Tuesday 27 November 2012

On ’Tangibility’ and Relocating Cinema: NECSUS #2, Autumn 2012

To celebrate the new issue of NECSUS on tangibility, above is a reposting of TOUCHING THE FILM OBJECT? by Catherine Grant. Also see version with audio commentary

[A] media, singular, is not just its medium – it is not only a support or a device. A media is also and foremost a cultural form; it is defined by the way in which it puts us in relation with the world and with others, and therefore by the type of experience that it activates. By experience, I mean both a confrontation with reality (to gain experience) and the capacity to manage this relation and to give it meaning (to have experience). From its very beginnings, cinema has been based on the fact that it offers us moving images through which we may reconfigure the reality around us and our own position within it. Cinema has always been a way of seeing and a way of living – a form of sensibility and a form of understanding. [Francesco Casetti, 'The relocation of cinema', NECSUS, Issue 2, Autumn 2012]
A great second issue of NECSUS, the brilliant journal of NECS, the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies has been published. It boasts some superlative articles including Francesco Casetti's must-read article from which Film Studies For Free has excerpted above.

For those interested in hapticity, and our experience of the material properties of film, there's a very special section on that topic.

All in all (and all the contents are directly linked to below), some truly wonderful work. Well done and thank you NECSUS!

Editorial Necsus

Articles:
Special Section: Tangibility

Festival Reviews:
Edited by Marijke de Valck and Skadi Loist of the Film Festival Research Network

Book Reviews:

Exhibition Reviews:

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Very interesting view of cinema. I love films since I was young but films made here in Australia are few and far between. I work in Strathfield and often try to catch a film or two at the local cinema. Most of it is Hollywood garbage but there are gems in some of the independent films. I think films are like a storage of culture and should be respected as such. Look at old black and white films and you can know so much about the sensibilities of the people of that time, or look at films from Japan and Hong Kong and you understand straightaway the struggles or triumphs they feel. I just hope they have better storage facilities for old films before we lose them.