Panel 3D Post-Cinema
Session 3 – July 2, 11:00 – 13:00
The Use of Video-clips in the Visual Kei Online Fandom
Within various online fandom communities transcodification and re-mediation are a common participatory practice which use a variety of media from written texts (in the form of fanfic, for example, uploaded in various textual formats) to images to audio clips and video clips. Using “re-mediation as an aesthetic category which implies fluidity, fragmentation and pluralization” as a prompt the abstract proposes to present a paper on how the use of video clips in the Visual Kei online fandom has helped in re-mediating the music subculture as a phenomenon. The video clips in question are of various types: audio (songs and comments) only clips, clips extracted from music videos or live performance videos (CDs, DVDs, VHS) and recordings of other media (like using screen recording apps or using mobile camera to record videos from TV or Laptop). This type of fluid transcodification and re-mediation of physical performances is possible on a variety of online spaces, for the paper the space is localized to Visual Kei fandom on Twitter. The paper will analyze Twitter posts which attach these video clips and use the literary techniques of point of view and narration – the creative captions, essay fragmented over threads, narrative commentary and occasionally no caption posts. These plural and multiple fan activities not only reproduce but redefine the music subculture (and largely Japan) for both the domestic and international audiences. The paper will tie in the idea of emptiness as understood in the context of Japanese popular culture which is re-mediated aesthetically through these video clips.
Bio
I am currently enrolled in an interdisciplinary M.Phil program in the department of Women and Gender Studies offered by the School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University, New Delhi, India. I am researching the Japanese music subculture called Visual Kei (which emerged in Japan between late 1970s and early 1980s influenced by the 70s metal scene of America and the rock/punk scene of Britain) by engaging with the gendered aesthetics of the subculture mediatized through new digital media present in the elements of makeup, clothing, sound and performance. I received my undergraduate (2013-2016) and postgraduate (2016-2018) degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi.