Capturing Intimacy: Translating Intimate Moments in Film

Kerstin Parth

The aim of this arts-based research project was to examine the translation of intimacy in film and to create a transparency for the accompanying artistic decision-making processes. The research focus was to explore the processes involved in the production of moments of intimacy from an inter- and transdisciplinary perspective, and to study the contexts in which intimate moments are "translated" into moving images. Within this context, this project was particularly concerned with filmmakers' experiential knowledge about creating intimate moments within an artistic framework by employing different technologies and staging them in different ways, as well as with asking how this attributes meaning to these intimate moments. The framework of this research project includes an inter- and transdisciplinary workshop aimed at initiating a dialogue and exchange of knowledge between theory and practice. This workshop aimed to reflect together on the artistic (subjective creative) decision-making processes, to hone the research questions and lay the foundation for the artistic research that took place in the FILM LAB (film research laboratory). The establishment of a FILM LAB served as an innovative and open research space in which filmic translation and decision-making processes could be observed and rendered comprehensible by employing a "slow-motion procedure". In particular, the FILM LAB aimed to highlight the complexity of intimacy and sound out specific processes of translation by employing and reflecting various artistic and technical means and methods.

4. Conclusion

Project Team:
Claudia Walkensteiner-Preschl (project leader)
Kerstin Parth, Ilona Toller, Alexander Mahler
Film Academy Vienna, mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna)

Project Phase:
2014-2016

The adoption of a cross-disciplinary method for the work done within the framework of the research project, a method at the intersection of theory and practice, made it possible to delve into the topic of intimacy from a theoretical, reflective perspective and from an artistic perspective as well. The great openness that the project strived to achieve left the students free to find their own approaches to the concept of intimacy. It was desired that they should experiment freely: with their own notions of intimacy, with cinematic forms and means of story-telling. This “thinking movement” is particularly well summarized in the words of participant Achmed Abdel-Salam:

The Film Lab has encouraged [me] to dare to experiment in the future as well. Perhaps to make a greater effort to put aside the fear of failure. And it has opened my eyes to the fact that something exciting can emerge when we come together to set our energies free, when we keep an open attitude and go about our research with sincere curiosity. Also, when we embark on a path without knowing exactly where it will lead.

References:

Walter Benjamin, 'Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers', in Gesammelte Schriften. Bd. IV 1, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1991), pp. 9-21.
Lauren Berlant, Intimacy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Kunst des Forschens. Praxis eines ästhetischen Denkens, ed. by Bippus, Elke (Zürich, Berlin: Diaphanes, 2009).
Lynn Jamieson, Intimacy. Personal relationships in modern societies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).
François Jullien, Vom Intimen. Fern der lärmenden Liebe (Wien: Turia & Kant, 2014).

Dziga Vertov, 'Über die Organisation eines schöpferischen Laboratoriums', in Schriften zum Film (München: Hanser, 1973), pp. 58-63.

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