Geological Filmmaking and Volumetric Regimes: two new open access books from Open Humanities Press
Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 1:59PM Open Humanities Press is pleased to announce the publication of two new open access books:
Geological Filmmaking by Sasha Litvintseva: http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/geological-filmmaking/
Volumetric Regimes: Material Cultures of Quantified Presence, edited by Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting: http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/volumetric-regimes/
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Geological Filmmaking by Sasha Litvintseva: http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/geological-filmmaking/
Every film image is geological. As a technical medium derived from the metals and minerals extracted from the earth, every moving image is materially embedded in the world it records. It is also temporally linked to the almost inconceivably vast deep time of the planet’s formation. What would it mean to make films in response to this situation? Geological Filmmaking argues that the challenge lies in situating oneself in the space between the concrete object of a film and the broader planetary conditions of its existence. The nuances of this position are at once formal, ethical and political. Sasha Litvintseva discusses her process of developing such a film practice as a way of tackling the perceptual and aesthetic difficulties presented by ongoing ecological crises. These concerns are explored through the prism of the author’s own films about asbestos and sinkholes in their respective economic and colonial contexts.
Geological Filmmaking develops a new genre of writing rooted in a reciprocity between the practice of making films and the theoretical study of the relations they participate in. Litvintseva expands current conversations in the environmental humanities through building on the rich legacy of experimental film as a tool for producing alternative modes of experiencing the world. The book is intended for readers from a broad range of backgrounds, looking for new ways of dealing with questions about the life and death of our planet.
Geological Filmmaking is published in our MEDIA : ART : WRITE : NOW serues, edited by Joanna Zylinska: http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/series/media-art-write-now/
Author Bio
Sasha Litvintseva is an artist, filmmaker, writer and senior lecturer in Film at Queen Mary University of London. Her work is situated at the intersection of media, ecology and the history of science. Her films have been exhibited worldwide, including at the Berlinale and Rotterdam film festivals, Baltic Triennial and Venice Architecture Biennale. She is the author, with Beny Wagner, of All Thoughts Fly: Monster, Taxonomy, Film (Sonic Acts Press, 2021). For more information on her work consult her webpage http://sashalitvintseva.com
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Volumetric Regimes: Material Cultures of Quantified Presence, edited by Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting: http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/volumetric-regimes/
3D computation has historically co-evolved with Modern technosciences, and aligned with the regimes of optimisation, normalisation and hegemonic world order. The legacies and projections of industrial development leave traces of that imaginary and tell the stories of a lively tension between “the probable” and “the possible”. Defined as the techniques for measuring volumes, volumetrics all too easily (re)produce and accentuate the probable, and this process is intensified within the technocratic realm of contemporary hyper-computation. The ubiquity of efficient operations is deeply damaging in the way it gradually depletes the world of all possibility for engagement, interporousness and lively potential. Volumetric Regimes: material cultures of quantified presence proposes an urgent intersectional inquiry into volumetrics to foreground procedural, theoretical and infrastructural practices that provide with a widening of the possible.
Volumetric Regimes emerges from Possible Bodies, a collaborative research activated by Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting on the very concrete and at the same time complex and fictional entities that “bodies” are, asking what matter-cultural conditions of possibility render them present. This becomes especially urgent in relation to technologies, infrastructures and techniques of 3D tracking, modelling and scanning. How does cyborg-ness participate in the presentation and representation of so-called bodies? Intersecting issues of race, gender, class, species, age and ability resurface through these performative as well as representational practices.
Volumetric Regimes: Material Cultures of Quantified Presence is published in our DATA Browser series, which is edited by Geoff Cox and Joasia Krysa: http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/series/data-browser/
Editor Bios
Jara Rocha is an interdependent researcher-artist. They are currently involved in several disobedient action research projects, such as Volumetric Regimes (with Femke Snelting), The Underground Division (with Helen Pritchard and Femke Snelting), The Relearning Series (with Martino Morandi), and Vibes & Leaks (with Kym Ward and Xavier Gorgol). They are part of the curatorial teams of DONE at Foto Colectania, of ISEA at Arts Santa Mònica and of La Capella, all in Barcelona; Jara also teaches screen studies at the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya, as well as at the Körper, Theorie und Poetik des Performativen Department at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart. With Karl Moubarak and Cristina Cochior, they conform the Cell for Digital Discomfort at the 21/22 Fellowship for Situated Research of BAK, Utrecht. Jara works through the situated, mundane, and complex forms of distribution of the technological with an antifascist and trans*feminist sensibility, and their show “Naturoculturas son disturbios” emits erratically from dublab.es radio.
Femke Snelting develops projects at the intersection of design, feminisms, and free software in various constellations. With Seda Gürses, Miriyam Aouragh, and Helen Pritchard, she runs the Institute for Technology in the Public Interest. With the Underground Division (Helen Pritchard and Jara Rocha) she studies the computational imaginations of rock formations, and with Jara Rocha, Femke activates Possible Bodies. She is team member of Programmable Infrastructures (TUDelft), i-DAT (University of Plymouth) and supports artistic research at PhdArts (Leiden), MERIAN (Maastricht) and a.pass (Brussels). Femke teaches at XPUB (MA Experimental Publishing, Rotterdam).