Research Into Vision. Histories of Cinema Starting from Marey», Barcelona, 2018
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Vol. VI Núm 11 Vol.2018 VI comparative cinema No. 11 2018 Marey starting from cinema of Histories vision. into Research Editors Albert Elduque (University of Reading, United Kingdom), Núria Gómez Gabriel (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain) and Gonzalo de Lucas (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain). Associate Editors Núria Bou (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain) and Xavier Pérez (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain). Advisory Board Dudley Andrew (Yale University, United States), Jordi Balló (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Raymond Bellour (Université Sorbonne-Paris III, France), Francisco Javier Benavente (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Nicole Brenez (Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne, France), Maeve Connolly (Dun Laoghaire Institut of Art, Design and Technology, Irleland), Thomas Elsaesser (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Gino Frezza (Università de Salerno, Italy), Chris Fujiwara (Edinburgh International Film Festival, United Kingdom), Jane Gaines (Columbia University, United States), Haden Guest (Harvard University, United States), Tom Gunning (University of Chicago, United States), John MacKay (Yale University, United States), Adrian Martin (Monash University, Australia), Cezar Migliorin (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil), Alejandro Montiel (Universitat de València, Spain), Meaghan Morris (University of Sidney, Australia and Lignan University, Hong Kong), Raffaele Pinto (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain), Ivan Pintor (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Àngel Quintana (Universitat de Girona, Spain), Joan Ramon Resina (Stanford University, United States), Eduardo A. Russo (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina), Glòria Salvadó (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Yuri Tsivian (University of Chicago, United States), Vicente Sánchez-Biosca (Universitat de València, Spain), Jenaro Talens (Université de Genève, Switzerland and Universitat de València, Spain), Michael Witt (Roehampton University, United Kingdom). Contributors Sergi Álvarez Riosalido, María García Vera, Andrés Hispano, Alex Pena Morgado, Paula Arantzazu Ruiz, José Luis Torrelavega. Editorial Assistants Mario Barranco and Brunella Tedesco (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain). Translators Robert Prieto and Daniela Romina Torres. English language reviewer Michael Bunn. Original design and layout Pau Masaló (original design), Núria Gómez Gabriel (website and PDF layouts). Acknowledgements Paulino Viota. Publisher Center for Aesthetic Research of Audiovisual Media (CINEMA), Department of Communication, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). Place of publication Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Communication Campus - Poblenou. Roc Boronat, 138, 08018, Barcelona (Spain). E-mail [email protected] Website www.upf.edu/comparativecinema Comparative Cinema, Volume 6, No. 11, «Research into vision. Histories of cinema starting from Marey», Barcelona, 2018. Legal Deposit: B.29702-2012 ISSN: 2014-8933 Some rights are reserved. Published under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International). Cover Photo José Val del Omar’s PLAT (picto-lumínico-audio-táctil) lab. Comparative Cinema is a scientific journal that addresses film studies from a comparative perspective. It is published by the Center for Aesthetic Research on Audiovisual Media (CINEMA) at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), in Barcelona. Since its inception in 2012, it has investigated the conceptual and formal relations between films, material processes and production and exhibition practices, as well as the history of ideas and film criticism in different social and political contexts. Comparative Cinema tackles an original area of research by developing a series of methodologies for a comparative study of cinema. With this aim, it also explores the relations between cinema and comparative literature, as well as other contemporary arts such as painting, photography, music and dance, and audio-visual media. The journal is structured into monographic issues featuring articles, interviews and the re- publishing of crucial texts, which are sometimes complemented by audio-visual essays, either as part of a written article or as an autonomous work. Each issue also includes a book review section which analyses some of the most important works in film studies published in Spain and abroad. Comparative Cinema is published biannually in English, though it may include original versions of the texts in other languages. It is an open access, peer-reviewed publication which uses internal and external evaluation committees. As such, it is recognized by international indexes such as DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) and Latindex (Regional Information System for Online Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal). 5-6 Gonzalo de Lucas Research into vision. Histories of cinema starting from Marey comparative cinema comparative 7-24 Documents 2018 Vol. VI Vol. No. 11 No. 7-9 Peter Kubelka About Marey –Interviewed by Alfonso Crespo and Francisco Algarín Navarro– 10-16 Thom Andersen Eadweard Muybridge 17-24 Jean-Pierre Beauviala and Jean-Luc Godard Genesis of a Camera 25-44 José Luis Torredelavega A conversation with Paulino Viota 45-55 Andrés Hispano Trusting the images. Science, photography and the world at hand 56-71 Paula Arantzazu Ruiz Notes on the origins of the medical cinematographic gaze 72-84 Alex Pena Morado Names are what you see when you look at things 85-93 Gonzalo de Lucas Associative vision and figurative comparison 94-96 Sergi Álvarez Riosalido ALCOZ, Albert. Resonancias fílmicas. El sonido en el cine estructural (1960-1981). Shangrila, Santander, 2017, 358 p. 97-99 María García Vera EISENSCHITZ, Bernard. Punto de partida. Entrevista a Robert Kramer. Athenaica, Seville, 2017, 232 p. 100-160 Original Texts In an article on Painlevé’s aesthetic tools such as the camera, optics and relationship with surrealism, Frieda projectors. Grafe wrote: But this story of vision also “cameras record the surreal concerns the spectator, who can now in its materialistic sublimation. analyze cinematographic images by The new objectivity that radiated stopping them, slowing them down comparative cinema comparative from these photographic and re-viewing them. These analytical images changed the form of actions also involve vision supplements expression and the scientific in which metamorphoses of the method. Cameras mechanized visible also take place, while different metamorphoses, and the patterns of thinking are generated introduction of certain elements through visual association: an image is such as light and water in motion always a link to other images, via the transformed representation into comparisons we make in our minds. an epiphany, thereby producing As Peter Kubelka notes in an interview (as Benjamin points out) a healthy (from which we include an extract separation between man and his in this issue), there is no movement surroundings. in the brain, only frames, static and illuminated events: “When I discovered ‘Surrealist’ means that there E. J. Marey, I already had my idea that is always something being cinema is not movement… my hands denied, something that resists already knew, and then my head, that it abstraction and formalization, always comes afterwards”. 5 an evident non-congruence that generates all manner of The possibilities of thinking about psychological reactions in the cinema are very varied from that spectator. This trait doesn’t take standpoint: not from movement, but us to a stage not yet developed from image, through the dynamic by science, but it does coincide game of aesthetic experience. As we perfectly with the definitions of know, any artistic work – be it musical, the researcher René Thom, who pictorial, literary or cinematographic says ‘the only truly important and – cannot be confined to one single significant scientific advances primary context from which it are not the increase of knowledge should be perceived, but instead it is [...], but man’s acquisition of new transformed depending on the specific mental structures that allow spaces and formats of reproduction him to simulate reality more or exhibition, the transformations effectively’” (GRAFE, 2017: 119- of language, as well as the attitudes 120). and mindset of each particular time period, and who actually sees them. Far from being very different Thus research on any image cannot fields, scientific and cinematographic be separated from this principle of research both carry out quests and uncertainty, of approximation; the queries about speed, time, memory or movement made by the spectator as perception. Several filmmakers have a result of the image. And, as Welles also been inventors, and have created later demonstrated, in fact there are no their own studies or laboratories to experts on an image. Editorial of Histories vision. into Research Marey cinema starting from conduct tests on image and sound. In these cases, the technique is used Be that as it may, cinema, rather to explore the poetic potentialities of than narrative, has generated new 2018 Vol. VI Vol. No. 11 No. structures of thinking based on vision. someone looked at it, it became Or, to return to Godard: threefold; that is, there was something... something different “The basic idea is that cinema, that, from a technical point of at the moment of its invention, view, gradually began to be called developed (in fact it exposed, it editing. It was something that allowed us to see) a different way didn’t film things, it filmed the comparative cinema comparative of seeing that has been called links between