Strategies and Techniques of Desktop Documentary as Creative Pedagogical Tools in the Era of COVID-19 Global Pandemic

Desktop documentary is a contemporary film and media practice that self-reflexively explores technological limitations of the computer interface and its potentialities in order to create unconventional audio-visual works with elements of documentary and experimental cinema. This paper envisages the possibility of using desktop documentary methods and techniques within the context of current online education – the globally dominant model of knowledge transfer and exchange during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the focus of this article, in comparison to previous theoretical studies of desktop documentaries, which primarily investigated cinematic, artistic and media features of this form, is transferred from aesthetic and poetic to pedagogical, methodological and epistemological issues. Although several scholar papers have already discussed the possibility to employ desktop documentaries within the space of classrooms, their understanding of this practice was different from its contemporary mode theoretically acknowledged and creatively practiced by Kevin B. Lee, inaugurated with his paradigmatic film Transformers: The Premake. Lee’s vision, namely, presupposes a more transgressive approach towards desktop filmmaking, which entails various avant-garde and experimental cinematic and media techniques. Having as its starting point such bold methods, this article considers, analyzes and critically evaluates desktop documentary strategies and techniques relevant for online teaching: self-reflexive thought about technological limits and potentialities of online platforms; exploration of new digital aesthetics which oppose predefined digital forms; speculative discourse based on critical thought; online mode of lecture performance, etc. This paper thus opens the possibility to transpose and integrate the concepts and techniques of desktop documentary, primarily marked by avant-garde and experimental traits, into the creative methods of conducting the online teaching process – and eventually, after the termination of the pandemic, to preserve and expand them within the physical spaces of schools, colleges and universities.