Grainy image, jittery camera, awkward jump-cuts, over-exposure, etc — low-resolution becomes an emblem of the authentic — which in turn is appropriated by corporate marketing. Thus arises a thoroughly inauthentic authenticity (or should that be “true infidelity”?)

Someone ought to do a little media history of the hand-held camera. Hand-held implies subjective vision, individuality, point of view; yet to my recollection its use in corporate advertising began a bit over a decade ago, in American Express ads. Of course, the individual behind that camera is a complete fiction, the corporation having shape-shifted its way into that pose.

A pose adopted a decade earlier in MTV videos — which again came across as individual expressions, though they too were essentially marketing campaigns, and about as personal as the music companies paying for them.

And so the “personal” turned impersonal — the singular camera eyes of cinema verité and experimental film now no longer even remembered…