Water Bodies: Coastal Expression in Ecocinema Practice (thesis data)

Positioning coastal ecosystems as particularly vulnerable to severe effects of anthropogenic climate change, this thesis develops a framework for an ecocinema practice which shifts focus away from human perspectives by exploring different rhythms and scales to depict coastal places through film. Using a collaborative and practice-based methodology, it draws on critical theories from ecocinema and the blue humanities to create three short examples of poetic ecocinema. The first film, Nine Whales, Tiree, is based on a film-poem by Taylor Strickland, and offers a poetic exploration of the Isle of Tiree, focusing on the environmental rhythms of the place. The second film, Mirror Worlds, documents the fieldwork of a group of researchers making a digital twin of the historic seafront of Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Drawing on conventions of cinematic mapmaking, it takes a reflexive and contemplative approach to the act of recording and digital preservation. The third film, Between There and Here, conceptually draws on earth science researcher Toni Galloway’s PhD project that studies Icelandic hot springs as an analogue to locations on Mars as they might have been millions of years ago. The film takes a poetic approach in centring the nonhuman elements of place.
The data files are embargoed until 17/02/2030