Christine Reeh: The being of film - a podcast by ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe

The Real of Reality | International Conference on Philosophy and Film

Wed, 02.11.2016 – Sun, 06.11.2016

ZKM_Media Theater, ZKM_Lecture Hall, ZKM_Media Lounge, ZKM_Cube

Film is not representational, but, as Stanley Cavell, the American pioneer of philosophy of film claims, presentational. My paper proceeds on Cavell’s puzzling statement that a photographic image (which constitutes the film image) presents us “with the things themselves” and not with any kind of similarity or representation, therefore concluding that we “do not know” how to “place a photograph (…) ontologically” (in: The World Viewed). His observation actually cuts back to André Bazin, who claims about the photographic image: “the photographic image is the object itself, (…) it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.” (in: What is Cinema?) This famous quote of Bazin is often interpreted in two ways: firstly as if reproduction would give the model an indexical reference or, secondly, as if reproduction would be an entity identical to its model. I will argue that both readings miss the point. Even if it was not the first intention of disclosure for Bazin, “to be the model” is referred to as something, which can be shared by transfer of reality. This “transference of reality from the thing to its reproduction” further presupposes, without reflecting on it, an equalization of being and reality, two distinct terms, which usually incorporate different meanings reflected by the division between ontology and metaphysics, between the inquiry into being and about the fundamental nature of reality. In some contexts “reality” designates “the world” in which entities are; Martin Heidegger states that “being-in” is the way in which being is, it always is a “being-in-the-world” (in: Being and Time).

I propose to ask, in a Heideggerian way, for the being of objects in film and in the world and furthermore, building on Heidegger’s complex conception of “presence of what is present”, to ask for a ‘real of reality’, which is shared by beings and can be the transferred into the photograph: a kind of essence of reality, which makes the being of the photograph real–it is not fictitious and it is not an illusion.

International Conference on Philosophy and Film

Photography and film in particular paved the way for complex philosophical questions regarding the nature of reality and its mechanical reproduction. What does film reproduce and how can we grasp this element, which has the transactive ability to form reality although originating in reality? This shaping takes palce through a complex interaction of image, action and narration and tends to permeate reality completely. It is an inconspicuous process that already affects our everyday life profoundly and is based on a revolution of the real. What does film show? Do we have access to reality that is not based on images or narrations? And what can film and its analysis contribute to philosophical debates on the real?

These are questions we are asking to engage in a dialogue between philosophy and film. For five days, one hundred and fifty philosophers, media scholars and filmmakers will connect philosophical theory with cinematic practice and open up new ideas and concepts. To accompany the program, there will be film screenings of documentaries of the invited filmmakers.

The participation at the conference is also possible without the presentation of a paper.

The conference will be held in English.

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