Paper short abstract:

This paper maps the range of production and aesthetics in amateur video and film production that is brought to the surface by new modes of production and transmission. My interest is in a phenomenological and philosophical exploration (relying on works of Massumi, L.Marks, L.Williams, Deleuze)

Paper long abstract:

Amateur production in the contemporary opened up as a result of digital and technological changes that place mechanisms of creative expression, production and distribution within the scope of anybody. The paper is about sensations and intensities that mark its reception and making, the relation to technology and conditions of production that make this possible.

The material I would be looking at ranges from pornography, short and long fictional forms and mainstream forms that absorb aspects of amateur aesthetics and practices. This includes short film submissions to Bangalore Queer Film Festival (a festival I co-curate), wherein the form allows for a breaking away from concerns of representation, to a more ironical form that hovers between a joke, a story and an image. "Secret Minds" (Jeo Baby, 2011) begins with an explicit, sexual image of two men and later reveals that one is a priest campaigning against homosexuality. "90 CM" is about a husband's anxiety about his wife's mysteriously missing bra from the washing line. Maher Sabry's "All My Life" is an Egyptian film that follows many characters, including a devout Muslim, an independent woman and a gay man and his search for true love, through a series of sordid, exquisitely captured sexual encounters. My research on amateur production of pornography in the Indian context, explores technology, video and affect. Bollywood films like Love, Sex, Dhoka (Banerjee, 2010) and horror film Ragini MMS (Kripalani, 2011) are obviously inspired by the aesthetics of amateur porn: the grainy texture of digital video and its haptic qualities.