Image Economies, #5 | Life of images. The Technical Manifestations of the Living in Contemporary Art and Cinema

The talk will focus on the plastic and “metamorphic” power of certain living forms, in particular plants, which are apparently inert (or rather, inert to the naked eye) but can be animated by different media. Marie Rebecchi will examine on the one hand the relationship between movement and the metamorphosis of living forms; on the other hand, she will delve into the relationship between the animation of images and animism, drawing on reflections by directors and film theorists such as Jean Epstein and Sergei Eisenstein on the “animist” power of the cinematographic medium, reflections first posed in 1910 and 1920.

The use of time manipulation techniques in photography, cinema and digital images allow us to observe the deployment of a specific “heterotemporality” of the living (in particular the growth of plants), as well as the upheaval of the spatio-temporal coordinates through which human perception is organized. Many artists today are challenging the opposition between nature and technology, showing that photography is nothing other than an extension of photosynthesis and that microorganisms are already creating “living images.”

Marie Rebecchi is Maîtresse de conférences (Associate Professor) in Film Aesthetics at Aix-Marseille University and member of LESA (Laboratory of Studies in Art Sciences). Together with Elena Vogman (in collaboration with Till Gathmann) she edited the book Sergei Eisenstein. The Anthropology of Rhythm (NERO, 2017). She is the author of the book Paris 1929. Eisenstein, Bataille, Buñuel (Paris: Mimésis, 2018), and the co-editor, together with Teresa Castro and Perig Pitrou, of the book Puissances du végétal et cinéma animiste. La vitalité révélée par la technique (Les presses du réel, 2020). She has been associate curator and co-editor, with Antonio Somaini and Éline Grignard, of the exhibition and the book Time Machine. Cinematic Temporalities (Parme, 2020 and Skira 2020). She has been visiting fellow at the University of Lausanne (Film Aesthetics) and is working on the project “The Kaleidoscopic Image. An Alternative Archaeology of Optical Modernity.” In 2021, she organized the event Le vivant révélé pas la technique at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (Festival “Hors Pistes”).  She organises with Lia Giraud (Beaux-Arts de Marseille) the seminar Les Milieux associés at Aix-Marseille Université. https://lesa.univ-amu.fr/membres-lesa/marie-rebecchi/
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Seria spotkań odbywa się w ramach centrum Jasna 10 – interdyscyplinarnego centrum kultury działającego w Warszawie. Głównym organizatorem wydarzeń jest internetowe pismo akademickie Widok. Teorie i praktyki kultury wizualnej. Wydarzenie organizowane jest w ramach programu „Centrum Jasna” finansowanego ze środków Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy.

Spotkania odbywają się online w języku angielskim.