Audiovisual as an Atelier. : Theoretical Framework and Educational Applications

An extensive scientific debate highlights the functions of audiovisual in media educational and teaching fields, individualizing some specific cognitive, imaginative, and emotional aspects.With respect to this debate, this article aims to introduce the idea that video could be considered as an atelier. This means to think about audiovisual as a space into which could be possible for people to build up original creations, share ideas, develop personal vision of reality. All this concerns a generative concept of video as an experiential environment. The second part of the article explains what this means and shows three possible uses of video thinking in the field of educational research, teacher training and classroom activities. The first one - synaesthetic video - explores the expressive opportunities offered by audiovisual language; the second one - metonymic video - recalls distantmeanings, narrates concepts not by direct representation but by suggestion of memory and thanks to emotions; the third one - metaphorical video - uses a language closer to poetry than to prose, with the prevalence of symbolic features.