Correspondencias

Alfonso Villanueva García, Máster Universitario en Cine y Televisión, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Loreto García Saiz, Máster en Investigación Aplicada a los Medios de Comunicación, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

If the possibility of sending correspondence evokes novelty, even if it has historically been an essential way of communication, it means that we really need to reflect on the way we communicate with each other. That is why we got confused when we were ask to make an audiovisual correspondence piece within the Máster Universitario en Cine y Televisión at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Actually, we were surprised about our own enthusiasm of writing a letter, like the ones we used to send to our cousins, or those that our parents wrote to each other when they met long ago. Paradoxically, we communicated through Whatsapp, where you can accumulate in one week all the correspondence that our grandparents received in years. This made us consider where the passion of doing such a simple thing was coming from, when at a practical level we could be continuously writing to each other. The difference was simple: wanting to dedicate time to the other, making an effort to communicate, running away from the immediacy and automatisms of our daily conversations on social media. 

We decided to talk about the same things we usually discuss when we go for a beer, basing the piece in recurrent topics that we discussed in the past, building upon our honesty and confidence with each other. Hence, the text emerges from common worries and our personal subjectivities, but without really pre-establishing in topics, content or form.

We did agree, though, on the use of old videos that could illustrate what we wanted to tell. Sometimes, the reasons that make us film something at a certain moment are only understood afterwards, after having created some distance with a tangible vital experience. In that sense, this correspondence has been for us a space of reflection and resignification of a material that we once filmed without any specific motivation in mind, as an urge, a material that makes sense now, also helping us to express personal worries. 

In this way, the first part is mainly focused on personal burdens and concerns, using media as a way to attain relief, discovering that complex emotions can lean on images to complement its transmission successfully. 

The second part is an exercise of reconciliation with the medium itself, creating a space of resistance against the threats or frustrations that the medium can generate. Moreover, that space facilitates the retrieval of specific content that did not have a place in the usual communication channels.

Through this exercise, we have been able to understand the difference between communication and correspondence; to open a space of dialogue confronting contemporary acceleration and immediacy; to consider the audiovisual medium as a form of communication that is not necessarily based on strict pragmatism; to dialogue with the other through the medium and reflect on the medium through the other.