Diaspora (An Illuminated Video Essay)

“Diaspora” is a 30-minute illuminated video article about contemporary Jewish identity. The illuminated video essay based on embodied audiovisual research is a new form of work that draws on visual anthropology and media studies to propose a distinctive approach to centering embodiment and experimental practice through the medium of video. All audio and video footage in the article is taken from a single three-hour laboratory session on 3 August 2017 at the University of Huddersfield. This material is supplemented by textual “illuminations” that provide a broader window into the AHRC-funded project “Judaica: An Embodied Laboratory for Songwork” (2016-2018) across its autoethnographic, cultural-political, and methodological dimensions. The research method underpinning this process uses dynamic configurations of roles and relations to structure emergent interactions that are transversally traced by audiovisual recording. In this case, the presence of a special guest in the lab allows the video article to explore complex relationships between drawing and singing, kinship and craft, technique and identity.