China on Video

<p><em>China On Video</em> is the first in-depth study that examines smaller-screen realities and the important role they play not only in the fast-changing Chinese mediascape but also more broadly in the practice of experimental and non-mainstream cinema. At the crossroads of several disciplines—film media new media media anthropology visual arts contemporary China area studies and cultural studies--this book reveals the existence of a creative humorous but also socially and politically critical China on video which locates itself outside of the intellectual discourse surrounding both auteur cinema and digital art. </p><p>By describing smaller-screen movies moviemaking and viewing as <em>light</em> realities Voci points to their insignificant weight in terms of production costs distribution size profit gains intellectual or artistic ambitions but also their deep meaning in defining an alternative way of seeing and understanding the world. The author proposes that <em>lightness</em> is a concept that can usefully be deployed to describe the moving image beyond the specificity of recent new media developments and which can in fact help us rethink previous cinematic practices in broad terms both spatially and temporally.</p>