Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This piece is about the making of a YouTube series begun in 2021 called Dreams of Safety, mostly built around recordings of interviews. As the filmmaker, I explain the scope of the work and my approach and assess some of the results. The videos feature people across the world: interviewees have included a flight attendant based in Hong Kong and a former employee of Madame Tussauds, Delhi. I responded to the subjects of the conversations by building audiovisual contexts for them using simple, cheap and environmentally low-impact methods of online video capture and DIY animation. My aim was to work out a way to make experimental videos with other people within the restrictions and fears relating to COVID-19 that still shape social realities. Are there methods that can sustain such practices within other, overlapping crises in future? Is it practical for a visual artist to seek an audience online rather than in galleries and screenings? How can discursive, collaborative filmmaking practices be pursued without a
DOI: 10.33178/alpha.31.08
Author: Richard Whitby
Institutions: Ravensbourne University London, University of the Arts London
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7204897775