Animacy in the Moving Image

What does it mean to consider the gaze of the non-human, or to prioritize an anti-human gaze? This workshop and screening course will unpack the ways the camera has been mobilized by the human at the exclusion of the "more-than-human" (a term that turns away from anthropocentrism and proposes complex entanglements and reparative attention across species and beings). We will inhabit the gap between theory and practice in filmmaking and use thinkers in queer ecology, geography, and language studies to guide us as we explore submerged spaces, puncturing the homogeneity of authoritarian noise. To set the terms for the course, we will look at how the camera operates in a hierarchy that first privileges the white, male, able-bodied, upper class heterosexual human, followed by those who fall outside those categories, then animals, plants, fungi, microbes, non-living objects, and abstract concepts. We will interrogate representations of our ongoing contribution to the Anthropocene. Next, we will search for horizontal affinities in the wild. In an age of environmental crisis, conversations are developing around the ways in which we understand and represent the more-than-human world--what do these representations have to do with how we conceive of ourselves, and how can we speculate on a comprehensible future? Art historian T.J. Demos describes the "aesthetics of the Anthropocene" as abstract visual pleasure that exceeds human comprehension. We will call for the development of creative alternatives for representations of nature that are based in relationality between humans and objects, and recognize and explore artistic methods to center the active participation of nonhuman forces in events.

The focus of More-Than-Human Animacy and the Moving Image will primarily revolve around viewing and making experimental documentary, multi-media installation and sound projects. Students should expect readings, in-class and assigned screenings, and weekly writing assignments. A midterm and final moving-image or spatialized sound project will be required. The course will culminate not in an answer to the questions we ask, but to encourage students to think critically and make imaginatively.