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Screen 2007 48(2):179-192; doi:10.1093/screen/hjm014
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Screen. All rights reserved

Thinking outside the box: mediation of imaging and information in contemporary Chinese independent documentary

Yingjin Zhang


  Abstract

The essay proposes that we approach contemporary Chinese independent documentary as a troubling case of information in order to explore a series of complex issues involved in the production, circulation, exhibition and reception of documentary images. The case is perceived as troubling not only because certain types of intended information (such as homosexuality, poverty, prostitution and unemployment) may trouble – or potentially subvert, however temporarily – age-old normative or normalizing concepts in Chinese culture and society. The case is troubling also because the status of images and information in Chinese independent documentary raises critical questions regarding interpretation (truth, noise, jury), access (censorship, piracy, democracy), mediation (transparency, immediacy), ethics (privacy, publicity), affect (emotion, embodiment, performativity) and agency (subjectivity, positionality). By analyzing The Box (2001), a rare documentary about a lesbian couple, this essay aims to bring the performative into our study of Chinese documentary and challenge the conventional framework of truth and reality favoured by current scholarship and transnational cultural politics.


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