Title A Queering of Memory, Temporality, Subjectivity: Subversive Methods in Audiovisual Practice Type The sis URL https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/15618/ Dat e 2 0 1 9 Citation Smith, Timothy (2019) A Queering of Memory, Temporality, Subjectivity: Subversive Methods in Audiovisual Practice. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London. Cr e a to rs Smith, Timothy Usage Guidelines Please refer to usage guidelines at http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact [email protected] . License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Unless otherwise stated, copyright owned by the author A Queering of Memory, Temporality, Subjectivity: Subversive Methods in Audiovisual Practice By Timothy Smith Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Practice-based PhD) University of the Arts London London College of Communication December 2019 Word Count: 59,036 (including footnotes, excluding Bibliography) Abstract This practice-based research attends to queer and feminist understandings of sound, memory, voice, temporality and spectrality, specifically in relation to audiovisual art. Through an analysis of artworks and material practices, I identify a range of subversive strategies implemented by artists intent on amplifying the voices of marginalised communities. These include alternative modes of listening, seeing and feeling that complicate hegemonic notions of history, genre, representation and subjectivity. The project examines five single-screen, digital artworks that I have created as part of my research, as well as works by seven other artists: John Akomfrah, Clio Barnard, Evan Ifekoya, Mikhail Karikis, Patrick Keiller, Charlotte Prodger and Wu Tsang. In relation to my analyses of the artworks, a number of theoretical concepts are developed: Queering of Memory draws primarily on queer and feminist theories of spectrality, temporality and voice (Gordon: 1997; Dinshaw: 1999; Cavarero: 2005; Freccero: 2006; Love: 2007; Blanco and Peeren: 2013). Haptic Aurality builds on established theories of cinematic embodiment (Sobchack: 1992, 2004; Marks: 2000, 2002, Barker: 2009), by attending specifically to sound (Voegelin: 2010; Leimbacher: 2017) and breath (Quinlivan: 2012, 2015). Diffractive Listening is inspired by theories of diffraction (Haraway: 1991, 1997; Barad: 2007, 2010, 2014) which are reconfigured with a much-needed aural sensibility (Lipari: 2014; Goh: 2017). Finally, the disruptive and transformative potential of Interference is considered through the metaphor of the wave (Rodgers: 2010, 2016) and the power of collective action (Butler: 2015; Davis: 2016; LaBelle: 2018). The structural framework of this thesis is comprised of different configurations of time and subjectivity. A journey that encompasses a vast array of temporalities: from the deep time of geological landscapes and their mythological narratives; the embodied present in all its haptic sensuality; the recent ‘historical’ past; then forwards and outwards towards the future, with all its multiplicitous possibilities. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments 4 Note to the reader 5 Introduction 6 Chapter One A Necessary Queering of Memory 23 Chapter Two Building on Theories of Haptic Aurality 62 Chapter Three Towards a Theory of Diffractive Listening 90 Chapter Four The Disruptive and Transformative Power of Interference 127 Conclusion 166 Bibliography 171 3 Acknowledgements I am enormously grateful to my supervisors, Prof. Angus Carlyle and Dr Maria Walsh, for all of their support and encouragement. I would also like to give special thanks to Prof. Catherine Elwes for her supervision in the first year of my research project and for providing me with the opportunity to write a review article for Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ). I am immensely grateful to the TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership for the financial support and training opportunities that they have generously provided. For their advice and encouragement both before and during my research journey, I must thank Dr R. Justin Hunt, Prof. Ben Campkin, Dr Rebecca Ross, Dr João Florêncio, Dr Dan Strutt, Dr P. A. Skantze, Dr Johanna Linsley, Jan Mertens, Steve Winney, Tasja Botha and Ashleigh Wienand. Thanks also to my colleagues Irene Revell, Kate Fahey, Onyeka Igwe and Alessandra Ferrini. Thanks to the artists whose work I have discussed in this thesis: John Akomfrah, Clio Barnard, Evan Ifekoya, Mikhail Karikis, Patrick Keiller, Charlotte Prodger and Wu Tsang. Finally, I must give my eternal gratitude to my friends and collaborators So Mayer, Teresa Cisneros, Valentino Vecchietti and Campbell X, without whom I could not have made the final film of this PhD. 4 Note to the reader I recommend watching all five of the artworks that I have produced as part of my research before reading this thesis. During some of the chapters there are times where I refer to specific timecodes, which might prompt the reader to refer back to the films in order to further appreciate the moments that are being discussed. The films can be accessed via the Vimeo links below. Please listen with headphones whilst watching the films. • A Queering of Memory: Parts 1 & 2 (2017) – 14min30 https://vimeo.com/208857206 • Phylum Mollusca: Gastropoda (2017) – 2min20 https://vimeo.com/240797251 • E1: Stories of Refuge and Resistance (2018) – 11min40 https://vimeo.com/251803542 • Queer Babel (2018) – 10min https://vimeo.com/281647518 (Password: Turing) • Queering di Teknolojik (2019) – 8min30 https://vimeo.com/335570723 (Password: Teknolojik) 5 Introduction My reasons for undertaking this research degree were brewing for some time. I can trace the seed of thought as far back as 2010 when I was working as the Events Programmer for the BFI London Film Festival. During my three years in that role I curated and delivered more than forty-five events, ranging from on- stage career interviews with high-profile actors and directors, to more intimate panel discussions with a number of different filmmakers. One event in particular stayed with me more than any other, so much so that I designed the whole proposal for my research degree around it. During the festival, on 20 October 2010, I brought together artist-filmmakers John Akomfrah, Clio Barnard and Patrick Keiller for an event entitled British Cinema: Breaking with Convention. The copy that I wrote for the festival brochure reads as follows: This event allows us the exciting opportunity to focus on a number of new British films that challenge the conventional notion of narrative and documentary form and explore the blurring between real lives and fiction. John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses is a poetic essay on the themes of memory and migration. Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Ruins, the long- awaited third instalment of his trilogy, beautifully weaves a wide range of themes and issues into a metaphorical exploration (and critique) of our society. Clio Barnard’s focus in The Arbor is the relationship between fictional film language and documentary, drawing attention to the fact that documentary narratives are as constructed as fictional ones. […] A common thread between these films is that through their process they are all concerned with representation and attempt to engage the audience by reminding us that what we are watching is a construct. (Smith 2010: 96) Looking back on what I wrote in 2010, as I write this nine years later, it is interesting to note how some aspects of the above text have gained even more importance as my research journey has progressed, particularly my interest in artworks that blur the boundaries between genres and complicate notions of representation. As I will explore throughout this thesis, revealing the ways in 6 which an artwork is constructed can be one method of engaging an audience, disrupting their expectations and inviting them to generate new meaning. My affection for these three artists and their work has not changed, but the methodology with which I am considering their work has evolved significantly. My initial proposal pushed forward the development of two theoretical notions, both of which I designed in order to discuss the subversive methods that I had identified in these artists’ audiovisual practice. The first was Queering of Memory which argued for a necessary critical engagement with history and cultural memory as a way to amplify the voices of marginalised communities. The second was a theory of Haptic Aurality, which aimed to infuse a much- needed sonic element within Laura U. Marks’ theory of ‘haptic visuality’ which described the way a spectator might feel an image with their eyes (Marks 2000). In this regard, I was particularly interested in exploring how sound might be able to engage sense memories in an audience. This methodological approach seemed to be progressing well, at least for the first half of my research journey, but it was around the time of the confirmation process (what some universities call the upgrade) that I began to realise that the form of research that I had been doing was effectively theory-led practice and I still had not fully grasped the meaning of practice-based research. The quest to understand this distinction has carried me through the remainder of the journey and it is a subject that I will return to at various points throughout this thesis. Upon the advice given to me during the confirmation meeting, I restructured the project from what was a very theory-led endeavour to one that centred my own practice and that of other artists who I felt were operating in a similar orbit. The materiality of the work would be foregrounded, and the theory would then be brought in to support my arguments. The two theoretical concepts mentioned above have not been abandoned, on the contrary, they form part of the framework of two of the chapters that follow. Two more theories are developed in subsequent chapters, as I shall outline further below. In addition to John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses (2010), Clio Barnard’s The Arbor (2010) and Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Ruins (2010), I will discuss the 7 work of four other artists.