June 09 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 Cineworks’s newly acquired annex space that is, essentially, half black box and half white cube, June’s meeting will feature Girogio Agamben’s essay “Difference and Repetition: On Guy Debord’s Films,” taken from Art and the Moving Image, a new critical reader edited by Tanya Leighton. Says Leighton in her introduction, “Agamben examines Debord’s films in view of the proximity between cinema and history. Where does this closeness, this link, come from, Agamben asks, and what kind of history is involved?…Every image, Agamben claims, can be seen in the light of cinema. The dimension of ‘history’ that has a time with cinema, he suggests, is not chronological but messianic: each moment in time is charged with history.” Drawing on the attraction that moving images have for contemporary artists, and the transposition of moving images from theatres to galleries, Agamben’s essay explores Debord’s films as an example of how the traditional concerns of cinema are reconciled to the more embodied qualities of moving image art.

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 XVII
reading Giorgio Agamben’s “Difference and Repetition: On Guy Debord’s Films”
Cineworks [1131 Howe, back lane entrance]
09 June 2009, 6pm
Free