2023/1 - #Ports
Recent Submissions
- ArticleEditorial NECSUS – Spring 2023_#PortsBeugnet, Martine; de Cuir Jr, Greg; Keilbach, Judith; Loist, Skadi; Pape, Toni; Vidal, Belén; Virginás, Andrea (2023) , S. 1-4
- Article‘The shipyard is dead’: Ports, memory, and left melancholy in contemporary French cinemaScott, Ben (2023) , S. 104-124This article examines the representation of ports and shipyards within contemporary French cinema, addressing three works whose narratives centre around port towns on France’s Mediterranean coast: L’Atelier (2017), La Ville est tranquille (2000), and Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro (2011). The analysis places theories of left melancholy in dialogue with these films in order to explore their representation of the relationship between the Fordist past, neoliberal present, and any possible beyond. Consequently, it makes a case for the importance of the port as a site through which fundamental questions pertaining to cultural, social, and economic changes are explored within contemporary work-oriented film.
- ArticlePorts and media: A research project showcaseBaptist, Vincent; Savoldi, Francesca; Hein, Carola; Smith, James Louis; RamÃrez, George N.; Moss-Wellington, Wyatt; Rawnsley, Ming-yeh T.; Loo, Yat Ming; Karmy, Eileen; Vidiella Pagès, Judit; Castro-Varela, Aurelio (2023) , S. 125-151
- ArticleFrom cloudy logic to logistical system: Algorimages, black boxes, and the socio-technical infrastructure of platformsHansson Nilson, Leo (2023) , S. 152-169This article argues that the critical study of algorithms must shift its focus from solving the problem of the ‘black box’ to seeing the structures that surround and pose it as a problematic in the first place. By mapping the movements of what I call algorimages, and the socio-technical infrastructures through which they circulate, the apparently ‘hidden’ imperatives of algorithms are made visible. Through the case study of Twitter, this article undertakes a critical, materialist analysis of algorimages as logistics, excavating their technical substrates and social conditions of emergence within transformations of the capitalist mode of production since the 1970s.
- ArticlePorts and the politics of visibility: An interview with Laleh KhaliliVélez-Serna, MarÃa; Stauff, Markus (2023) , S. 16-34In this interview with Laleh Khalili, her book Sinews of War and Trade (Verso, 2020) is the starting point to discuss how ports – through their material procedures and their media representations – contribute to the uneven visibility of the global economy and labor conditions. The book weaves a richly-detailed history of places along the Arabian peninsula that have been transformed by oil and finance, imperialism and nationalism, from the traditional dhow traders to the modern container ports and oil terminals. In the interview Khalili details how some ports have become a spectacle that enacts the technological sublime and caters to tourism, while also obscuring less attractive operations such as bulk cargo and scrap. Their managed visibility offers insights into the infrastructural power relationships they emerge from and reproduce. This was particularly salient in the context of supply chain crises during COVID, which also exacerbated problems of labour exploitation and the restriction of human movement. Ports can also be key nodes of protest through tactical interruption of capitalist logistics. Next to critical analysis, Khalili suggests literary imagination as a procedure that allows for a more complex understanding of the layered realities of ports.
- ArticleCinema and/as infrastructure in interwar avant-gardes and empire aviation documentariesThapa, Anu (2023) , S. 170-187This article analyses cinematic exposition of aeriality in empire documentaries and avant-garde cinema from the interwar period to interrogate cinema as infrastructure, its weaponisation and deployment in the imperial project, and its convergence with aerial infrastructure which united the perception of Empire with the experience of modernity. I argue that the use of aeriality in the aestheticisation of infrastructures in avant-garde films like De Brug (Joris Ivens, 1928) and La Tour (Rene Clair, 1928) cannot be divorced from the ideology that is on overt display in Empire aviation documentaries such as Wings over Everest and Contact.
- ArticleFirst person war: Helmet cameras between testimony and performanceSelvini, Federico (2023) , S. 188-211In the contemporary media landscape, the visual component of armed conflicts tends to be articulated in two distinct imaginaries. On one hand, we observe a ‘view from above’ generated by aircrafts, UAVs, and satellites; on the other, we encounter videos and photographs shot with consumer technologies by people on the ground such as regular soldiers, militiamen, guerrillas, NGOs, and civilians. Through the internet, these ‘low images’ have created a new imaginary. Among the devices that mark the iconography of the wars of the new millennium, a prominent place is occupied by minute-sized videographic instruments usually secured on the operator’s head, called helmet cameras. These devices are characterised by two elements: the first-person view and the prosthetic relationship with the human body. The machine vision hence presupposes a form of witnessing inextricably related to the subject’s mobility. Helmet cameras produce an embodied experience of war in which the visual perspective echoes the agency of a body at risk that is exposed to the stimuli and the dangers of the battlefield. Focusing primarily on the television docu-series Taking Fire (2016), the paper aims to explore all the elements that mark helmet cameras as a real topos of the contemporary war imagery, pointing to the relationship between vision, technical device, and body. The essay highlights recurring features of the images on both filmic and content levels, adopting an interdisciplinary perspective. Starting from studies on point-of-view shots and documentary filmmaking, the essay demonstrates how helmet camera images are profoundly influenced by several trends shaping the contemporary media landscape, including the post-photographic approach, the videogame world, the aesthetics of extreme sports, and the social network culture.
- ArticleNational film festivals circuits in the Latin American sphere: Discussing film canon, film culture, and cinephiliaGonzález Itier, Sebastián (2023) , S. 212-230Film festivals have been understood as part of a global network where each event acts as a node. Their position depends on their relevance and hierarchies within the circuit. However, this notion of a network does not necessarily reflect the establishment of national or local circuits linked to small nations and cinemas. Therefore, this article discusses the creation of local film festival circuits in Latin America based on film culture and cinephilia. I use the water cycle as a reference in order to identify that national circuits in Latin America work around a small group of festivals that act as condensers of resources, which are distributed to the rest of the circuit through different relationships: sublimation and deposition (film historiography); runoff (influence on smaller and local festivals); infiltration (film education); and evaporation, where the processed and transformed resources bring new films and new filmmakers to nurture the condenser film festivals to start this cycle all over again.
- ArticleGirls will be boys in German silent cinemaHorak, Laura (2023) , S. 231-256The popularity and availability of Ernst Lubitsch’s cross-dressing comedy Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1918) sometimes creates the impression that it is a unique example of female-to-male cross-dressing in silent cinema. Likewise, attention to the gender and sexual play of Weimar-era (1918-1933) German cinema often eclipses cinema of the Wilhelmine era (1895-1918). This article asks: how does Ich möchte kein Mann sein fit into the wider ecology of German films featuring cross-dressed women, during both the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras? How are the cross-dressed women of German silent cinema similar to and different from silent films in other countries? After examining more than 47 German silent films featuring cross-dressed women, I argue that German films adapted transnational cross-dressing performance traditions to fit local contexts, offering audiences deliberately contradictory experiences of female masculinity and same-sex desire. Though scholars have focused on Weimar cinema as offering new possibilities for gender and sexuality, Wilhelmine cinema also offered varied visions of female masculinity – especially in Danish actress Asta Nielsen’s creative takes on cross-dressing traditions. Weimar films continued these traditions while making more explicit reference to real life lesbian and gay subcultures. Attending to the complexities of female-to-male cross-dressing allows us to see how popular culture envisions alternative gender and sexual scenarios while maintaining its popularity and, for the most part, dodging the censors’ scissors.
- ArticleDesire lines: An interview on the sociality of film with B. Ruby RichBrunow, Dagmar; Loist, Skadi (2023) , S. 257-275A conversation with B. Ruby Rich, one of the most prolific film critics in the world. For decades she has been involved in film culture as a curator, film critic, professor, and journal editor. In this interview, Skadi Loist and Dagmar Brunow talk with Rich about her inspirations, her international encounters, and her take on film culture and criticism. Above all, this conversation highlights the importance of looking at the social relations that make film culture happen.
- ArticleDesktop documentary as scholarly subjectivity: Five approachesLee, Kevin B.; Avissar, Ariel (2023) , S. 276-280Desktop documentary has gained increasing prominence both within and beyond cinema and media scholarly practice. The recent ascendance of desktop filmmaking prompts an occasion to reflect on the current state of the practice. The five original desktop videos presented in this section offer such an occasion for reflection, particularly with regard to the distinguishing qualities and affordances of desktop documentary and desktop subjectivities for cinema and media scholarship.
- ArticleDesktop DocumentaryBinotto, Johannes (2023) , S. 281-283
- ArticleWith a Camera in Hand, I Was AliveBird, Katie (2023) , S. 284-285
- ArticleDouble Exposures: ‘Visual returns’ in the Deadwood and Breaking Bad sequel filmsTedesco-Barlocco, Brunella (2023) , S. 286-289
- ArticleIndians from 1967: A ReactionKaushik, Ritika (2023) , S. 290-292
- ArticleSome Thoughts Occasioned by Four DesktopsAvissar, Ariel (2023) , S. 293-294
- ArticleArquivo em Cartaz: Archival film festivals amid old and new challengesMuylaert, Juliana (2023) , S. 295-304
- Article17th DocsMX: Returning to the streets and meeting with audiencesPires, Bianca (2023) , S. 305-315
- ArticleHavana Film Festival New York 2022: A cultural bridge emerging from COVID-19Farrell, Michelle (2023) , S. 316-322
- ArticleExperiencing Cinema / Ephemeral CinemaBarber, Sian (2023) , S. 323-330