The Video-Essay the Tamed Centaur of Cyberspace: New Perspectives of Online Communication

The title of the present paper refers to a well-known article by Phillip Lopate named metaphorically “In Search of the Centaur: The Essay- Film”, published in 1992. The syntagma ‘tamed Centaur’ contains a con- tradiction in terms. The twisted new sense proposed changes the very inner form of the essay from an untamed elusive creature to a domestic one. Being an expression of freedom, the video-essay is very hard to define and even harder to be fixed in conventions. Nevertheless, the new online video- sharing environment empowers the “protean form” of the video-essay -as Lopate calls it- to have a unified voice and a proper place. If it paid the price of regularization, it could become more visible and even acknowl- edged as an effective means of communication. This article stresses the importance of using alternative ways of understanding that go beyond logocentrism and can better reflect the complexity of our communication. In this respect, the video-essay qualifies as the most appropriate form of audiovisual grammar, able to express emotions and abstract thinking in equal measure.