Throughout the past century, many theoretical approaches have put the indexical properties of the photographic image at the center of documentary's claims to the real. In today’s discussions of social media platforms, arguments about fakery, falsity, and deception abound across genres, from political deep fakes to more “innocuous” lifestyle influencing. Remarked on are the ways platforms such as Instagram and TikTok offer mesh-ups, montages, appropriated footage, nostalgic clips, and media plucked from their original contexts. Acclaimed feature length documentaries from recent years such as Welcome to Chechnya (2020), Flee (2021), or Roadrunner (2021) also have muddied traditional documentary indexes of the real with their uses of AI, animation, and simulation tools.

The crisis in credibility brought about by the apparent disruption of the indexical bond lays bare an anxiety around many forms of fakery, which necessitates a rethinking about how representation of reality is and could be (re)generated. The anxiety proves that there is still some sort of trace of the real that has become endangered. What questions can we raise around these traces that do not center fakeness but instead theorize these traces in and of themselves? In other words, what if we explored engagement with reality that is not bound to the indexical quality of the image?

Looking at recent trends in media, this panel asks, do we need to move towards new foundational frameworks in documentary studies or is there a way to appropriate, recycle, and regenerate documentary theory itself to match today’s challenges of distinguishing fact from fiction? Simultaneously, this panel welcomes papers that call for radical new approaches to anchor documentary studies in different theories and philosophies while also inviting papers that feel the need to mourn what theories have become neglected and might be resuscitated to capture this moment of crisis and opportunity.

For more information and how to submit: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21718