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Book Review – ‘Unfolding the Past’ by Elizabeth Wilson
No full textUnfolding the Past. 500-word illustrated review of the book by Elizabeth Wilson, published by Bloomsbury Publishing – Bloomsbury Visual Arts imprint, 2022. Published by Selvedge. May/June 2023 ‘Wonder’ issue No. 112 (page 83)
Accepted – 31 January 202
MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture: Focus Issue Twelve: Reframing Varda
No full textGiven the contents of our previous issues, which featured a range of novel and creatively diverse discourses and methods for researching and discussing visual culture, this collection may seem rather traditional in its focus. Some may even see it as an unexpected return to a more old-school style of academic analyses. In fact, this slight return represents a celebration of a multimedia female artist who was the exact opposite of ‘traditional’.
Agnès Varda, whom our feminist authors here ‘reframe’, gave the global cineaste community such a breadth of beautiful filmic, visual, and political commentary that we may never tire of discussing her. From her earliest directorial debut, La Pointe Courte (1955), through the unforgettable and always mesmerising nouvelle vague masterpiece Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), to her final self-reflective film, Varda by Agnès (2019), she stood out as the caring, sensitive pioneer of both serious social commentary and cheeky, flippant remarks, which showed her distance to herself and the often-challenging surroundings of the patriarchally structured world of media.
However, Varda’s experiments with intellectual distance, although sometimes sarcastically humorous, were never demeaning. Each of her characters, lines of dialogue, photographs, film frames, or even edits vibrated with a profound sense of dignity she saw in each being. That’s why, we feel, she kept appealing to the aesthetic and social sensitivities of her worldwide audiences and creative peers.
Yes, Varda won acclaim and recognition from critics and festival juries such as only a few female artists during her lifetime could match, but that’s not why we love and appreciate her at MAI. This issue is neither about Agnès Varda, the trophy winner, nor Agnès Varda, the auteur.
Our specialist authors ‘reframe’ her here as a source of constant inspiration, the brave artist who pondered on the surrounding reality not just through stories but through what occupied her frames on the screen and in print. Like Varda’s projects, the contributors to this issue always put her image at the centre of their reflection. A single picture opens a debate on sometimes intangible feelings and thoughts that cannot be verbally captured.
And this is how this focus issue came into being. Rewatching Varda’s work with their colleagues and friends during the lockdown, our guest editors, Nicole Fayard and Erica Sheen, wanted to delve into recent posthumous responses to her films and photography. Later, having secured funding from the University of York, they organised a conference, ‘Reframing Varda’, in September 2022. What you are about to read is a set of fresh philosophical and feminist re-readings of Varda’s output all of which originated from that event
The Photogrammetric Image and Black-Boxed Mutative Automation Considered through Philip K. Dick’s The Preserving Machine
Get PDFThe multi-media research collective, The Preserving Machine, was initiated through collaborative discussion in response to Philip K. Dick’s 1953 short story of the same name. This article considers Dick’s story in light of current forms of image-making apparatus, specifically in relation to photogrammetry. Dick’s protagonist, Doc. Labyrinth’s design and ambitions of The Preserving Machine to safeguard cultural heritage in the light of ecological catastrophe resonates with the application of 3D imaging technologies in cultural heritage industries. However, his positionality is problematic as it both highlights the nature of preservation as being potentially extractive and does not account for the agency of the machine in the process. The text foregrounds the ways in which current computational forms of photogrammetry are conceived in the humanities, with reference to the language of post-cinema, gaming and, most importantly, photography. The argument is structured to mirror the digital production pipeline of photogrammetric processes to highlight the problematic industry rhetoric claiming objectivity, accuracy and automation. This methodology thus deals with issues surrounding the choice and capture of data input, consideration of the black-boxed processing and mutative automation and expectations surrounding reproducibility. The authors propose that current forms of conceptualising photogrammetry are insufficient to account for these hybridised digital image forms solely through the language of index, likeness and simulacrum associated with photographic theoretical dialogue. Instead, these 3D images need to be considered relationally to wider assemblages of meanings that are less readily understood through singular, coherent theoretical readings
untitled review of BLANK CANVAS. ART SCHOOL CREATIVITY FROM PUNK TO NEW WAVE, SIMON STRANGE (2022), Bristol: Intellect, 297pp, ISBN 978-1-78938-631-8, pbck, £20
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Embedding Live Briefs in the Curriculum: A guide for good practice
Get PDFThis guide discusses different ways of embedding live briefs into the curriculum and their relative merits in relation to employability and equity
Darkwood Wildwood
No full textDarkwood Wildwood is a photography series that documents decaying trees in a healthy woodland. Essential for greater biodiversity, a healthy woodland should have a large amount of decomposing material in the undergrowth to support a rich diversity of plants, insects and animals. Dead and dying trees are often removed from managed woodland sometimes for timbre and firewood, sometimes because it looks unsightly. Attitudes to death and decay are changing in woodland management in the UK. This work celebrates these fallen giants as they retreat into the undergrowth
