A Geology of Film-fossils: The survival images across time and space in the digital era
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14591/aniki.v11n2.1057Keywords:
Materiality, fossilisation, intra-action, digital, eco-feminism, non-fiction cinemaAbstract
This article explores the relationship between the concept of fossils and contemporary non-fiction cinema. Focusing on the space-time of cinema, materiality, and eco-feminism, in the attempt to represent the natural environment, the human being is no longer at the centre of the representation. Contemporary film subjects range instead from the stones’ iconography to the image’s survival, the archive, and its activation in the digital age. By analysing selected works by contemporary film-makers – Barbara Hammer, Deborah Stratman, Ana Vaz, Adrián Balseca, Eloïse Le Gallo, Julia Borderie and many others – this research aims to cover contemporary productions from an aesthetic and narrative perspective and see how new strategies are established to represent the natural world in the Anthropocene.
References
Agamben, Giorgio. 2009. What is an Apparatus? And other essays. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Alaimo, Stacy. 2010. Bodily Natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press.
Caillois, Roger. 1986. Pierres suivi d’autres textes. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1987. La imagen-tiempo. Estudios sobre cine 2. Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós.
Derrida, Jacques. 1995. Espectros de Marx: el estado de la deuda, el trabajo del duelo y la nueva internacional. Madrid: Editorial Trotta.
Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2002. L'image survivante: Histoire de l'art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
__________. 2003. lmages malgré tout. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.
Durafour, Jean-Michel. 2018. Cinéma et cristaux. Traité d’éconologie. París: Éditions Mimésis.
Elsaesser, Thomas. 2018. European Cinema and Continental Philosophy. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Everett, Anna and Caldwell, John T. 2003. New Media. Theories and Practices of Digitextuality. London: Routledge.
Fossati, Giovanna. 2011. From Grain to Pixel: The archival life of film in transition. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1978. History of Sexuality Volume One: An introduction. New York: Random House.
Givens, Jennifer E., Huang, Xiaoruin and Jorgenson, Andrew. 2019. “Ecologically unequal exchange: A theory of global Environmental injustice”. Sociology Compass 13 (2).
Haraway, Donna. 2019. Seguir con el problema: generar parentesco en el Chthuluceno. Bilbao: Consonni.
__________. 2016. Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene. E-flux Journal (75). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/75/67125/tentacular-thinking-anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/.
Hazen, Robert. 2013. The Story of Earth: The first 4.5 billion years, from stardust to living planet. London: Penguin Publishing Group.
Huffer, Lynne. 2015. “Foucault’s fossils: Life itself and the return to nature in feminist philosophy”. Foucault Studies (20), 122-141.
Knowles, Kim. 2020. Experimental Film and Photochemical Practices. London: Macmillan.
MacDonald, Scott. 2004. “Toward an Eco-Cinema.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 11 (2): 107–132. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44086296.
Marks, Laura U. 1994. “A Deleuzian politics of hybrid cinema”. Screen (35), 244-264.
__________. 2000. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural cinema, embodiment, and the senses. Durham: Duke University Press Books.
Mulvey, Laura. 2006. Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the moving image. London: Reaktion books.
Parikka, Jussi. 2015. A Geology of Media. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
__________. 2018. “Medianatures”. ZMK Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung. Mediocene (9), 103–106. https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/18701.
Rhodes, Lis. 1979. “Whose history?” Film as film: formal experiment in film, 1910-1975. London: Hayward Gallery, 119-120.
Russell, Catherine. 2018. Archiveology. Walter Benjamin and archival film practices. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schefer, Jean Louis. 1997. Du monde et du mouvement des images. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, coll. “Essais”.
__________. 1999. Images mobiles. Recits, visages, flocons. Paris: P.O.L.
Siewert, Senta. 2020. Performing Moving Images. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Smithson, Robert. 1966. “The crystal land”. Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt papers, 1905-1987. Smithsonian Institution: Archives of American Art.
Steyerl, Hito. 2009. In Defense of the Poor Image. E-flux journal 10. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1977. Space and Place. The perspective of the experience. London: Duke University Press.
Zielinski, Siegfried. 2006. Deep Time of the Media Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Filmography
ÆQUO [16mm transfer, digital, 3D, colour, sound]. Eloïse Le Gallo and Julia Borderie. 2023. Duration: 16 minutes.
Elogio a la oscuridad [16mm transfer, colour, sound]. Adrián Balseca. 2012-2023. Duration: 15 minutes.
Last Things [16mm transfer, digital, b/w, colour, sound]. Deborah Stratman. 2023. Duration: 50 minutes.
Pine Barrens [16mm film, colour, sound]. Nancy Holt. 1975. Duration: 31 minutes, 21 seconds.
Salt Crystals Spiral Jetty Dead Sea Five-Year Film [70mm, colour, silent]. Jennifer West. 2013. Duration: 54 seconds.
Sol de Campinas [16mm transfer, colour, sound]. Jessica Sarah Rinland. 2021. Duration: 26 minutes.
Spiral Jetty [16mm, colour, sound]. Robert Smithson. 1970. Duration: 35 minutes.
Stone Circles [16mm, b/w, colour, sound]. Barbara Hammer. 1983. Duration: 11 minutes.
Sun Tunnels [16mm film, colour, sound]. Nancy Holt. United States, 1978. Duration: 26 minutes, 31 seconds.
The Age of Stone [16mm transfer, colour, sound]. Ana Vaz. 2013. Duration: 29 minutes.
The Making of the Amarillo Ramp [16mm, film, colour, sound]. Nancy Holt. 1973-2013. Duration: 31 minutes.
Those That, At a Distance, Resemble Another [16mm transfer, colour, sound]. Jessica Sarah Rinland. 2019. Duration: 67 minutes.
Utah Sequences [16mm, b/w, silent]. Nancy Holt. 1970. Duration: 10 minutes.
