The reason why the camera has taken such a prominent role in this exposition, can be traced back to a series of factors: a) my approach in designing performance laboratories in conjunction with the camera, b) my research emphasis on performance documentation and filmmaking which requires the use of a camera and c) the (unexpected) encounter with the Hasselblad Memorial which stands for the technological progress of cameras. All these factors have contributed to considering the already mentioned “co-presence” of a camera as an interface between the site-specific engagement with a place and its mediation and/or translation process. While this has implied dealing with the camera in an embodied rather than technical way, I was also confronted with a series of new implications, which according to Susanne Foellmer, point to the idea that:
Thinking about transfer in the performing arts is embedded in an ongoing discourse about the frictions of moving from one medium to another, from body to image, or from movement to text, as well as in questions regarding the losses occurred in the process of change.1
Inspired by this, I became increasingly interested in thinking more carefully about both the documentation and cinematographic process, especially in terms of acquiring an own agency over the images that I want to create and, potentially, assemble in the editing suite. A process which nonetheless requires to (re)think what a camera may bring forth for not only creating a visual language, but also for generating an artistic and/or research outcome. In doing so, my approach to explore screen performance as research seeks to grapple with the questions related to the media transfer from site-specific performance to moving and/or still images while engaging in a playful way with the camera. In short, while using the camera as an artistic research tool to trigger, disrupt, challenge, intervene, or reveal what happens (or might happen) within the space of the image.
References:
Bravo, Luisa. “Public Life and urban humanities: Beyond the ideal city”. In Filming the City: Urban Documents, Design Practices and Social Criticism Through the Lens, edited by Edward M. Clift, Mirko Guaralda, and Ari Mattes, 205-222. Bristol/Chicago: Intellect, 2016.
Dancyger, Ken. The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. 3rd edition. New York: Focal Press, 2002.
Eades, Caroline and Papazian, Elizabeth A. “Cinéma-vérité and Kino-pravda: Rouch, Vertov and the Essay Form”. InThe Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia, edited by Caroline Eades, and Elizabeth A. Papazian, 86-124. London/New York: Wallflower Press, 2016.
Eder, Jens. “Understanding Characters”, Projections 4 (New York), no. 1 (2010): 16-40. https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2010.040103.
Fahle, Oliver, “Mockumentary – Eine Theorie“. In Durchbrochene Ordnungen: Das Dokumentarische der Gegenwart, edited by Friedrich Balek, Oliver Fahle and Annette Urban, 83-102. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020.
Greenhalgh, Cathy. “Cinematography: Practice as Research, Research into Practice”. In Screen Production Research: Creative Practice as a Mode of Enquiry, edited by Craig Batty and Susan Kerrigan, 143-160. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Hight, Craig. “Shoot, Edit, Share: Cultural Software and User-Generated Documentary Practice”. In New Documentary Ecologies Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses, edited by Kate Nash, Craig Hight, and Catherine Summerhayes, 219-236. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Koslowski, Benjamin. “The mediating city: Towards a mise-en-scéne for interaction online”. In Filming the City: Urban Documents, Design Practices and Social Criticism Through the Lens, edited by Edward M. Clift, Mirko Guaralda, and Ari Mattes, 223-243. Bristol/Chicago: Intellect, 2016.
Landrum, Lisa. “Architects of Playtime: Cities as social media in the work of Jacques Tati”. In Filming the City: Urban Documents, Design Practices and Social Criticism Through the Lens, edited by Edward M. Clift, Mirko Guaralda, and Ari Mattes, 61-78. Bristol/Chicago: Intellect, 2016.
Murch, Walter. In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1995.
Spatz, Ben. Making A Laboratory: Dynamic Configurations with Transversal Video. Advanced Methods, Punctum books: Open access, 2020.