Foregrounding the Digital Medium: Self-reference and Metareference in Video Essays Cristian Eduard DRÄ‚GAN Abstract: This article focuses on video essays —understood as that specific subgenre of audio-visual productions that can be considered the main descendent of the essay film. Both are, in a sense, subjective explorations of certain subject matters via cinematic means —with the prime exception that video essays are mostly centred on analyses of filmic phenomena. Since another difference between these two types of productions is the very medium that they originate in, ‘inhabit’, and are propagated through —digital video and online video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube or Vimeo vs. photochemical film strip or electronic tape, and theatrical / home video releases —, I propose that one of the fundamental characteristics of video essays is a special type of foregrounding of the medium, and therefore one of its main effects on the viewers is that of eliciting a sort of medium-awareness. Keywords: Self-reference, metareference, video essay, essay film, self-representation, medium, medium-awareness, digital video DOI: 10.24193/ekphrasis.26.8 |