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Metadata only Item type: Item , X-Ray Vision: Surface and Depth in Aldir Mendes de Souza’s O homem que descobriu o nú invisível (1973)(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Solomon, StefanAs a visual medium, cinema is an art of the surface. Bodies, objects, and environments are projected before us as two-dimensional images on the flattened surface of the screen, which provides only an impression of depth but which cannot be broached by the audience. Nevertheless, deep focus and 3D technology have sought to immerse the viewer in the world of the film, while film discourse more broadly has railed against ornamentation and superficiality in its bid to assert a certain depth of meaning. This article considers the tensions between surface and depth as they emerge in Aldir Mendes de Souza’s O homem que descobriu o nú invisível (1973), a Brazilian softcore sex comedy that makes particular use of X-ray technology for both serious and voyeuristic ends. Comparing the use of radiography in this film with the artist’s experimental work with X-rays elsewhere, this article interrogates distinctions between high and low culture, and between the literal surfaces and depths of the photographic image.Metadata only Item type: Item , Superimpositions and Vampires in Jess Franco’s Cinema(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Mendíbil, ÁlexDins del cinema fantàstic i de terror, la tècnica de superposició d'imatges ha jugat des dels seus inicis un paper fonamental a l'hora de representar allò sobrenatural. En aquest text ens centrarem en les adaptacions de Dràcula de Bram Stoker i les pel·lícules de vampirs, que a partir del Nosferatu de Murnau tenen unes peculiaritats pròpies quant a l'ús de la superposició com a efecte visual. Per aprofundir sobre l'eficàcia i els usos narratius de la tècnica compararem dues pel·lícules que adapten la novel·la des de temps i perspectives molt diferents: El comte Drácula (1970) i Els blues del vampir (1999), dirigides per Jesús Franco. Distingirem la superposició realitzada en 35 mm i la que avui permet el vídeo digital, i analitzarem les funcions que exerceix aquest recurs als nivells narratius de la història i el discurs dels dos títols.Metadata only Item type: Item , Anachronism as Temporality of Memory in the Oeuvre of Pietro Marcello: An Interview with Bertrand Bacqué(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Monterrubio Ibáñez, Lourdes; Bacqué, BertrandBertrand Bacqué, Associate Professor at the Haute École d’Art et de Design in Geneva, discusses the work of Pietro Marcello, considered to be one of the most remarkable auteurs of the contemporary essay film and its audiovisual thinking process. His focus consists of the relationship to time, and anachronism as the temporality of memory.Metadata only Item type: Item , La posición del espectador como espacio de pensamiento del film-ensayo contemporáneo: Face aux fantômes (2009) y Jaurès (2012)(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Monterrubio Ibáñez, LourdesEl presente artículo pretende realizar un análisis sobre la posición espectatorial como espacio de pensamiento del film-ensayo contemporáneo a partir del estudio comparado de dos obras francófonas: Face aux fantômes (Jean-Louis Comolli y Sylvie Lindeperg, 2009) y Jaurès (Vincent Dieutre, 2012). El dialogismo del film-ensayo, la interpelación al espectador para que produzca la auto-reflexión sobre su posición y el pensamiento crítico acerca de las imágenes mostradas se genera entonces desde la premisa de la identificación. El análisis muestra cómo Face aux fantômes ofrece un proceso de pensamiento audiovisual sobre la movilización de la mirada del espectador emancipado teorizado por Jacques Rancière, mientras que Jaurès provoca la misma reflexión desde el planteamiento opuesto: la fijación de la mirada y la representación de la pasividad espectatorial. De este modo, ambos films revelan las posibilidades de la posición del espectador como espacio epistemológico del film-ensayo contemporáneo. Metadata only Item type: Item , Share Screen: Multiple Projection, Double Exposure and Superimposition(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Elduque, AlbertMetadata only Item type: Item , “The Postman’s Coming:” La Morte Rouge (soliloquio) and the Limits of Essayistic Thinking(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Kouvaros, GeorgePositioning the essay film as a form of cinematic thinking enables a reconsideration of its different modalities, formal operations and philosophical influences. At the same time, it prompts us to reflect on its engagement with those elements of human experience that mark the limits of thought. Taking Víctor Erice’s La Morte Rouge (soliloquio) (2006) as its focus, this paper considers the ways in which Erice’s film explores elements of personal and collective experience that trigger an undoing of thought. What does the film’s rendition of this undoing imply about the nature of cinema? How do we register its effects in the images and sounds that characterize the director’s body of work?Metadata only Item type: Item , Temps actual: Duració, creació i desfiguració(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Santos López, VíctorAquest article proposa les definicions de temps actual i temps de sentit com a magnituds que afecten la percepció de la imatge fílmica. Considerem el temps de sentit com una successió de canvis sobre fenòmens perceptibles. Per contra, el temps actual seria aquell que només es necessita a si mateix per a manifestar-se, transcendint al cos i al sentit com a mediadors i mesures. Es planteja un trajecte històric-estètic a partir de diversos exemples de cinema estructural i d'avantguarda en el seu intent d'aproximar-se a aquestes temporalitats. Així mateix, s'introdueix la idea de la matèria fílmica com a creadora autònoma de discurs i suport tècnic de la memòria.Metadata only Item type: Item , The Time of Monsters: An Interview with Joan Fontcuberta(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Elduque, Albert; Fontcuberta, JoanThroughout his work, Catalan artist Joan Fontcuberta (Barcelona, 1955) has playfully reflected on the presumed truth claim of photography and on the possibilities of manipulation that this allows. In this interview, he discusses the technique of superimposition, most notably in spirit photography from the nineteenth century, and then comments on some works from his recent exhibition Monstres, which was held in Fundació Vila Casas in Barcelona from October 2021 to January 2022. In this exhibition, Fontcuberta’s goal was twofold: to reflect on analogue photography as a perishable medium by using either rotten, burnt or devoured stills; and to interrogate the generation of new images by means of artificial intelligence. This dialogue will focus on some series from the exhibition, such as Trauma and Gastròpoda, in which the use of different conceptual and material layers becomes more noticeable, thus shedding new light on the topic of superimposition.Metadata only Item type: Item , News of the End of the World: The Essay Film as Mentality(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Català Domènech, Josep MariaThe contemporary essay film is situated within the deep transformations of cinema that led to post-cinema, just as it arises from the revolution experienced by the classic documentary, now transformed into the post-documentary, whose main axes are subjectivity and thought. Following the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari, the essay film can be considered as a sign of a new image of thought derived from cinema but more complex. The essay mode in general, as a way of thinking, adapts to the complexities of the contemporary world through its fluid, rhizomatic and multidimensional condition. Likewise, based on the hypothesis that the essay form corresponds to a certain mentality anthropologically understood, it results in the existence of a post-subject that is especially evident with the essay film and that confronts the crisis of transcendental subjectivity that has characterized the twentieth-century thought.Metadata only Item type: Item , Unfolding Borders: For a Semiotics of Essayistic Border Images(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Rascaroli, LauraProblematic ideological strategies of in/visibility are played out today around borders by exploiting advanced image-making technologies and hegemonic media discourses that produce “thin” border images lacking in semiotic complexity. This article responds to calls to move beyond the “line in the sand” metaphor by investigating essay films that experiment with a performative relationship with the border. Their “borderwork” is self-reflexive to the point of becoming a form of theory. To elucidate this theorization of the border, I invoke Derrida’s limitrophic method of “thickening” the limit, mediated via Deleuze’s notion of the fold. By comparing three case studies—Armin Linke’s Alpi (2011), Philip Scheffner’s Havarie (2016), and Tadhg O’Sullivan’s The Great Wall (2015)—I interrogate the strategies that essay films employ to operationalize borders. The article is a first attempt at a semiotic classification of film-essayistic border images, and a contribution to the understanding of essay film as limitrophic audiovisual thinking.Metadata only Item type: Item , The Audiovisual Thinking Process in Contemporary Essay Films(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2022) Monterrubio Ibáñez, Lourdes