BATTLEDRESS: Immersive documentary encounters

Ballin, Deborah ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1920-3022 and Genn, Rachel (2025) BATTLEDRESS: Immersive documentary encounters. In: Visible Evidence XXXI, 3 August 2025 - 7 October 2025, Temple University, Philadelphia, United States. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Theory-Practice Presentation Proposal (open call) (required) BATTLEDRESS: IMMERSIVE DOCUMENTARY ENCOUNTERS BATTLEDRESS is a multidisciplinary research project by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) academics Dr Rachel Genn of Manchester Writing School and Debbie Ballin, Senior Lecturer, Filmmaking of the School of Digital Arts (SODA). R.Genn@mmu.ac.uk, D.Ballin@mmu.ac.uk. BATTLEDRESS investigates how documentary methodologies of oral history and archive can be entwined with immersive techniques to create alternative ‘encountered’ histories of marginalised working-class communities in the North of England in the 1980’s. Building on Genn’s personal story “Streetfighting Girls’ for The New Statesman (Genn, 2021) about the social and economic pressures on girls approaching womanhood in 1980s Sheffield and exploring challenging themes of women’s violence, its relationship to power and how fashion fits with these themes, the researchers gathered oral testimonies from working class women writers reflecting on their teenage motivations for fighting and fashion choices. These narratives highlighted little-explored themes of: Place and Belonging, Plenitude, Scarcity, Vulnerability, Invincibility, Femininity, Performance and Stepping Out. With reference to the film, the Theory/Practice presentation will highlight:- How working-class stories can be aerated through a layered two-screen immersive approach to documentary storytelling where archive, audio/still and moving image ask questions of each other, perhaps constituting interactivity. How remixing amateur/ incidental little-used archive footage from youth and community projects across the North West of England in the 80’s and 90’s can reinvigorate visual narratives from and re-engage audiences with image making by young people from working class communities. How screening multiple iterations of archive alongside testimony can elicit unexpected findings and contradictions, that encourage the viewer/listener to delve into the underlying themes in the testimony. How this personal polyphonic approach can prompt original insights into the confusion around gender roles and class uncertainty that can be at the heart of teenage female violence. How experimenting with framing and eschewing a straightforward narrative can disrupt commonplace representations of grit, madness and despair whilst acknowledging the vulnerability, fragility, — but also ambitions and dreams of— the working-class teenage girl. Using our paper to navigate the praxis of immersive documentary-making, we look at how non-linearity (Vasquez-Herrero, 2012) metaphorical visual presentation and generative friction (Uricchio, 2019) ‘engendered’ by multi-form presentation might have positive effects on perceived levels of engagement and immersion in community-based non-fiction. The research findings to date have been presented in four UK Exhibitions: Festival of the Mind, Sheffield, Sept 2022, MODAL Gallery, Manchester, June 2023. The immersive documentary film has been selected for screening at Brian Eno’s Fete of Britain, Factory International, Manchester in Feb 2024 and FFS, Festival Sheffield in Nov 2024. The research findings were published in a scholarly article in, The Brazilian Creative Industries Journal Dec 2023 and presented at the BFI Creativity With Archive Symposium at The National Science and Media Museum, Bradford UK in Oct 2024. KEYWORDS: WORKING CLASS WOMEN, ORAL HISTORY, IMMERSIVE DOCUMENTARY, ARCHIVE, FASHION, FIGHTING, 1980’s, TWO-SCREEN, ORAL HISTORY, TESTIMONY, GENDER CONFUSION, MELANCHOLIC MARGINALISATION. BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY (also see links above) Ballin and Genn, 2023: BATTLEDRESS: USING IMMERSIVE DOCUMENTARY METHODS TO AERATE WORKING CLASS WOMEN’S ORAL HISTORY