Embodiment and the senses in travelogue filmmaking

This practice-based research presents an analysis of the representation of embodied experience in the travelogue film genre. It reflects upon the embodied and synaesthesic nature of the cinematic experience by tracing a shift in travelogue filmmaking from the ocular realism characteristic of early travelogue films to the emergence and proliferation of subjective approaches. Moreover, it analyses experimental travelogue films and the capacity of non-linear and non-narrative structures to express sensuous, embodied perception.
9 Meditations is the practice component of this thesis. It is an experimental travelogue film. Through its production this research explores the translation of embodied experience as a multi-sensory process into filmmaking practice.
In the field of film studies, the travelogue has not been widely discussed outside historical approaches, and it has certainly never been discussed in relation to phenomenology and embodied sensation. This research articulates a new conceptual framework for both the production and theorisation of the travelogue film, as a form that is intrinsically related to performance, subjectivity and embodied perception. Moreover, this research concerns both the production process in filmmaking practice and the cinematic experience as grounded in synaesthesic, embodied perception. This approach brings to the forefront the capacity of audiovisual practice to both encode and produce sensuous knowledge.