In the past 30 or so years, Chinese independent cinema has existed across multiple mediums, from celluloid to video cassettes like VHS and DV, then to digital formats today. Filmmakers and curators have witnessed the change of cameras from analog to digital, and experienced the democratization of filmmaking tools and the proliferation of independently-made images. While there is a plethora of scholarship on the history and content of Chinese independent cinema, little concerns the production, preservation, and the afterlives of these materials. To fill in this gap, this issue encourages the contributors to think about the history of the tools as an essential part of the history of the works in Chinese independent cinema. In other words, we want to think about obsolescence as something redeemable, something useful even though it is sidelined in history. Building on this topic, this issue of Chinese Independent Cinema Observer invites scholars, filmmakers, curators, and archivists to think about Chinese-language independent moving image practices through the lens of media archaeology, obsolescence, and technologies.
In the increasing number of scholarships on the topics of media archaeology and material culture, the word “obsolescence” has resurfaced as a lesser-explored yet generative concept. Characterized by opposing tendencies of “persistence” and “suppression”—where the material remains after the format is outdated and the new is often thought to overpower the old—the dynamics of obsolescence directs our attention to these clashing temporal energies in various media cultures, especially how film technologies, materials, spaces, and ideas are reappearing and even resisting to become obsolete. How can we salvage those that are no longer useful or no longer exist in Chinese independent cinema? What is the relationship between the residuals found through media archaeology and the culture that generates them? With these questions in mind, this issue welcomes submissions from a variety of fields and disciplines, and encourages interdisciplinary approaches to the provocation of media archaeology and obsolescence in Chinese independent cinema. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Media archaeology in Chinese independent cinema
- Material and conceptual obsolescence
- History and culture of independent filmmaking technologies
- Generations of film cameras and formats
- Analog and digital materials
- The lives and afterlives of film prints and DV tapes
- Coming of the digital age
- Filmmaking experience with analog and digital tools
- Challenges of retiring older gauges and formats
- Digitization of analog materials
- Small gauge film formats like 8mm and 16mm
- Other format like DV, magnetic tapes, and smart devices
- Archiving and curating independent cinema
- Restoration and preservation
- Storage of materials
- Personal archives of independent films
- Independent archives and exhibitions
- Memory and material studies
- Case study of filmmaker’s production experience
Formats:
We welcome contributions in the following formats:
- Scholarly article (no more than 8000 words in English; 12000 in Chinese)
- Film, exhibition and festival review (no word limit)
- Director’s and curator’s notes and interviews (no word limit )
Submission:
Chinese Independent Cinema Observer is a bilingual international journal. We welcome Chinese and/or English language submissions. Please submit your articles to the executive editor of this issue by Email (Ann Lyuwenyu Zhang lz1482@nyu.edu) before February 28th, 2025.
Style guide:
Please refer to the Chinese Independent Film Archive website for journal style guides and past issues: https://www.chinaindiefilm.org/publications/chinese-independent-cinema-observer/
Anticipated publishing date:
Chinese Independent Cinema Observer is as an open-access e-journal published on the Chinese Independent Film Archive website and is included in the Modern Language Association International Bibliography (MLA) database. This issue is expected to come out in June 2025.
Questions:
If you have any questions or suggestions about this special issue, please contact the issue editor Ann Lyuwenyu Zhang at lz1482@nyu.edu.