Dirty/Queer/Green/City by Patrick Kelly and Stayci Taylor

This film examines how queer smartphone practices can be used to explore notions of the ‘dirty green city’; forging new relationships between queer people and the environment. We propose that creative engagement with queer ecology can generate a ‘loud cry, recognised through the biochemical discovery of molecular memory and multispecies entanglement’ (Steele, Davison & Reed 2020, p.251). We draw on our expertise in remote collaboration, improvisation, and essaying exhibited in our previous projects – such as mani-pedi-anti-counter-festo for a queer screen production practice (Taylor, Kelly, Munro & Black 2022), Between the Cracks (Black, Kelly, Munro & Taylor 2023), What’s with your Nails? (Kelly 2018), and Give Me Faces and Streets (Kelly 2016); drawing inspiration from visual ecological artists such as Derek Jarman and Miranda July. More-than-human ‘pets’ (dogs), wild animals (birds), strange flora (colloquial tied-up bundles of sticks…!), and other discoveries ‘in the wild’ provide inspiration for locating – and explicating – queerness in nature. The project embraces improvisation, collaborative co-presence, and everyday moments through smartphone practices to create new audio, visuals, and screenplays. We advance playful innovations in mobile screenwriting beyond mere notetaking (Batty and Taylor 2018) – screenplays give voice to little critters. The visuals are composited in a drifting style that takes inspiration from the desktop film or screenlifer approach. By embracing the affordances of smartphones, we present a work that combines mobile soundscapes, videos, still images, text messages, and screenplays that improvise and interact; layering these materials in the creation of a smartphone essay that ultimately demonstrates how the queerness of ecologies can be observed and illuminated through queer screen production.

Dirty/Queer/Green/City by Patrick Kelly and Stayci Taylor

This film examines how queer smartphone practices can be used to explore notions of the ‘dirty green city’; forging new relationships between queer people and the environment. We propose that creative engagement with queer ecology can generate a ‘loud cry, recognised through the biochemical discovery of molecular memory and multispecies entanglement’ (Steele, Davison & Reed 2020, p.251). We draw on our expertise in remote collaboration, improvisation, and essaying exhibited in our previous projects – such as mani-pedi-anti-counter-festo for a queer screen production practice (Taylor, Kelly, Munro & Black 2022), Between the Cracks (Black, Kelly, Munro & Taylor 2023), What’s with your Nails? (Kelly 2018), and Give Me Faces and Streets (Kelly 2016); drawing inspiration from visual ecological artists such as Derek Jarman and Miranda July. More-than-human ‘pets’ (dogs), wild animals (birds), strange flora (colloquial tied-up bundles of sticks…!), and other discoveries ‘in the wild’ provide inspiration for locating – and explicating – queerness in nature. The project embraces improvisation, collaborative co-presence, and everyday moments through smartphone practices to create new audio, visuals, and screenplays. We advance playful innovations in mobile screenwriting beyond mere notetaking (Batty and Taylor 2018) – screenplays give voice to little critters. The visuals are composited in a drifting style that takes inspiration from the desktop film or screenlifer approach. By embracing the affordances of smartphones, we present a work that combines mobile soundscapes, videos, still images, text messages, and screenplays that improvise and interact; layering these materials in the creation of a smartphone essay that ultimately demonstrates how the queerness of ecologies can be observed and illuminated through queer screen production.

Filmmakers

Filmmakers

Patrick Kelly

Patrick Kelly is Senior Lecturer at RMIT. He is a filmmaker, media producer and artist, currently working on a documentary film project about Honcho Disko, an inclusive queer performance night, and exploring notions of identity, belonging and community in and around queer documentary film practice.

Stayci Taylor

Stayci Taylor is Senior Lecturer at RMIT. She brings to her research an ongoing practice in screenwriting, script editing and performance. She is the co-editor of two books on script development, and one on creative writing methods. Publications include works in TEXT, New Writing and the Journal of Screenwriting.