The audio visual essay, or ”film/video essay” as it might be better known, has in recent years started to enjoy a level of popularity previously unseen in its long and obscure history; encouraging a proper reexamination of the genre through the years, to see how it has developed and changed throughout its lifetime to finally arrive at where it is today. With a lineage stretching back across the centuries, through to the 16th -century writings of Michel de Montaigne, the essay format, either as it manifests in the traditions of literature or the audio visual mode, is a curious form of expression, preferring an indirect route towards knowledge, marked by quandary, reflection, the trying and retrying ideas in a process built around the act of searching. Because of its unusual and shifting nature, on both a formal and discursive level, coupled with a propensity for analysis and dialectical reasoning, it has been a staple of transgressive aesthetic practices, landing it with several of leading experimental filmmakers and movements of the pre- and postwar eras. Interestingly, however, in the new cultural landscape, shaped by the advent of the digital revolution, it has also been involved in a politically transgressive arena of democratized home productions, sparking discussion about the imperative conditions and potential future possibilities of media creation as a whole. To make sense of these historical proceedings, and the forces which impel them, a cohesive definition of the genre is in order, which can then be used as the basis of a functional historical model. As such, the following questions are prompted: What characteristics define the audio visual essay, in what ways has it manifested throughout its history and, by extension, how does one go about formulating a conception of its history? To accommodate these queries both an essayistic mode of analysis, concerning a work’s discursive and formalistic properties, and a chronological lineage of the audio visual essay, is proposed, and applied to different historical examples, to map out paths of development and progression as well as the genres response to the varying cultural, social, political and technological forces during its lifetime.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-07-19T12:39:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 flaviacamposjunqueira.pdf: 428907 bytes, checksum: faec5751089218e9e6e739b9b5ae2de5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-22T15:13:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 flaviacamposjunqueira.pdf: 428907 bytes, checksum: faec5751089218e9e6e739b9b5ae2de5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-22T15:14:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 flaviacamposjunqueira.pdf: 428907 bytes, checksum: faec5751089218e9e6e739b9b5ae2de5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-22T15:14:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 flaviacamposjunqueira.pdf: 428907 bytes, checksum: faec5751089218e9e6e739b9b5ae2de5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-06 / FAPEMIG - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo geral compreender a percepção humana a partir da potencialidade sígnica das linguagens criadas com os recursos materiais de cada período histórico. Sob o argumento de que a evolução material pode afetar a sensorialidade humana, a obra Um homem com uma câmera, do cineasta Dziga Vertov, é analisada a partir da visão de autores modernos e contemporâneos escolhidos para embasarem o pensamento. Focado no início do século XX, o trabalho é contextualizado historicamente para que a produção sígnica dos meios possa ser acompanhada. Inspirado pela semiótica de Peirce, o estudo busca nas perspectivas materialistas, aproximar autores que refletem de alguma maneira sobre as tecnologias de comunicação e a percepção do homem. Apoiado no conceito de signo e nas fases do processo semiótico – Primeiridade, Secundidade e Terceiridade – o trabalho lança mão dos conceitos de choque, afetividade e experiência estética, a fim de entender o período moderno, com seus movimentos culturais e o desenvolvimento urbano-industrial, como responsável pela adaptação do homem a uma realidade esteticamente mais rica. Neste sentido, a definição peirceana de signo serve como ponto de convergência para a articulação de conceitos de matrizes teóricas diversas. Hoje características de linguagens vanguardistas são exploradas pelos meios de forma corriqueira. Sob estes aspectos, a obra de Vertov é resgatada considerando sua linguagem como representativa de uma experiência de realidade cada vez mais baseada nos sentidos, assim como de um olhar moderno, construtor da estética explorada cotidianamente nos meios digitais. / This study aims to understand the human perception from the semiotic potential of the languages created with the material resources of each time. Under the argument that the material evolution can affect the human sensibility, the work A man with a movie câmera, of Dziga Vertov, is analyzed from the perspective of modern and contemporary authors chosen to have grounds to the thought. Focused on the early twentieth century, the work is historically contextualized to monitor the sign production. Guided by Peirce's semiotic, the study seeks on material perspective, the approach of authors who, somehow, reflect upon the technologies of communication and human perception. Based on the definition of sign and the phases of the semiotic process, this work makes use of the concepts of shock, affectivity and aesthetic experience in order to understand the modern time, with its cultural movements and urban-industrial development, as the responsible for human adaptation to a reality aesthetically richer. In this sense, the definition of Peirce’s sign serves as a focal point for the articulation of concepts of various theoretical perspectives. Today, avant-garde features are exploited by media in everyday. Under these aspects, the work of Vertov is rescued considering their language as representative of an experience of reality increasingly based on the senses, as well as a modern look, builder of the aesthetics explored everyday in digital media.