Université Paul-Valery, Montpellier 3

Collective Exhibition – Friday, March 15 to Friday, March 29

France / 24'23

Galerie Dolet, Crous Clermont Auvergne, 25 rue Étienne Dolet, Clermont Ferrand

Paul-Valéry University is an institution specialized in the humanities, human and social sciences, languages and the arts. The training provided by the Cinema-Audiovisual and New Media Department aims to provide students with a general background that focuses on the historical context of the performing arts as well as on the analysis of their situation in the contemporary artistic institution (aesthetics, economics, sociology). In addition to this theoretical approach, students receive practical training that enables them to become familiar with techniques, materials, and know-how. The master’s degree in digital creation in this department aims to develop versatile and autonomous individuals with fundamental artistic and technical skills in the field of moving images and interactive systems.

Website : https://www.univ-montp3.fr/

Course presentation :

Teacher : Claire Chatelet

The film program was produced as part of the course entitled “Hybrid Writings of Reality”, directed by Claire Chatelet, lecturer in audiovisual and new media. This 18-hour module aims to question the aesthetic and narrative issues of new documentary forms, using digital technologies in a creative and meaningful way. It is structured around an 8-hour theoretical component and a 10-hour practical component devoted to the production of “desktop films”. The creative constraint is to make documentary films in an intensive mode, using only images and videos found on the Internet.
This practical component, which is part of a renewed approach to “found footage”, is made up of three stages:
– choice of subjects, group creation and presentation of the concept
– selection of data on the internet and reflection on writing style
– editing from the selected data, image processing, voice-over recording (if necessary) and audio editing.
There are 4 or 5 students in a group so that the tasks can be divided up. A demo must be presented at the end of the 10-hour workshop.
The films must update Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept of the art of “post-production” and Lev Manovich’s “aesthetics of selection-combination”.

VIDEO PROGRAM :

Darkweb : un net clair-obscur (Darkweb: a distinct chiaroscuro) | Romane Palpant Obaton and Mathis Jullin | 2023 | 6’36

Made from articles and news excerpts combined with royalty-free images and sounds found on the internet, this desktop film deals with the mysterious world of the darknet and darkweb. In this complex cyberspace, the best and worst of humanity coexist in total anonymity, and we want to precisely show this contradiction, i.e. both its darkest aspects (child pornography, human trafficking, violence, etc.), and its positive aspects (free speech, support for LGBTQ communities, access to information, etc.).

Mama I’m In Love With A Criminal | Sofian Belaydi, Bettina Laouar, Léa Miailhe, Azaël Lachaud | 2023 | 8’17

Produced with a screen recorder in a single sequence (screencast), this desktop film follows an invisible Internet user through a virtual investigation into the media exposure of hybristophilia, a love and/or sexual attraction to criminals. The film exposes not only the darker aspects of this deviant behavior, which manifests itself in particular on YouTube and social networks, but also its mercantile exploitation by the media, helping to popularize the figure of the serial killer.

Fragments | Alfonso Castellanos, Judith Chartier, Robin Keller | 2023 | 9’30

Based on images, videos, and notes from Judith’s phone, the aim is to reflect on the memory prosthesis that the smartphone now represents. Judith explains: “I’ve never had so many memories saved on my phone, so many fragments of my life accessible at will, in a single gesture. They are a fragmented reflection of my thoughts and emotions, hastily recorded for fear of forgetting them. And yet, amid this dizzying accumulation, I feel that my memory is getting weaker and weaker… I feel condemned to go through a machine to recover what I would have irretrievably entrusted to it… Has this screen replaced my memory?”

Université Paul-Valery, Montpellier 3