Workshop on Audiovisual Micronarratives

What

The workshop “Audiovisual micronarratives”, half in-person and half online, organised with the programme Espacio-Red De Prácticas y Culturas Digitales at the International University of Andalucía (UNIA) served to help with understanding and practicing forms of digital and contemporary communication, specifically memes, Vines and animated GIFs.

How

The workshop consisted of an in-person portion and an online portion. The materials of the workshop were made available for anyone to use:

Block 1: Audiovisual Narrative

• Narrative of brevity, the semantic power of audiovisual microforms.
• From short videos to animated gifs: themes, genres and technologies.

Block 2: Meme Universe

• Memetics, remixing and virality.
• The grammar of memes.
• Exercises in style: political memes, the case of feminist memes.

Block 3: Animated GIF Universe

• How animated GIFs are born and reproduced.
• The Grammar of animated GIFs.
• Exercises in style: artistic uses of GIFs.

Block 4: Vine Universe

• From Méliès to George Lucas in 6 seconds.
• The Grammar of Vine.
• Exercises in style on Vine: community craftsmanship.

Why

Audiovisual narrative moves further and further away from formats established by classic media as it embraces the characteristics of the web: speed, ubiquity and remixing. It is not only an art or a cultural practice; it is becoming a tool of daily communication. In digital media we have moved on from chatting with emoticons to using animated GIFs. We are able to extract a huge amount of meaning out of only a few seconds of video. We use loops to challenge the linearity of pre-established audiovisual discourses. And the Youtube generation has paved the way for a generation characterised by other, shorter formats such as Vine and Instagram Stories. In this theoretical-practical workshop we looked at and practiced some of the tools and experiments that make up the already commonly accepted culture of remixing.