"Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains" -A.N. WhiteheadThe aim of the Immediations book series is to prolong the wonder sustaining philosophic thought into transdisciplinary encounters. Its premise is that concepts are for the enacting: they must be experienced. Thought is lived, else it expires.It is most intensely lived at the crossroads of practices, and in the in-between of individuals and their singular endeavors: enlivened in the weave of a relational fabric. Co-composition. "The smile spreads over the face, as the face fits itself onto the smile" -A. N. Whitehead Which practices enter into co-composition will be left an open question, to be answered by the Series authors. Art practice, aesthetic theory, political theory, movement practice, media theory, maker culture, science studies, architecture, philosophy … the range is free. We invite you to roam it.
This article draws on Walter Benjamin’s theories of modernity and fashion to theorize the political potentiality of popular documentary film Bill Cunningham New York (Press, 2010). The article begins with a theoretical consideration of the relationship between photography and
fashion in modernity. This discussion of the material and immaterial constraints and aptitudes of each artistic medium clears the space for a Benjaminian analysis of fashion photography’s singular characteristics. The article then moves on to posit an immanent political charge in what
can be termed the fashion documentary film genre; a political charge that grows out of the genre’s preoccupation with what Benjamin calls phantasmagoric society. Finally, the article takes a closer look at Bill Cunningham New York, and, using this film as a case study, teases out some
of its contradictory political gestures at once revolving around a radically democratic notion of fashion, yet falling back onto a hierarchic structure of social value based on cultural elitism.
Chapter Five makes a claim for the therapeutic value of Indigenous cinemas by drawing on the body of Indigenous scholarship which conceives of decolonization as healing process. This chapter foregrounds Barry Barclay’s theory of Fourth Cinema which emphasizes the centrality of traditional Indigenous values to Indigenous filmmaking, and asks how such values can be affectively embedded in a film for political and therapeutic effect. Kanakan Balintagos’ film Palawan Fate serves as an intercessor for thinking about cinema’s contribution to social projects for healing and decolonization across the Fourth World, from Canada to the Philippines and beyond.
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