What changes when filmmaking is treated not as documentation but as a research method in its own right? Film is increasingly recognised as a mode of inquiry within practice-based and visual research, yet existing discussions offer limited methodological accounts of how the camera structures the production of knowledge during fieldwork. Drawing on a practice-based study conducted along the Bharathapuzha river basin in Kerala, India, this paper argues that the camera does not merely record the field but co-constitutes it through the research encounter. Following Vilém Flusser, the camera is understood as an apparatus that shapes perception and the conditions of inquiry, while Jean Rouch's participatory cinema demonstrates how filmed encounters generate knowledge through negotiation, with the camera itself becoming part of what participants respond to rather than a neutral recording device. Developed inductively from the fieldwork rather than applied to it, the paper proposes the Mediated Field Method as a methodological framework for camera-based research. The framework identifies four interrelated dimensions through which knowledge is produced: the Relational, examining how the camera reshapes encounters and redistributes visibility; the Procedural, addressing mediation through access, consent, hesitation and performance; the Epistemic, reflecting on researcher positionality and interpretive authority; and the Analytical, recognising editing and formal cinematic decisions as extensions of field negotiation. Rather than treating film as a medium for presenting findings, the paper positions filmmaking as a structured mode of inquiry and offers the Mediated Field Method as a methodological contribution to practice-based visual research and ethnographic film methodology.

Authors:
Siddharth Aredath, National Institute of Fashion Technology, India
Deep SHikha Walia, National Institute of Fashion Technology, India

About the Presenter(s)
Siddharth Aredath is Assistant Professor in the Department of Fashion Communication at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Kangra. His work spans design research, visual communication and photography, with research interests in Himal

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