PhD Proposal – Transart-Plymouth -
Simon Pope/Deborah Robinson - 15 sept – 2nd draft
Emilio
Chapela
Project Title:
New materialism as filmmaking
Summary:
This practice led-research investigates
how to develop a filmmaking practice that allows
to engage actively with the phenomena interacting around astronomical
observatories in the Atacama Desert in Chile and at the top of an extinguished
volcano in Mexico: I aim to develop tools (film/recording, montage, post-production and screening) suggested by the
interaction –and movement– of the intricate material entities present at the
observatories like geophysical forces, light, weather, climate,
technology, architecture, geology, plants, animals and human participants like
astronomers and engineers.
The research departs from ‘new materialism’
critical thinking of Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, Manuel De Landa among others
to explore methodologies that suggest a comprehensive material filmmaking
practice.
Description (max. 600 words):
This practice led-research departs from
‘new materialism’ thinking (Dolphijn & Tuin 2012) to develop an art practice –based on film-making– that engages in a comprehensive way with the material entities (human
and non-human) interacting around astronomical observatories in sites like the
Atacama Desert in Chile and at the top of an extinguished volcano in Mexico.
To establish a ‘direct
material engagement’ as described by ‘new materialism’, it is important to recognize the various heterogeneous material practices interacting
with each-other: light coming from outer space, time, people, climate, weather,
flora, fauna, geology, architecture, etc. I will explore ways, to keep track of
this complex ecology of material entities, not to classify or represent them,
but to map cartographically the non-linear connections between them. “New
materialism is fascinated by affect, force, and movement as it travels in all
directions.” (Dolphijn & Tuin 2012)
I aim to investigate into ‘new
materialism’ framework to suggest filmmaking techniques to engage actively in the intricate phenomena around the observatories:
How to engage with the sites both in time and space with the use of the camera?
How this interaction is defined epistemologically and ontologically,
considering that filmmaking is (like astronomy) inherently a time-based and
light-based practice?
These powerful observatories, like the
one built at the Atacama desert in Chile, an array of more than 60
radio-telescope antennas, or the observatories on top an extinguished volcano
in Mexico, are located in remote places away from major human settlements,
light and sound contamination. I will document with the architecture, the
surroundings and the geophysical forces interacting at the sites, learn about
astronomy, perform observations and engage in discussions with astronomers. I
aim to engage with these material agencies through filmmaking, a media that
according to theorists like Jussi Parikka, Durham Peters, and Friedrich Kittler
can be –as all media– the way “by which humans and things, animals and data,
hold together in time and space” (Peters 2015).
By ‘looking’ far away into the
universe we are also ‘gazing’ into the past. “Telescopes are machines of time
travel as of space-spanning” (Peters 2003). Light travels across space
and time to reach us, and the consequences of this inevitable material fact
explains the lack of simultaneity of events in the Universe explained by
Einstein’s special relativity theory and described by J. Peters as an
‘elongated now’ (Peters 2015). What filmmaking practices can be suggested from this ‘relativity
of simultaneity’ and ‘elongated now’ in terms of film duration, synchronization
and montage?
As K. Barad explains, time is not
universally given, it is “articulated and re-synchronized through various
material practices” (Dolphijn & Tuin 2012). Recording, editing, post-production and screening are time-based
practices that I will explore as techniques to re-articulate time. Among other
things, I will record using different frame-rates, slow down or fasten the
image, use montage techniques to re-configure time or present the work in a
multi-screen setting showing different forces (and temporalities)
simultaneously, like in the work of Harun Farocki (Deep Play 2007)
I’ll investigate into other film practices
inspired by ‘materialism’ or ‘new materialism’ thinking. Including the
‘materialism/structuralism’ of Peter Gidal’s films and literature. He, among
others like Malcolm De Grice, Bill Morrison and Peter Delpeut, support
non-illusionist film techniques rooted deep into the material qualities of the
film (celluloid), the montage (cutting and gluing film) and the act of filming
itself (light trapped inside the camera). Not in an effort to oppose them, but
to use them as a departure point, I aim to develop a filmmaking practice that engages
directly with the sites as an ontological and epistemological tool to interact
with ‘reality’, as a tool of ‘entanglement’ with the ‘world’. For example, like
in the work of Francis Alÿs and some films by James Benning.
Research question/s:
How to develop an art film practice
that emerges from ‘new materialism’ thinking?
How to engage through filmmaking in the
ecology of material entities around astronomical observatories?
Methodology:
I will
put together a methodology composed of theoretical and technical methods that
allow me to establish a continuous flow between the writing and the practice. The
writing will provide an account of the material entities interacting with each other
(an ecology of voices) while the filmmaking practice will aim to show the
movement between them. Based on the thinking of Manuel de Landa (DeLanda
2015) the writing can account for the
virtual/potential (possibilities of change), while the film practice will show
the ‘actualization’ of those possibilities. I will establish a dynamic where
site experimentation and critical ideas report back and forward between them.
This ‘onto-epistemological’
movement is desirable, just in the same way as a solid communication between
theoretical and experimental physics is fundamental.
I will
learn from ‘new materialism’ thinking to explore ideas like Karen Barad’s concepts
of ‘diffraction’, intra-action and agential realism, to translate them to
filmmaking practice. Diffraction is an interesting concept (appropriated from
optics) that has a special inherent relevance both in the practice of astronomy
and filmmaking. I will explore how to use it, as a conceptual tool to engage at
the sites and as technical filmmaking device (diffraction using optics, duration,
infrared cinematography, drone cinematography, etc.) I will investigate into
the work of Manuel De Landa, Donna Haraway, Alfred Whitehead and others to
inform further my understanding of ‘new materialism’ and how to ‘diffract’ it into
filmmaking.
I will
investigate into the history of theory and practice of montage to find
strategies to develop a comprehensive filmmaking practice that responds to the
complexity and variety of forces interacting at the site. Aiming at a
multi-channel montage strategy might be useful to present different forces and
material entities stamped with their own temporalities. I need to develop a
montage technique (a time-base practice) that allows me to keep up with the
ecology of time at the site: I will explore different ways to alter time like
time-lapse, slow motion, ellipsis, still-photography, real-time or live
transmission.
In an
effort to engage in a film practice involved intrinsically with human and non-human
participants (as opposed to a distanced objectivity, I will borrow tools and
concepts from anthropology and ethnography to engage with the sites, perform
interviews and take part in the phenomena.
Dolphijn, R. & Tuin, I. van der, 2012. New Materialism:
Interviews & Cartographies. New Metaphysics.
Peters,
J.D., 2003. Space Time and Communication Theory. Canadian Journal of
Communication, 28, pp.397–411. Available at:
papers2://publication/uuid/03AF4ED3-30F4-4670-960E-EF1CFE76A7D3.
Peters,
J.D., 2015. The marvelous clouds : toward a philosophy of elemental media,
University of Chicago Press.
Initial Bibliography
DeLanda, M., 2015. The New Materiality. Architectural
Design, 85(5), pp.16–21.
Dolphijn, R. & Tuin, I. van der, 2012. New
Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. New Metaphysics.
Gidal, P., 1978. Structural Film Anthology,
British Film Institute.
Latour, B., 1993. We Have Never Been Modern,
Nimkulrat, N. & Helsinki, D., 2007. The Role of
Documentation in Practice-Led. , 3(1), pp.1–8.
Palecek, M. & Risjord, M., 2012. Relativism and the
Ontological Turn within Anthropology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences,
43(1), pp.3–23. Available at:
http://pos.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/0048393112463335.
Parikka, J., 2012. New Materialism as Media Theory: Medianatures
and Dirty Matter. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 9(1),
pp.95–100.
Peters, J.D., 2003. Space Time and Communication Theory.
Canadian Journal of Communication, 28, pp.397–411. Available at:
papers2://publication/uuid/03AF4ED3-30F4-4670-960E-EF1CFE76A7D3.
Pope, S., Phil, D. & Art, F., 2015. Who Else
Takes Part? Oxford.
Anon, 2013. Carnal knowledge: towards a “new
materialism” through the arts,
Peters, J.D., 2015. The marvelous clouds : toward a
philosophy of elemental media, University of Chicago Press.
Barad, K.M., 2007. Meeting the universe halfway :
quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning, Duke University
Press.
Parikka, J., 2015. A geology of media, University
of Minnesota Press.
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