Flores / Fall of Grace: Nora Aunor as Cinema 46 FALL OF GRACE: NORA AUNOR AS CINEMA Patrick D. Flores University of the Philippines
[email protected] Abstract Nora Aunor is enlisted in this speculation as a medium in the register of both the cinema and the transmission of spirit. The key trajectory is the oft-cited film Himala, which opens up a conceptual space for mediumship, the technology of the actress, her biography and corpus of art, and the devotion to her person. The essay constellates a set of texts including the sculpture in honor of Elsa, the main character of Himala, the film Silip, and the life of a fan. Nora, the performative vessel of Elsa, becomes fundamentally cinematic. It is through her that Elsa is fleshed out as a miracle worker of vexing potency. Nora is herself a testament to the transformative potential of the technology of the cinema. Keywords devotion, film, image, medium, spirit, voice About the Author Patrick D. Flores is Professor of Art Studies at the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, which he chaired from 1997 to 2003, and Curator of the Vargas Museum in Manila. He is Adjunct Curator at the National Art Gallery, Singapore. He was one of the curators of Under Construction: New Dimensions in Asian Art in 2000 and the Gwangju Biennale (Position Papers) in 2008. He was a Visiting Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1999 and an Asian Public Intellectuals Fellow in 2004. Among his publications are Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (1999); Remarkable Collection: Art, History, and the National Museum (2006); and Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (2008).