Reflecting on Time and Space
Asynchronous Session
Pastoral Pacifism: Terrence Malick’s "A Hidden Life", the Sublime, and the Shadow of Kierkegaard View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session William Quade
Utilizing Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s essay “Has a Man the Right to Let Himself Be Put to Death for the Truth?”, my paper showcases director Terrence Malick’s deeply conflicted interpretation of this dilemma in his latest film, A Hidden Life through his use of overpowering pastoral imagery. While Kierkegaard believed that no man has the right to put themselves to death merely for the sake of “the truth”, Malick breaks from Kierkegaard’s conclusion by informing World War II conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter’s ultimate decision to sacrifice his life as one deeply indebted both to a spiritually infused romantic love and a tremendous humbling in the presence of the sublime pastoral. Combining Malick’s interpretation of Kierkegaard and the tenets of Edward Said’s concept of “late style”, I conclude that Malick presents the timeless pastoral as the canvas for a grand synthesis of political, romantic, and spiritual searching through the simultaneous foregrounding of both nature and man in imagery throughout the film. In A Hidden Life, Malick’s signature filmic images of natural beauty reach a sublime that is at once ennobling and terrifying; mirroring Jägerstätter’s own frightened transcendence from his corporeal form as he forgoes his earthly existence for the sake of a genuine, fundamental truth in the face of monstrous evil.
Photographs – Their Evidential Power Beyond Content: How Archive Photographs Re-enter Our Lives in Meaningful Ways View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Greg Leach
My ongoing PhD research is an investigation of the role of subjectivity in the response to photographs. It is predicated on the belief that conventional theoretical exposition cannot encompass the complexity, fluidity and particularity of a viewing event, or an extended ‘relationship’ with an image or set of images. A key part of the research is a creative critical thesis entitled 'Ornaments of Forgetting', which charts my intellectual and emotional engagement with an archive of slide photographs inherited from my father in 2017, mainly consisting of family and travel pictures taken in the 1960s and 70s. At the core of the work is a chapter that focuses on the relationship between a fleeting childhood event that, for me, marked the onset of a period of serious mental illness in my mother, and a set of contemporaneous photographs taken by my father (travelling in eastern Europe at the time) that are ostensibly unrelated to this disturbing encounter. I discuss how these images become quasi-documents of something entirely unrelated to their content, and how this displaced corroborative effect is nevertheless based on the ‘truth currency’ of analogue photographs, their causal, indexical relation to reality. My analysis is meta-theoretical: it is ‘theory’ that operates within the specifics of my circumstances, and is reliant upon the pictures’ non-literal, yet asymbolic, properties, as perceived by me. Structurally, I begin with an image–text version of this experience (using half-remembered dialogue and my father's images) from which the key points will be elucidated and contextualised.
The Devouring Feline and the Overpowered Cultural Other: Fighting Images Cast in Metal from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age of China View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Peng Peng
In Spring 2021, I was invited by the Art Museum in the Chinese University of Hong Kong to lead a curatorial project, “Cast for Dignity: Early Chinese Garment Hooks from the De-Neng-Tang Collection.” A compelling hook in the warehouse immediately captured my attention. This hook is cast in iron, gigantic, measuring 25.5 centimeters in length, and six centimeters in width. Its crest carries a slightly worn figurine, usually called a “dragon,” yet its resemblance to the acknowledged horse motif may alert the potential abuse of this taken-for-granted term. Having said that, nobody would deny the clearly “Chinese” aura of such a solemn zoomorphic head modelled in the round and inlaid with gold and silver. When looking at the representational patterns on the surface of the hook body, however, the sheer indigenous tonality declines: overpowered by an aggressive tiger is a swordsman with markedly non-Chinese look, perhaps a Steppic fighter. My visual memories were thereupon aroused, bringing me a few comparable hooks and a multitude of relevant artifacts. This paper reviews the authenticity of this intriguing iron hook and relevant images witnessing the most profound artistic revolution in early Chinese history.
Modern Pandora's Boxes: The Photo Camera and the Duality Between Progress and Barbarism in the Construction of History View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joao Pedro de Azevedo Machado Mota
Pandora's Box was a gift given by Zeus to the first mortal woman created. But it contained one condition: it was never to be opened. Knowing of Pandora's curiosity, Zeus planned to take revenge on mankind for the knowledge gained from the fire stolen from Olympus by the titan Prometheus. Pandora opened the vessel and all the evils were released into humanity, leaving only hope at its bottom. To what extent could we consider cameras, like the box in Pandora's myth, as programmed precursors that arouse our curiosity, since they are not easily decipherable? If the "opening" of this new box led humanity to build all the other programmed machines that create the cultural goods of our time, inspired by its prototype, what progress and barbarism would these new Pandora's Boxes have unleashed in modernity? Through a dialectical-methodological reflection on the object, our theoretical framework articulates the dialogue between the Benjaminian concepts of technical reproducibility and the loss of the aura of the work of art in favor of the value of its maximum exposure; and the Flusserian concept of technical images, which accelerated the emergence of the other Flusserian concept of "black boxes" loaded with an opacity inherent to their programming. How much of the decryption of such a box would have the potential to release knowledge to the world; how much of that knowledge has been used for destruction, inequality, and alienation; and how much hope would remain from its decryption for the benefit of humanity?
Image, Time, Message, and the Spectator View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francisco Mesquita
We live awash in images that permanently pulverize our eyes. Wherever we are, they are present, they seduce and imprison us, assuming the most varied formats, languages and expressions, sometimes informing, freeing and amusing, sometimes, in the opposite direction, hiding, deceiving and manipulating. Conventional and, more recently, digital media are the great arenas of the image, an image that can be everything, a mirror of what we are and think, realizations, paradoxes and ambitions, reflecting dreams and desires that lead us towards the future. The image, an essential landscape of our lives, “became at the same time discourse, industry, a product that is consumed, a myth that is fought” Cazeneuve (1992, p. 143). The image is metaphor, metonymy, allegory, ellipse, hyperbole, tautology... Image is the society of the spectacle of the spectacle (Debord, 2003). What is the image really? Does it still seduce us into understanding the world? Having elaborated a certain diachronic analyses of the image, we present some images that are situated between photography and cinema (static image vs moving image), images with another time, with the particularity of interacting with the receiver. We want to think about the present that is already the future, with environmental causes as a message
Changing Cinematic Image: The Representation of Belfast After the Good Friday Agreement View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ece Sila Bora
This paper explores the cinematic depiction of Belfast following the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which marked a significant turning point in the city's history. It examines how Belfast has evolved from being portrayed as a city marked by alienation, confusion, and violence during the Troubles (1960s to 1998) to a city of reconciliation and development. Many films in this period, such as Divorcing Jack (1998), With or Without You (1999) and The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (1999) have portrayed the city as a neutral place with the display of modern architectural complexes, commercial activities and renovation, all contributing to the creation of an image eluded from the past conflicts. These attempts have had a significant impact on the public perception of Belfast by countering stereotypes associated with the Troubles era and inspiring hope for a shared future. They have raised awareness about the city's efforts to transform itself, fostering a sense of revitalisation. The new image of Belfast also laid the foundation for the city's breakthrough as a touristic destination and a location for film production in the subsequent years. By elaborating on these points, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of how cinematic representations of Belfast have played a pivotal role in this transformation and how they have contributed to the development of a new city image. By doing so, it offers an understanding of the broader role of cinema in reshaping urban narratives and reimagining cities.
