Watch For Joy

This video essay was created as part of the 2024 Parametric Summer Series organized by Ariel Avissar, using "Laird's Constraint" inspired by Colleen Laird's 2023 video essay "Eye-Camera-Ninagawa." Drawing from Laird's work, this piece explores the transcultural dimensions of video essay creation and consumption, especially in challenging Western-centric cinephilia traditions and looking at how video essays work as tools for revealing and reclaiming cultural narratives. The work extends the critical examination that Laird began around the complexities of split-screen compositions that contrast Asian media against Western mainstream material. Through this video work, the essay explores the split-screen format itself as a contradictory tool that simultaneously allows academic engagement while possibly hiding built-in cultural assumptions.