What do you think?
Radical Film, Art and Digital Media for Societies in Turmoil
Can radical film practices help to understand a disintegrating world? Can they have a healing effect? How can we maintain structures of solidarity in the field of radical media production for societies in turmoil and transition? And what does radical cultural practice look like in times such as ours, when everywhere we turn there seem to lurk even more acute challenges?
Edited by members of the Berlin chapter of the International Radical Film Network, this collection investigates practices of audio-visual production that act on and struggle with the conditions of our time. The contributions were created by film practitioners, artists, activists, as well as academics and critics, who all share a commitment to experimentation and insist on a pluriversal rethinking of the image in radical film, art and digital media.
Edited by members of the Berlin chapter of the International Radical Film Network, this collection investigates practices of audio-visual production that act on and struggle with the conditions of our time. The contributions were created by film practitioners, artists, activists, as well as academics and critics, who all share a commitment to experimentation and insist on a pluriversal rethinking of the image in radical film, art and digital media.
504 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 16, 2024
this feels like an incredibly important collection of texts and interviews and I'm very glad to have stumbled across it while in the first semester of my masters program, and right before I start to attempt making a documentary. there are multiple texts I will be returning to over the next few years.
due to the vast majority of texts being so excellent, when there is an outlier, it sticks out like a sore thumb. it is unfortunate that the editors included the text by coeditor böckler and her partner graw, as it is anything but radical and instead tone-deaf self-pity party.
to deny one the ability to take your photo is an act of self autonomy; the camera is an objectifying eye, and subjects who have historically been submitted to the role of object under the gaze of the camera now have the radical ability to refuse visual representation at the hands of others and can self-represent how they see fit. so yes, of course pictures that one takes of themselves are still accepted - i would argue that self portraiture has always been a radical act, especially when done by those whose agency is denied, and it is interesting to consider how the selfie-lens has altered the tradition of self-portraiture. I think the conversation between Kia Yee Ang, Kathryn Lofton and KEIKEN found shortly earlier in the book touches upon this in interesting ways. additionally and in relation to this topic, I am confused as to what the duo means in their quip 'the discussion about the right to image has simply swapped object and subject.' - what is simple about this? how has the discussion swapped the two? this statement, like many others in the short essay, are suspended in the air without any further extrapolation or reasoning, leaving readers attempting to grasp at what the two authors might mean by their inflamatory statements.
furthermore, with how images function in our digital age and how quickly and expansively images get disseminated, it is powerful to refuse being captured and disseminated, and it is also a way to keep oneself safe. thinking about how people film and photograph others in public in order to push a nefarious political or social agenda; last summer at an open concert in bremen when my partner and her band performed, there were many young queer people dancing in the audience, and forming a ring on the outside were bystanders jeering at and filming the queer audience and perfomers. during the same performance, an older man entered the queer audience with a small digital camera and began taking lewd photos of the young femme queer people in the audience and my partner on stage, zooming in on their breasts and legs. our agency and safety was put into jepoardy through image-making. this antedote makes me turn to the stomach-churning statement made by böckler and graw: 'everyone has the right to their own image. but which image is that? is it the image that i see or is it the image that others see of me? i do not see myself, I see others. reality is not a mirror. why should someone else have rights to what i see? why should I have rights to the image that others see of me?'
I understand that an artist-s consider their 'free photography' to be vastly different than this; and in many ways it is because the intention and framing is different, but one must understand that this example contextualizes the 'aggression' 'free photographers' such as böckler and graw encounter when taking photos of strangers and the need for spaces where photography is not allowed, such as clubs like berghain (btw they also photographed in berghain and then after being called out abt it, denied the act of photograhing). and, regardless of intention, images can still be ripped out of context just like words, and the artist with their intentions can fail in the execution and depiction.
there are so many other lines in this essay which have me stumped. 'Just as one is allowed to speak or write about other people, one should also be allowed to take pictures of them.' 'Not wanting to be photographed is a szmptom of the privitisation of public space.'... I could go on.
at the end of the day, this is very expansive collection and this is one short - literally only three pages of text - text within it. the many many rest more than speak to the importance of this book and the work of the radical film collective.
due to the vast majority of texts being so excellent, when there is an outlier, it sticks out like a sore thumb. it is unfortunate that the editors included the text by coeditor böckler and her partner graw, as it is anything but radical and instead tone-deaf self-pity party.
to deny one the ability to take your photo is an act of self autonomy; the camera is an objectifying eye, and subjects who have historically been submitted to the role of object under the gaze of the camera now have the radical ability to refuse visual representation at the hands of others and can self-represent how they see fit. so yes, of course pictures that one takes of themselves are still accepted - i would argue that self portraiture has always been a radical act, especially when done by those whose agency is denied, and it is interesting to consider how the selfie-lens has altered the tradition of self-portraiture. I think the conversation between Kia Yee Ang, Kathryn Lofton and KEIKEN found shortly earlier in the book touches upon this in interesting ways. additionally and in relation to this topic, I am confused as to what the duo means in their quip 'the discussion about the right to image has simply swapped object and subject.' - what is simple about this? how has the discussion swapped the two? this statement, like many others in the short essay, are suspended in the air without any further extrapolation or reasoning, leaving readers attempting to grasp at what the two authors might mean by their inflamatory statements.
furthermore, with how images function in our digital age and how quickly and expansively images get disseminated, it is powerful to refuse being captured and disseminated, and it is also a way to keep oneself safe. thinking about how people film and photograph others in public in order to push a nefarious political or social agenda; last summer at an open concert in bremen when my partner and her band performed, there were many young queer people dancing in the audience, and forming a ring on the outside were bystanders jeering at and filming the queer audience and perfomers. during the same performance, an older man entered the queer audience with a small digital camera and began taking lewd photos of the young femme queer people in the audience and my partner on stage, zooming in on their breasts and legs. our agency and safety was put into jepoardy through image-making. this antedote makes me turn to the stomach-churning statement made by böckler and graw: 'everyone has the right to their own image. but which image is that? is it the image that i see or is it the image that others see of me? i do not see myself, I see others. reality is not a mirror. why should someone else have rights to what i see? why should I have rights to the image that others see of me?'
I understand that an artist-s consider their 'free photography' to be vastly different than this; and in many ways it is because the intention and framing is different, but one must understand that this example contextualizes the 'aggression' 'free photographers' such as böckler and graw encounter when taking photos of strangers and the need for spaces where photography is not allowed, such as clubs like berghain (btw they also photographed in berghain and then after being called out abt it, denied the act of photograhing). and, regardless of intention, images can still be ripped out of context just like words, and the artist with their intentions can fail in the execution and depiction.
there are so many other lines in this essay which have me stumped. 'Just as one is allowed to speak or write about other people, one should also be allowed to take pictures of them.' 'Not wanting to be photographed is a szmptom of the privitisation of public space.'... I could go on.
at the end of the day, this is very expansive collection and this is one short - literally only three pages of text - text within it. the many many rest more than speak to the importance of this book and the work of the radical film collective.
October 18, 2024
Inspiring & useful.
Not all chapters were particularly exciting, but many have at least one thing to take away that will likely influence my future work.
Also such a good idea to publish this at all & in the formatting/organization of it. Very relevant.
Not all chapters were particularly exciting, but many have at least one thing to take away that will likely influence my future work.
Also such a good idea to publish this at all & in the formatting/organization of it. Very relevant.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews