OUT OF FIELD: Cartographies of memory and oblivion

OUT OF FIELD

Cartographies of memory and oblivion

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Course Instructor: Alba Giménez

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ONLINE COURSE — May 2023

4 sessions / Tuesdays 9; 16; 23; 30 — 6pm - 9pm (GMT)

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Early Bird Fee [see below]

:: Special discounts to Archivo Membership Plans

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In this course, we will focus on the role of images in the narration of history, mainly in documentary practices (film and photography) but also in fiction film. We will use four main examples as a starting point: Harun Farocki’s "Transmission", Salomé Lamas’ "Extinction", "Cantares de una revolución" by Ramón Lluis Bande and "Cemetery of Splendour" by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. However, we will also expand on a constellation of artists and references beyond the examples mentioned above. There is a fundamental element in common in all these practices: all of them place a very strong emphasis on what remains off-camera, or out-of-field. Their approach to historical facts is not very literal or explicit, but rather, there is always an oblique reading of such facts, in a way that absence and disappearance become significant elements in the narrative.   

According to Deleuze, what stays out of field can be understood as something that remains outside of the frame. However, it can also be conceived as a plane of reality that encompasses a series of affects and experiential dimensions which can neither be measured or mapped, nor directly grasped by any photographic or cinematic image: something that is no longer a visible, palpable and evident. It can be a “disturbing presence” which we cannot fully see or understand, as if it were a “white-on-white which is impossible to film”. Understood this way, the out-of-field is particularly suitable for speaking about memory as a poignant yet indeterminate experience. On the other hand, the notion of memory we take as a starting point does not correspond to nostalgia, but to an idea of the past coexisting in the present, having the capacity of disrupting certain imaginaries in order to produce new forms of sensibility and engagement.

Session 1. “The granite will remember”: 'Transmission' and Memorial Culture  

The statement “the granite will remember” summarizes what Transmission (2007) is about: the memory of place and, most importantly, the memory of gesture, or the capacity it has to recall lost ones or invisible forces. Through the evocative power of certain sites and rituals, we will deepen into the representation of memorial culture within different forms of film and documentary practices.   

Session 2. The Non-site as a Space of Remembrance: Poetics of Displacement in 'Extinction' 

In this case, the focus will be placed on how memories can be conveyed by certain sites that are not monuments, but spaces of displacement. Liminal spaces, or spaces on the edge of disappearance, like, for example, the breakaway state of Transnistria, which appears in Lamas’ film. Such spaces, however, are capable of making palpable a sense of absence and loss parallel to that of their own dissolution.  

Session 3. Utterances of memory: History and oral story-telling in 'Cantares de una 'Revolución' 

Cantares de una Revolución revives the Revolution of Asturias (1934) through the popular songs being sung in that context. In this session, we will focus on this and other examples that refer to popular forms of storytelling (amongst others, music) as a means of making an indirect recount of historical facts.  

Session 4. Magic realism as historical narrative in 'Cemetery of Splendour' 

In this last session we will take a fiction film as a starting point. This film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul uses magic realism in order to speak about Thailand’s history.  Thus fantasy is not an escape from reality but a means to engage with it from a parallel sphere. Oneirism, parables and other figures constitute a way to understand the past from a poetic perspective.

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ABOUT THE TUTOR

Alba Giménez holds a PhD from the European Centre for Documentary Research, University of South Wales. She  graduated in Fine Arts (Universitat de Barcelona) and completed a Masters Degree in Philosophy (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia). She lectured at USW, UNED, Open University of Catalonia and University of Girona. She has several publications concerning the areas of media studies, contemporary philosophy and cinema. She has also co-organized and participated in international conferences and academic symposia. Alba encompasses her academic work with educational projects and activities at art centres in Barcelona (Museu Picasso, Fundació Tàpies, CaixaFòrum).

Cover Image: Transmission, frame, by Harun Farocki.