BA (York), MA PhD (Trent)
Dissertation: Cinesthesia: A Personal Notebook on Cinema by Student X
Examining Committee:
Michael Epp (Supervisor), Jessica Marion-Barr, Mike Munn
External Examiner: Gary Kibbins (Queens)
Internal Examiner: Karleen Pendleton-Jiminez
Chair: Martin Arnold
Abstract
Cinesthesia is a hybrid research/creation dissertation whose primary form is a three-part audiovisual series, A Personal Notebook on Cinema by Student X, accompanied by essays and podcasts for self-perusal. The project explores the embodied, synaesthetic, and autobiographical dimensions of cinematic experience, weaving personal narrative, film theory, and creative
practice. Anchored in formative childhood memories—such as viewing Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Sans Soleil—the work examines how early encounters with cinema shape identity, creative drive, and the lifelong pursuit of meaning through film.
Grounded in theoretical frameworks from Vivian Sobchak to Roland Barthes, the dissertation advances the concept of the cinesthetic subject, where sensory perception and consciousness merge in spectatorship, and considers cinema as a form of writing that produces meaning through sensual engagement. Influenced by the personal documentary and essay film tradition—
referencing Chris Marker, Agnès Varda, and Alan Berliner—the narrative foregrounds the archival impulse and the transformative potential of personal filmmaking.
Through its audiovisual core and supplementary materials, the dissertation investigates the physical and emotional impact of iconic cinematic moments, memory’s recursive influence, and the generative power of a personal archive. It also addresses the politics of representation, particularly the lack of Asian and Filipino visibility in Hollywood, and the author’s evolving relationship with recognition and self-worth within the film industry.
The series, presented as a self-inscribed film, blends documentary and fiction to chart the author’s evolution from cinephile to creative agent. The accompanying reflection paper, Afterimage, situates the dissertation within broader discourses of memory, identity, and creative research, articulating the value of embodied, practice-based inquiry in expanding film studies. Ultimately, Cinesthesia proposes a cinesthetic research model privileging subjective
experience, intertextuality, and the transformative potential of personal filmmaking.
Keywords: personal documentary, cinesthetic subject, autobiographical filmmaking, film theory,
embodied spectatorship, memory and identity, representation in cinema, research/creation, essay
film, archival impulse, Chris Marker, Vivian Sobchak, Roland Barthes