April 27 2009

MONTHLY READING + DISCUSSION GROUP EXPLORING CINEMA + CINEMATIC PRACTICE THROUGH WRITTEN WORDS

A monthly reading + discussion group, Thought on Film aims to promote critical thought around film product and practice through community-based discussion. Open to the public, Thought on Film fosters the close reading of texts confronting issues in contemporary, cutting-edge cinematic practice and philosophy.

Provoked by the presentation of Althea Thauberger’s Chelsea Girls at this year’s Signal + Noise Festival, April’s meeting will feature J. M. Coetzee’s 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech He and His Man. Thauberger’s Chelsea Girls is informed by contemporary insights on the legacy of Andy Warhol and his film of the same name, reflecting the psycho-social issues of today. The final product is an exchange of narratives, the distillation of a story passed back and forth from resident to actor, director to camera person, and back again. In Coetzee’s speech, you will find a confusion of author and subject, of quotation and primary text, of master and slave going back to the “golden times” of colonialism, and an examination of the sometimes brutal, sometimes emancipating power dynamics of representation. Thauberger and Coetzee share an interest in confusing traditional or easy conpartmentalizations, each of them proposing re-readings that are derived from, but distinct from, an inherited past.

Experimenting with the form of reading groups and their discussions, this month’s selection will be read out loud by participants. No pre-reading required!

If you have any questions about Thought on Film, please do not hesitate to contact Programs Manager + Curator cheyanne turions at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thought On Film XV
reading J. M. Coetzee’s He and His Man
Cineworks [1131 Howe, back lane entrance]
27 April 2009, 6pm
Free

Image Credit: Chelsea Girls by Althea Thauberger, courtesy of the artist and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.