12th BAFTSS Conference by Tillie Quattrone
On the 3rd of April 2024, I gave two papers at my first academic conference, the 12th Annual British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Conference, held at the University of Sussex in Brighton. The first talk explored the formal congruencies between asexuality and video essay creation, manifesting an exploration of my interest in the illuminative possibilities of videographic research methods. I have used this methodology before and plan to continue doing so, perhaps even in relation to my ongoing PhD research into digital de-ageing in Hollywood film.
This subject informed by second paper, entitled ‘Status Through the Ages: on Digital De-ageing’s Reflection of Historical Gender-based Prestige Structures’. This talk analysed the technological approaches and official promotional discussion of machine and human labour in the 2023 film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, to explore how the film’s logistical employment of AI labour—and corresponding framing of its contributions as supplementary—reflects the back-office tasks performed by women in the studio era and the perception that these tasks were auxiliary. It thus proposed that the labour configurations that manifest digital de-ageing in Hollywood carry the potential to reflect—and, consequently, reinforce—misogynistic status structures that arose in the studio era.
Presenting these papers facilitated both professional and personal growth. Scholars were particularly keen the discuss the relationship between AI and gender-based prestige structures (which serendipitously corresponded with Prof. Shelley Cobb’s keynote talk on the experiences of women of colour in UK screen media industries), and accordingly stopped me several times over the conference’s three days to introduce themselves and offer their thoughts. The lovely folks at BAFTSS thus welcomed me into their cohort with curiosity and openness, and I am happy to now be in contact with 25+ more researchers than I was before attending.
On a more personal level, I was grateful to spend time in Brighton, where I’d never been but have long wanted to visit. There, amidst the clamouring seagulls, whipping wind, and brilliant academic brains, I found excitement in the newness of this academic/seaside experience. I’m happy to have pushed myself into unknown territory (figuratively and literally), and for the NWCDTP’s support in this venture, which I’m sure will continue to buoy me through all the exciting and unfamiliar experiences the PhD will continue to entail.
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