Awardee: Sophia Siddique Harvey
Semester of Award: Fall 2019
Materials Awarded: 5 Diana F+ cameras without flash, and 20 rolls (2 packs of 10ea) of 120 Black and White film.
Project Description:
FILM 392: Sensuous Theory (Fall 2019) explored the relationship between film and the senses. Questions that informed the seminar included: How can film, an audio-visual medium, represent and engage with the proximal senses of touch, taste, and smell? How might films employ the senses to reconfigure the relationship between cinema and the spectator? What is the relationship between the cinema, perception and the human body? How might these films articulate senses of belonging, displacement, or exile? The seminar adopted a variety of exercises to take students through these questions.
In addition to a seminar paper between 4,000 to 6,000 words, I wanted to curate an experiential, lo-fi learning practice based experience. In an era of all things digital, the Diana F+, a still toy camera, was a perfect choice. Students in the seminar were able to connect assigned readings of their choice to their experiences of handling the Diana F+ in all of its magical, serendipitous, and tactile possibilities. The lo-fi aspect of the Diana F+ also extended an invitation to engage with process and presence instead of fixating on a final product and being crippled by perfectionism. Some students utilized the Diana F+ to articulate their embodied expressions of “haptic visuality”.
Amy Laughlin was instrumental in the success of the Diana F+ theory / practice assignment. Amy provided a tutorial in film processing, taking seminar students through the entire developing process in the darkroom. Thank you, Amy, for your support, patience. and enthusiasm.
I’ve attached (with permission from Uli Rittmann, seminar student), two of the twelve stills that his Diana F+ captured. The assignment was so successful that I am implementing this assignment for FILM 392: Sensuous Theory (Fall 2021).
