As part of my research, I often swap soundtracks of similar scenes in order to see what this de-familiarization might reveal about the characteristics of the audiovisual relationship. These video notes* are usually just temporary tools of my process. But as a result of our latest workshop with Miklós Kiss, Catherine Grant and Kevin B. Lee where we also discussed the value of video notes and doodles, I decided to add some basic annotations and release it in its current form.

 

HER (Jonze, 2013) and BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) each contain a scene in which an artificial woman attempts to synchronize her «appearance» with a «real» woman in order to simulate a physical relationship with her lover. In BLADE RUNNER 2049, the virtual woman synchronizes her body with that of a prostitute but remains largely silent while in HER, the artificial woman is only present via in-ear voice-over.

*I consider this a «video note» as I barely scratch the surface of all there is to unpack in these two scenes and their side-by-side comparison.