Observatoire de l'imaginaire contemporain - rhizome

De la friche au jardin: Parcours d'une résilience dans «Le Pays où les arbres n'ont pas d'ombre» de Katrina Kalda

Noémie Dubé — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 21:32:08 +0000

« Presque toujours, le terme de friche s’applique à un terrain qui a cessé d’être travaillé ou qui pourrait l’être. […] La friche exclut à la fois la nature et l’agriculture, elle laisse entendre que l’on pourrait faire mieux. Pourrait-on faire un jardin par hasard?»

Gilles Clément

«Globodrome», imaginaire du regard étendu

Sarah Grenier — Tue, 10 May 2016 13:37:56 +0000

Le 31 mars 2016, à la Cinémathèque québécoise, Joanne Lalonde, professeure au Département d'histoire d'art de l'UQAM et chercheure du RADICAL, a présenté la projection de Globodrome, un film de Gwenola Wagon (France, 2012).

Globodrome, imaginaire d'un regard étendu

Le film Globodrome, réalisé en 2012 par Gwenola Wagon, est une appropriation transmédiatique du livre de Jules Verne, Le tour du monde en 80 jours, plus spécifiquement une reprise du trajet effectué par Phileas Fogg et son valet Jean Passepartout, les personnages principaux du roman. On y reprend l’idée du tour du monde dans un temps prescrit, un temps circonscrit, en mettant à profit les dispositifs de géolocalisation notamment ceux de Google Earth.

Le propos du film repose sur le principe de réduction d’échelle du globe, une réduction qui en faciliterait peut-être la saisie. Combinant géographie et astronomie à travers l’image de la sphère, Globodrome vise à démontrer que l’instrument de mesure oriente et modélise la collecte d’informations. L’artiste résume ainsi son film:

«Globodrome est un essai sur les représentations du monde à l’ère des satellites géo stationnaires, une enquête photographique, historique, géographique, topologique, anecdotique, politique interrogeant le statut d’un globe virtuel donnant à l’explorateur un regard déictique et transformant la Terre en un fascinant et dramatique méta univers.» http://globodrome.com/

Fogg, le héros du livre de Verne, est anglais, comme le narrateur en voix hors champ choisi par Wagon. Un Phileas contemporain qui nous présente ici sa vision du monde et des technologies et que l’on peut comprendre aussi comme un alter ego de l’artiste.

Dans le roman de Jules Verne, le personnage principal est très sédentaire, du moins jusqu’à ce qu’il tienne son pari de faire le tour du monde. Un sédentaire qui se déplace rapidement et qui saura mettre à profit le réseau moderne des transports de l’époque (chemins de fer et navigation). Il voyage avec grande efficacité et c’est tout là le défi qu’il a à relever: opter pour le chemin le plus court sans se laisser distraire.

Wagon reprend ici cette tension entre mobilité et sédentarité, dont l’incarnation parfaite devient la fenêtre de l’écran, peu importe le support sur lequel on regarde le film. La miniaturisation du monde, son exploration en parfaite maitrise temporelle, trouve un aboutissement d’une efficacité difficile à surpasser avec Google Earth. Exercice de décodage et de spatialisation dira notre Phileas contemporain à la 16eme minutes du film, où à partir d’une vue en plongée il s’agira d’imaginer la vue ou la vie de l’intérieur, sans en avoir toujours la bonne résolution. Avec Google Earth on glisse on touche pour explorer la terre et toucher dans Globodrome signifie avancer, comme le rappelle narrateur, le verbe «digiter» signifie ramper avec les doigts. (16min 59)

J’ai choisi ce film pour la confrontation entre monde de l’information et monde tangible qu’on y retrouve, où les représentations numériques et les opérations qu’elles induisent participent à la multiplication des couches de sens qui recouvrent le monde et dont l’effet paradoxal ne sera pas tant de réduire l’espace temps, de 80 jours à 63 minutes, mais au contraire de l’étirer ou de le prolonger par la multiplication des déambulations possibles.

J’ai aussi choisi ce film car il me semble emblématique de la constitution des représentations en arts numériques, notamment dans l’élaboration de dispositifs de prolongement de la vision où «le comment faire voir» et «le quoi montrer» se présentent comme un problème ou du moins comme un enjeu méthodologique.

Plusieurs artistes actuels travaillent à une mise en scène ou remise en scène d’éléments tirés des informations Web, que ce soit John Rafman avec Google Street View ou encore des artistes du flux comme Renald Drouin ou Gregory Chatonsky dont les œuvres s’alimentent des sites de partage de données.

La question centrale que pose le film de Wagon à mon avis est la suivante: comment les outils de représentation transforment nos manières de penser et de raconter?

On entend souvent que notre époque est celle d’une prolifération hors contrôle des images et des informations. Pourquoi ne pas faire alors de cette prolifération de données un nouveau matériel de création?

Ce souci de cartographier le monde et l’univers au-delà de sa compréhension directe par l’expérience, ce dont témoignait déjà la production de globes terrestres et célestes au XVIe siècle, demeure au centre des pratiques culturelles contemporaines. Ces œuvres, rappelons-le, cherche à mettre profit des outils techniques et scientifiques, que l’on pense à des images obtenues par drones, satellites ou caméras de surveillance à petite et grande échelles.

C’est ce même souci du regard étendu ou regard global, une curiosité d'occuper à la fois plusieurs espaces et de pouvoir penser le regard au-delà des contraintes géographiques ou physiques. Un regard qui s'élabore à partir d'un observatoire (le télescope, le GPS, le téléphone cellulaire) comme point de vue privilégié, un observatoire portatif du monde.

Nous nous retrouvons au cœur d’un imaginaire du regard global, voire d’une utopie, qui fait de notre monde un petit monde devenu facile à saisir autant dans sa globalité que dans ses détails les plus intimes.

Pour conclure je dirai que cette œuvre relève un double défi, celui de la fluidité d’une histoire bien racontée et de la densité d’un conte philosophique.

Un mot sur l’artiste

Gwenola Wagon est une réalisatrice et artiste médiatique française. Co-fondatrice du projet Nogo voyages, du collectif Cela Etant elle réalise de nombreuses installations vidéos, des pièces filmiques et sonores en France et à l’étranger, plusieurs en collaboration avec Stéphane Degoutin: Hypnorama (2009-10), le Musée de l'imaginaire terroriste (2009-13), Cyborgs dans la brume (2011-12) et plus récemment World Brain (2015).

Sa thèse de doctorat soutenue en 2006 à l’Université Paris 8 portait sur les utopies du cinéma interactif. Elle est aussi diplômée de l’ENSAD de Paris et enseigne comme maître de conférence à l’Université Paris 8.

Découvrir Globodrome

Allez visiter le site de l'oeuvre et vous pourrez visionner certains extraits vidéo.

Lisa Tronca, auxiliaire de recherche du Laboratoire NT2 et de la Chaire ALN, a aussi étudié l'oeuvre de Gwenola Wagon. Vous pouvez l'écouter sur le podcast Radio ALN/NT2 et vous pouvez allez consulter la fiche du Répertoire ALH dédiée à Globodrome sur le site du Laboratoire.

Vous trouverez aussi un article de Philippe Gajan au sujet de la sortie en DVD de Globodrome dans la revue 24 Images n°176 Février/Avril 2016.

Vous pouvez aussi consulter la programmation de la Cinémathèque québécoise pour de plus amples détails sur le film et la projection qui a eu lieu le 31 mars 2016.

Taxonomie_group

Research Areas:

Contemporary artistic questions

Thoughts on the contemporary

Contemporary figures

Art Movements:

contemporary

Historical Periodization:

19th century

2000-2010

2010 +

Figures and Imaginary:

Objects and Cultural Practices:

Problematics:

Fields of Discipline:

cinema

digital art

Thursday 31 March 2016

Event:

Cycle RADICAL à la Cinémathèque québécoise

Referenced author(s) and artist(s):

Chatonsky, Grégory

Drouin, Renald

Rafman, John

Verne, Jules

Wagon, Gwenola

Bibliography:

Verne, Jules. 1872 [1872]. Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. France : Pierre-Jules Hetzel. <https://oic.uqam.ca/en/communications/globodrome-imaginaire-du-regard-etendu>. Consultée le 1 May 2023.

Wagon, Gwenola (réal.). 2012 [2012]. Globodrome. France : , DVD, 62 min min. <https://oic.uqam.ca/en/communications/globodrome-imaginaire-du-regard-etendu>. Consultée le 1 May 2023.

Type of event:

Roundtable discussion

Teaser:

To cite this document:

Lalonde, Joanne. 2016. “Globodrome, imaginaire du regard étendu”. Within Cycle RADICAL à la Cinémathèque québécoise. Round Table hosted by RADICAL. Montréal, Cinémathèque québécoise, 31 mars 2016. Document texte. Available online: l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/en/communications/globodrome-imaginaire-du-regard-etendu>. Accessed on May 1, 2023.

Node ID:

59115

Pour citer ce document (Computed):

Lalonde, Joanne. 2016. « Globodrome, imaginaire du regard étendu ». Dans le cadre de Cycle RADICAL à la Cinémathèque québécoise. Table ronde organisée par RADICAL. Montréal, Cinémathèque québécoise, 31 mars 2016. Document texte. En ligne sur le site de l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/fr/communications/globodrome-imaginaire-du-regard-etendu>. <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=Globodrome%2C+imaginaire+du+regard+%C3%A9tendu&rft.date=2016&rft.aulast=Lalonde&rft.aufirst=Joanne&rft.pub=RADICAL&rft.place=Montr%C3%A9al%2C+Cin%C3%A9math%C3%A8que+qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9coise">

Actualité de la «fonction-auteur». Entre disparitions et résurrections successives

Sarah Grenier — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:50:28 +0000

L'époque dite et inscrite comme étant «postmoderne» est de nos jours couramment associée, tant pour l'expliciter que pour la critiquer, à une pensée à la fois historico-conceptuelle et culturelle de l'«après», de l'a posteriori, de l'épuisement, de la déception, bref de la succession malheureuse. La magie du terme -le postmoderne comme dépassement, excès, débordement, transcendance!- a perdu de la force illusionniste et prestidigitatrice qui avait fait sa renommée, autant théorique que pratique. L'heure est à un cynisme et à une incrédulité forcément ironiques: là où cette postmodernité avait douté de toute «présence ontologique» dans le but de la dépasser, du moins de la recombiner, de la re-présenter, il vaut mieux désormais douter de la postmodernité elle-même et, sans doute, revenir à la stabilité éprouvée de quelques bons vieux schèmes systématiques.

Suite en format pdf.

Volume:

Year:

2011

Bibliography:

How to Do Things With Words

Austin, John L.. 1962. How to Do Things With Words. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 167 p.

L'oeuvre de François Rabelais et la culture populaire au Moyen-Âge et sous la Renaissance

Bakhtine, Mikhaïl. 1970. L'oeuvre de François Rabelais et la culture populaire au Moyen-Âge et sous la Renaissance. Paris : Gallimard, 471 p.

La Poétique de Dostoïevski

Bakhtine, Mikhaïl. 1998. La Poétique de Dostoïevski. Paris : Seuil, 366 p.

The Literature of Exhaustion

Barth, John. 1984. « The Literature of Exhaustion », dans The Friday Book: Essays and Other Nonfiction. New York : Putnam, p. 62-76.

La mort de l'auteur

Barthes, Roland. 1994. « La mort de l'auteur », dans Oeuvres complètes. tome III. 1968-1971. Livres, textes, entretiens. Paris : Seuil, p. 40-45.

Borges et moi

Borges, Jorge Luis. 1982. « Borges et moi », dans L'auteur et autres textes. El hacedor. Paris : Gallimard, “L'imaginaire”.

L'auteur, l'introduction, choix de textes, commentaires, vade-mecum et bibliographie

Brunn, Alain. 2001. L'auteur, l'introduction, choix de textes, commentaires, vade-mecum et bibliographie. Paris : GF Flammarion.

The Void

Close, Frank. 2010. The Void. New York : Sterling, 182 p.

Bubbles, Voids and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology

Cornell, James. 1992. Bubbles, Voids and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 208 p.

Dictionnaire des littératures française et étrangères

Demougin, Jacques. 1992. Dictionnaire des littératures française et étrangères. Paris : Larousse.

De la grammatologie

Derrida, Jacques. 1967. De la grammatologie. Paris : Éditions de Minuit.

Hermès I. La communication

Foucault, Michel. 1968. Hermès I. La communication. Paris : Éditions de Minuit.

Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?

Foucault, Michel. 2001. « Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur? », dans Dits et écrits I. 1954-1975. Paris : Gallimard, “Quarto”.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

Greene, Brian. 2005. The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. New York : Knopf, 592 p.

Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe

Harrison, Edward. 1989. Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe. Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 301 p.

Sémèiôtikè. Recherches pour une sémanalyse

Kristeva, Julia. 1969. Sémèiôtikè. Recherches pour une sémanalyse. Paris : Seuil.

Les trous noirs

Luminet, Jean-Pierre. 2002. Les trous noirs. Paris : Seuil, 395 p.

Contre Sainte-Beuve

Proust, Marcel. 1954. Contre Sainte-Beuve. Paris : Gallimard.

Dictionnaire historique de la langue française

Rey, Alain. 1998. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris : Éditions Le Robert.

Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language

Searle, John. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 203 p.

Le chaos et l'harmonie: la fabrication du Réel

Thua, Trinh Xuan. 2000. Le chaos et l'harmonie: la fabrication du Réel. Paris : Gallimard, 603 p.

Research Areas:

Thoughts on the contemporary

Art Movements:

structuralism

postmodernism

Figures and Imaginary:

Problematics:

Fields of Discipline:

literature

psychology

Publication Type:

Figura Collection

Documents:

05.charles-robert-simard-actualite-fonction-auteur.pdf

Language of content:

French

Teaser:

L'époque dite et inscrite comme étant «postmoderne» est de nos jours couramment associée, tant pour l'expliciter que pour la critiquer, à une pensée à la fois historico-conceptuelle et culturelle de l'«après», de l'a posteriori, de l'épuisement, de la déception, bref de la succession malheureuse.

To cite this document:

Simard, Charles Robert. 2011. “Actualité de la «fonction-auteur». Entre disparitions et résurrections successives”. In Figures et discours critique. Article d’un cahier Figura. Available online: l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/en/articles/actualite-de-la-fonction-auteur-entre-disparitions-et-resurrections-successives>. Accessed on May 1, 2023. Source: (David, Sylvain and Mirella Vadean (ed.). 2011. Montréal: Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire. coll. Figura, vol. 27, pp. 61-88).

Node ID:

52818

Pour citer ce document (Computed):

Simard, Charles Robert. 2011. « Actualité de la «fonction-auteur». Entre disparitions et résurrections successives ». Dans Figures et discours critique. Article d’un cahier Figura. En ligne sur le site de l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/fr/articles/actualite-de-la-fonction-auteur-entre-disparitions-et-resurrections-successives>. D’abord paru dans (David, Sylvain et Mirella Vadean (dir.). 2011. Montréal : Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire. coll. Figura, vol. 27, p. 61-88).<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=Actualit%C3%A9+de+la+%C2%ABfonction-auteur%C2%BB.+Entre+disparitions+et+r%C3%A9surrections+successives&rft.date=2011&rft.volume=27&rft.spage=61&rft.epage=88&rft.aulast=Simard&rft.aufirst=Charles&rft.pub=Figura%2C+Centre+de+recherche+sur+le+texte+et+l%26%23039%3Bimaginaire&rft.place=Montr%C3%A9al">

Le rôle de la nuit dans les devenirs-animaux de la pièce «Dans la solitude des champs de coton» de Bernard-Marie Koltès

Emmanuelle Leduc — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:47:32 +0000

L'attrait que la lumière exerce sur le dramaturge français Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948-1989) est indéniable. Durant ses années de formation au Théâtre National de Strasbourg (TNS), alors dirigé par Hubert Gignoux, Koltès démontre un vif intérêt pour les techniques de l’éclairage. À ce propos, il déclare dans l’ultime entrevue qu’il accorde à Lucien Attoun peu avant de mourir: «Alors, j’ai un peu appris la technique. Tout le reste m’ennuyait. La technique, non. Ça m’a passionné: l’éclairage... Mais, vous savez, j’étais très, très dilettante.» Koltès transposera plus tard sa passion pour la lumière et l’éclairage sous la forme de «textures lumineuses» dans ses écrits.

Suite en format pdf.

Volume:

Year:

2010

Research Areas:

Contemporary literary questions

Figures and Imaginary:

rhizome

Objects and Cultural Pratices:

theater

Fields of Discipline:

literature

philosophy

Publication Type:

Figura Collection

Documents:

le_role_de_la_nuit_dans_les_devenirs-animaux-koltes.pdf

Teaser:

To cite this document:

Robitaille, Pascal. 2010. “Le rôle de la nuit dans les devenirs-animaux de la pièce "Dans la solitude des champs de coton" de Bernard-Marie Koltès”. In Textures lumineurses. Éblouissements, ombres et obscurités. Article d’un cahier Figura. Available online: l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/en/articles/le-role-de-la-nuit-dans-les-devenirs-animaux-de-la-piece-dans-la-solitude-des-champs-de>. Accessed on May 1, 2023. Source: (Huffman, Shawn (ed.). 2010. Montréal: Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire. coll. Figura, vol. 23, pp. 163-180).

Node ID:

51741

Pour citer ce document (Computed):

Robitaille, Pascal. 2010. « Le rôle de la nuit dans les devenirs-animaux de la pièce "Dans la solitude des champs de coton" de Bernard-Marie Koltès ». Dans Textures lumineurses. Éblouissements, ombres et obscurités. Article d’un cahier Figura. En ligne sur le site de l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/fr/articles/le-role-de-la-nuit-dans-les-devenirs-animaux-de-la-piece-dans-la-solitude-des-champs-de>. D’abord paru dans (Huffman, Shawn (dir.). 2010. Montréal : Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire. coll. Figura, vol. 23, p. 163-180).<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=Le+r%C3%B4le+de+la+nuit+dans+les+devenirs-animaux+de+la+pi%C3%A8ce+%26quot%3BDans+la+solitude+des+champs+de+coton%26quot%3B+de+Bernard-Marie+Kolt%C3%A8s&rft.date=2010&rft.volume=23&rft.spage=163&rft.epage=180&rft.aulast=Robitaille&rft.aufirst=Pascal&rft.pub=Figura%2C+Centre+de+recherche+sur+le+texte+et+l%26%23039%3Bimaginaire&rft.place=Montr%C3%A9al">

Green Photographs: An In-Moving Memory

Bronja Hildgen — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:57:40 +0000

ReMix Notebook:

Imaginaires du présent. Photographie, politique et poétique de l'actualité

Université Concordia

James, Henry

Lebedinskaia, Natalia

On 12 June 2009, Mahmoud Ahamadinejad was re-elected president of Iran in a highly disputed election.

The election campaign had started few months earlier, when Mir-Hossein Mousavi announced his candidacy. The prime minister during the wartime era, when he handled the economy with relative success, Mousavi had been openly critical of the current government.He received the support of most reformist parties and of other intellectuals who had sanctioned previous elections. In the weeks leading up to the election, live television debates were broadcast, causing great anticipation and inciting many who had never gone to the polls before to vote. Many taboos were discussed in the debates, and the regime’s power structures were publicly criticized for the first time in the media 1.

When, to everyone’s surprise, Ahamadinejad was re-elected, the results and the way in which they were announced created high levels of suspicion and resulted in a public outcry. In the days that followed, millions marched in the streets peacefully in spite of the government’s ban on the rallies, protesting the results and forming what has become known as the Green Movement. In an effort to contain these protests, the government imposed extreme control measures: it heavily censored the Internet, disconnected cell phone connections, cancelled licences held by opposition media outlets and foreign journalists, and attacked protesters. Hundreds of people were killed, and thousands imprisoned, in the protests and the ensuing raids2.

Two years later, the Green Movement remains an active political force in Iran, shaped by the memory of these events. Iranian society, which had gone through a violent revolution in 1979 and continues to struggle with the revolution’s successors, has become cautious enough to not seek a solution in yet another revolution. Rather investing in studying the velvet revolutions, the Green Movement continued to reinvent itself following the initial protests, without leadership, by creating new modes of civil resistance with the nightly rooftop chants in June 2009 at the cusp of them, such as writing anti-regime slogans on bank notes, repeatedly spraying green-coloured graffiti on walls, publishing underground newspapers with secret distribution networks, printing of other anti-regime flyers, and holding of strikes.

Through their multiplicity and defiance of the bans on documentation, these photographs stood apart from traditional journalism in their power to foreground the connective tissue between the images and their referents.

An integral part of the initial emergence of the Green Movement, photographs and videos taken with cell phones and digital cameras and distributed through Flickr and YouTube served as evidence of what was happening, while helping the movement gain strength. As the government was publicly denying the scale of the protests and limiting access to means of planning and communication, photographs simultaneously offered a way for the outside world to witness the events and for the movement itself to organize and comprehend its own scope. Through their multiplicity and defiance of the bans on documentation, these photographs stood apart from traditional journalism in their power to foreground the connective tissue between the images and their referents. As the physical reality of the events was collectively and anonymously recorded, the protestors were consciously implicating themselves, their subjects, and their audiences in the political act of photographing and being photographed. They placed viewers, regardless of their geographical location, among the protestors, creating an ephemeral community around the photographs’ production, viewing, and distribution3.

Thousands of photographs that narrate the emergence of the movement and the violence of its initial protests remain archived on Flickr, on Facebook, and in blogs, and they continue to occupy a position that is much more complex than that of evidence. They form an active collective memory that defies historicization by operating rhizomatically rather than hierarchically. They also allow for a reconstruction of countless individuals' personal experience of the events, and they place all other manifestations of the movement in a position of response to its initial force.

They form an active collective memory that defies historicization by operating rhizomatically rather than hierarchically.

What is to be done with the archive of these images, as well as the blog posts, Twitter updates, and stories told through Facebook updates? How do we situate ourselves as their audience, taking a position that responds to their continual role in the movement? How do such traces of an event contribute to its collective memorialization, and in what ways does this memory differ from the official story?

In the last two years, two major libraries have initiated projects that appear to provide a sense of security that this information will not vanish. The Library of Congress in Washington announced, on 14 April 2010, that it will “acquire” the Twitter archive4, and the British Library followed with its move to preserve blogs and Facebook updates as part of its collection5 There is currently no information about the specifics of the projects and neither one appears to directly address visual materials, although both attempt to absorb the vast amounts of information into existing research institutions. By taking this action, they “validate” these sources as worthy of being preserved for posterity or as historical materials.

Opening the discourse of preservation in relation to the Green Movement photographs, however, threatens to mark the movement as a completed event of which the archive is evidence and of which we are “historians.” This paper is our attempt to locate a different way of viewing – one that positions the images and their archive as active agents in the events, whose meaning continues to develop as the movement’s goals shift. Viewing the photographs and the collective memory of the protests in the present, as dynamic and engaged, is integral to an understanding of the movement’s potential not as realized through the protests, documented and historicized, but as a continuously building system. The question, therefore, needs to shift from how the archive can be protected for the future to how it can continue to be understood in the now. The threat of a fixed history replaces the threat of forgetting: while we may have the tools to preserve these archives, these tools make the photographs into representations of a past event with a stable interpretation and a completed history, removed from the movement’s current manifestations6. However, if the images’ interpretation cannot be fixed, and our engagement with them is viewed as a continual unfolding of the event, then the positions that we occupy as historians, and as individuals who remember, carry a heavy ethical responsibility.

The question, therefore, needs to shift from how the archive can be protected for the future to how it can continue to be understood in the now.

The power of the Green Movement images lies in their resistance to being fixed in a linear time and place. Unlike the possibility of distance allowed by the official archives’ recontextualization, these photographs are not removed into a neutral space or classified according to an independent system. Instead, they constitute traces of the events as they were happening: on the blogs, Flickr, and Twitter, and through Facebook albums. There are instances of not knowing, of confusion and chaos, of making plans and sharing warnings, and of personal accounts. Facebook groups dedicated to recording the names of disappeared, imprisoned, and killed protestors are linked to their profiles and personal photo albums7.

All photographs of the protests were made despite bans on documentation and the danger that the photographers and subjects would be identified. Thus, our act of looking at these images is intimately tied to a position of responsibility toward the photographed, not as bearers of witness but as participants.

While looking through the archive, reading minute-by-minute reports with dozens of images that accompany them, or viewing countless Facebook albums of the protests, I was confronted with my sudden closeness to these events, and my simultaneous inability to grasp them. Each photograph contained the potential of being every other image that I had seen just seconds earlier: there was no safety in their singularity or framing. Each photograph extends and overlaps into a myriad of others, the dizzying quantity of the images multiplied by the cameras that appear in each one. At the same time, it is impossible to talk about the photographs as a unified whole, as that position would not allow me to acknowledge the power of the multiple individual gazes that have confronted me. A physical sensation of tragedy replaces the urge to locate the event in a specific time a place, to comprehend it historically: the event is now, and it is being moved forward through the power of the photographs – neither singular nor plural – to affect.

Gilbert Simondon’s theories about individuation, as they connect with Henri Bergson’s ideas on memory, help us to view the photographs of the protests as an entity in active construction that constantly moves beyond reach through engagement with it. As Simondon proposes, information is not a given thing, but a tension between two orders in a state of disappearance, incompatible realities on the cusp of becoming a system8. This incompatibility, which marks information as relational, also forms the organizing dimension along which the individuation of a being occurs. Information is a tension among a set of orders that are able to produce a new system of organization, based on the impossibility of the system’s own stability. Thus, information can be read as a tension that produces the desire to construct the photographs of the Green Movement as completed entities, driven by a temptation to locate a set of stable referents. In acknowledging the impossibility and the danger of writing a fixed history, we can construct a position in relation to the archive of the images, a way to preserve their affective force. This position allows viewers to shift their attention away from a resolution and onto the tensions that find fleeting stabilities, giving rise to the potential for a way of looking at the archive of these photographs that responds to the structures of memory, as opposed to that of linear history.

As Simondon proposes, information is not a given thing, but a tension between two orders in a state of disappearance, incompatible realities on the cusp of becoming a system.

Memory is movement. It is movement, as duration is essentially memory: movement not necessarily in time but in density 9. It is the movement of thought, a dynamic process always in transformation, always mobile, always in-moving. Memory is not the past of the once-was but the past in the making, constantly reshaping and reconfiguring, therefore never final, never fully actualized, always in potential.

Bergson attributes two types of movement to memory: rotation and contraction. What we are supposed to visualize is a telescope that we are pointing up at the night sky. Thus, when I am trying to remember something, I at first see nothing all. What will help us understand this image is the idea of my character. When I try to remember how my character came about, at first, I might not remember anything; no image might immediately come to mind. Pure memory for Bergson precedes images; it is unconscious. But, as I try to focus, as if rotating the rings that control the lenses in the “telescope,” some singular images come into view10.

The second type of movement that Bergson attributes to memory is contraction11, which can also be explained through the example of the telescope. A telescope narrows down the image, so that the image of a whole constellation would fit in our eyes. The past is always in its totality, “Not only does the past coexist with the present that has been, but, as it preserves itself in itself (while the present passes), it is the whole, integral past.12 As we move toward the present, the past in its totality becomes ever more contracted, ever more dense. Remembering is therefore movement of thought not so much within time as within densities of the past.

Both of these movements of memory can be seen. in relation to photography, to anchor viewers in the act of remembering. The structures of the online archive allow for the movements of rotation (focusing) and contraction, from the act of trying to reconstruct specific events through individual images, to the totality of both the archive and the events. Engaging with the photographs brings the memories into focus – a recollection of direct engagement for those who were present in the street, and a recollection of indirect engagement for those who followed the news closely. At the same time, remembering the events involves contracting the mass of images into an affective experience. It is the superimposition, metaphorically, of the images into a whole: a multiplicity that extends beyond singular frames – which are never fully actualized or contained within a single narrative – and is capable of inducing an event.

Whereas contraction refers mainly to the nature of the memory, rotation is more about remembering. Remembering, as Nietzsche notes, always involves forgetting. Forgetting is that which enables the remembering to be expressible. Without forgetting, memory falls into

"the infinitely regressive search for meaning. This brings with it a nihilistic will to power that holds to pre-imposed association, making superficial links between a pre-constructed then and now, bridging regression into a linear flow. Such nihilism holds onto the past as though it could be transported fully-formed into the present, as though it could be known as such, and recreates the present in its image. Then it policies this image, holding it to its unchanging self. The being of the What.13

To think of a past as fully formed and transportable to the present is to think of the past as a has been. It is considering it a being, whereas it is in fact a becoming, always in potential. Supposing the past as something fixed, something final, compels us toward thinking “what” rather than “how.” If “how” follows a more transductive approach and offers more openings, “what” in its totalitarianism presupposes being.

To think of a past as fully formed and transportable to the present is to think of the past as a has been.

The danger of the “what,” as opposed to the “how,” is the danger of preservation of the photographic archive of the Green Movement as a singular historical instance. This danger is in the assumption that June 2009 and the months that followed could be reconstituted as a memory of the event as a being, not an event that continues its becoming through its own memorialization. This danger is also in the image of the death of Neda as fixed in its historical significance, acknowledged by the World Press Photo competition jury of this year’s prize as worthy of a special mention, and archived through institutions under a set of keywords that tries to hold it to its totality in the past14.

This brings us to the notion of individuation developed by Gilbert Simondon. Simondon’s main argument within the study of individuation is that the individual is never given in advance. It comes into being through a process of becoming, a process through which its potentials unfold in different directions. Potentials are at the centre of the pre-individual. Not only is the individual not given in advance, but it also is never final – always individuating but never a fixed completed being, never a closed entity. Through individuation the potentials keep rearranging themselves: they always remain in re-evaluation with the individual–environment multiplicity. The individual is never a completed being, as individuation is never able to exhaust all the potentials of pre-individual reality with one stroke15. These potentials remain, allowing for multiple further individuations to occur in the future.

Remembering is, in its essence, always a form of forgetting. However, it is not forgetting as deduction or induction; rather, it is remembering in the form of transduction. Transduction, proposed by Simondon as the process through which individuation happens, does not, unlike deduction and induction, presuppose being. It studies the pre-individual and the becoming of the being. It is neither a reverse nor a replay of the ontogenesis: it is ontogenesis. Unlike deduction, it does not filter out the characteristics of the reality within its own domain only to extract the resolving structure. Unlike induction, it does not retain only that which is common, eliminating that which is singular. It begins at the centre of the being, and expands in various directions from this centre. It is pursuing the being in its becoming16. It is as much the peripherals of an event as it is the event within the frame.

A singular photograph’s frame marks the boundaries of remembering and forgetting along which the photographic event unfolds. What remains outside the frame is a myriad of potentials that did not become resolved in the process of individuation of the single image. They remain on its periphery and have the capacity to provide new tensions and incompatibilities, thus pushing the process of individuation forward, or encountering other images that destabilize them and create new potentials. In the sheer quantity of the photographs of the Green Movement and their overlapping frames, the existence of these potentials is made manifest, drawing our attention to the movement as it continues to individuate through our act of viewing.

1. Rasool Nafisi, “In Iran, The Election Is Being Televised,” Commentary, Radio Free Europe, 9 June 2011; “Rafsanjani reacts to allegations,” Tehran Times, 10 June 2009; “Mousavi says Iran’s international status must not be undermined,” Tehran Times, 2 June 2009.
2. “Iran election: faces of the dead and detained”, The Guardian, 28 January 2010.
3. This position of ethical responsibility toward the photographed subjects, explored throughout the paper, draws on Ariella Azoulay’s concept of the “civil contract of photography” in her The Civil Contract of Photography (New York: Zone Books, 2008).
4. “Twitter Donates Entire Tweet Archive to Library of Congress,” April 15, 2010.
5. “Web Archiving Programme.”
6. We are drawing here on W. T. J. Mitchell’s conclusion in “What Do Pictures ‘Really’ Want?” in which he presents the challenge of developing ways of talking about images that does not reduce them to illustrations or mimesis. W. J. T. Mitchell, “What Do Pictures ‘Really’ Want?” October 77 (Summer 1996), 82.
7. Some of these regularly updated sources include Saeed Valadbaygi, Revolutionary Road and Mir Mousavi’s Facebook page.
8. Gilbert Simondon, “The position of the problem of ontogenesis,” Parrhasia Journal, 7 (2009), 11.
9. Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism (New York: Zone Books, 1988), 51.
10. “Henri Bergson,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
11. Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 168
12. Deleuze, Bergsonism, 59.
13. Erin Manning, “A Life: Waltzing with Bashir,” 21 (unpublished).
14. “Jury appoints a Special Mention,” 12 February 2010.
15. Simondon, “Position,” 5.
16. Simondon, “Position,” 11.

Research Areas:

Contemporary artistic questions

Thoughts on the contemporary

Historical Periodization:

2000-2010

Geographical Context:

Iran

Fields of Discipline:

Problematics:

Objects and Cultural Pratices:

Green Photographs: An In-moving Memory

NT2 — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:23:11 +0000

In this paper, we look at the archive of the photographs taken during the 2009 post-election protests in Iran, in order to explore how these images continues to shape the memory of the events. Initially, the flow of the images from the protests was simultaneously targeted at the outside world to bear witness to the events, as well as at the movement itself to organize and comprehend its own scope. As all documentation was banned by the government, the protestors consciously implicated themselves, their subjects, and their audience in the political act of photographing and being photographed. This political act is ongoing in the viewing the archive of the images. Situating the photographs and the collective memory of the events in the present leads us to understanding the movement’s potential as continuously building, not exhausted through the protests, then documented and historicized.

Taxonomie_group

Research Areas:

Contemporary artistic questions

Thoughts on the contemporary

Historical Periodization:

2000-2010

Figures and Imaginary:

revolution

rhizome

Objects and Cultural Practices:

Le labyrinthe et l'oubli. Fondements d'un imaginaire

Éditeur — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:30:13 +0000

Comment expliquer l'importance qu'a prise la figure du labyrinthe à notre époque? De fait, le labyrinthe apparaît comme l'une des métaphores les plus aptes à représenter la complexité du monde contemporain et la confusion qui en découle. Sa figure revient constamment, que ce soit pour rendre compte du réseau Internet et du cyberespace, dont les développements rhizomatiques défient l'entendement, ou des dédales de la bureaucratie, du déploiement des villes et de leurs souterrains, de la maladie, etc. Tout est devenu labyrinthique. L'exil, la bureaucratie, la mémoire, le nationalisme, l'histoire, l'écriture, la folie... Tout ce qui semble à première vue inextricable, mais dont on parvient finalement à s'extirper.

Sa présence dans les arts est incontournable, en littérature, au cinéma, au théâtre, en architecture, et même en musique. Il y apparaît sous divers aspects: comme un espace, représenté ou réel, mais aussi comme une figure et un mythe. Il est intégré à un récit, fait de meurtre, d'abandon, de parricide, d'amour et de débauche, où des personnages évoluent, Dédale, Thésée, Ariane, Minos, Pasiphaé, le Minotaure. Êtres hybrides, descendants des dieux, rois aux destins grandioses.

Suite en format pdf.

Volume:

Year:

2002

Research Areas:

Contemporary figures

Art Movements:

postmodernism

Historical Periodization:

20th century

19th century

Antiquity

Figures and Imaginary:

Objects and Cultural Pratices:

Problematics:

Geographical Context:

Greece

Fields of Discipline:

cinema

literature

Publication Type:

Figura Collection

Documents:

cf6-2-gervais-le_labyrinthe_et_loubli.pdf

Language of content:

French

Teaser:

To cite this document:

Gervais, Bertrand. 2002. “Le labyrinthe et l'oubli. Fondements d'un imaginaire”. In L'imaginaire du labyrinthe. Article d’un cahier Figura. Available online: l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/en/articles/le-labyrinthe-et-loubli-fondements-dun-imaginaire>. Accessed on May 1, 2023. Source: (Archibald, Samuel, Bertrand Gervais and Anne Martine Parent (ed.). 2002. Montréal: Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire. coll. Figura, vol. 6, pp. 13-66).

Node ID:

531

Pour citer ce document (Computed):

Gervais, Bertrand. 2002. « Le labyrinthe et l'oubli. Fondements d'un imaginaire ». Dans L'imaginaire du labyrinthe. Article d’un cahier Figura. En ligne sur le site de l’Observatoire de l’imaginaire contemporain. <https://oic.uqam.ca/fr/articles/le-labyrinthe-et-loubli-fondements-dun-imaginaire>. D’abord paru dans (Archibald, Samuel, Bertrand Gervais et Anne Martine Parent (dir.). 2002. Montréal : Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire. coll. Figura, vol. 6, p. 13-66).<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=Le+labyrinthe+et+l%26%23039%3Boubli.+Fondements+d%26%23039%3Bun+imaginaire&rft.date=2002&rft.volume=6&rft.spage=13&rft.epage=66&rft.aulast=Gervais&rft.aufirst=Bertrand&rft.pub=Figura%2C+Centre+de+recherche+sur+le+texte+et+l%26%23039%3Bimaginaire&rft.place=Montr%C3%A9al">