody anybody %HESITATION third hole he understands English and he once he learned a bit more about this area then it’s free and it’s a boy having another go at it because we’ve had a conventional way of doing things that has certain privileges avoid it and I kind of want to start doing something a bit different than taking conventions and doing them in a different way I’m really excited by the possibilities of thought where I could go and I really hope you join me for it so thank you so much for listening just to remind you it’s P. A. B. L. A. I. R. at G. mail dot com until I get a a dedicated email address for audio visual cultures if you would like to record one of these with me I really hope to hear from me saying and thank you so much for testing and for any support of told me you can give even just sharing this stuff online is a massive help take care of your shows I hope to see you soon %HESITATION