Film Studies For Free: On the Documentary Real - in Fiction and Documentary cinema and television

Monday, 14 March 2011

On the Documentary Real - in Fiction and Documentary cinema and television

Stella Bruzzi, 'Plenary Lecture: Approximation: Mad Men, the death of JFK and nearly history' [NOTE: Presentation begins a few minutes in after a brief 'Blooper' Reel, with some profanities...!] (Audio: Stella Bruzzi: lecture ; Video: Stella Bruzzi: questions; Audio: Stella Bruzzi: questions)

A fairly self-explanatory post from Film Studies For Free today: a collection of brilliant videos, above and below, recorded at the Documentary Real symposium which took place at October 21st, 2010 at the 'Vooruit' in Ghent, Belgium.

The main participants were Cis Bierinckx (curator, artistic director Beurshouwburg Brussels), Stella Bruzzi (film theory, University of Warwick), Edwin Carels (curator, art theory, KASK), Marc De Kesel (Philosophy, Radboud University Nijmegen, Artevelde Hogeschool Gent), Katerina Gregos (curator), Steven Jacobs (art history, KASK and Antwerp University), Vincent Meessen (artist), Jasper Rigole (artist), Avi Mograbi (Israeli filmmaker), and Duncan Speakman (artist).

So, with no further ado, here's the symposium introduction, and below that are the remainder of the videos:

The symposium 'The Documentary Real invite[d] artists and theorists to interrogate the ambiguous relation between documentary film and reality. To what extent can a reel of film capture reality—if this is possible at all—and when can we say that it calls a new reality into being? Do not most films oscillate between ‘document’ and ‘argument’; that is, between representing, rewriting and creating reality? Moreover, what strategies do artists use to document our daily lives? Is the detour through alienation and animation perhaps the proper way to make an outright and truthful work? Do new developments in technological media provide new opportunities for documentary artists? Finally, how do these artistic experiments and their problems represent the culture we live in?

Robrecht Vanderbeeken, 'Introduction' to The Documentary Real Symposium.

Katerina Gregos, 'The Elastic Documentary' (Audio: Katerina Gregos: lecture); Video: Katerina Gregos: questions; Audio: Katerina Gregos: questions)

Edwin Carels, 'Re-animating Animation' (Audio: Edwin Carels)

Steven Jacobs, 'Framing Pictures' (Audio: Steven Jacobs)

Vincent Meessen, 'CLINAMEN Cinema - the Documentary Swerve: A Performative Lecture' (NOTE: The performative lecture of Vincent Meessen included a screening of unique footage of a famous modernist architect protected by copyrights. For this reason the presentation cannot be made available online. Only the introduction and questions after the performance are shown). Audio: Vincent Meessen