Crisis Aesthetics: Film, Form & Futurity
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General
Course Long Title
Crisis Aesthetics: Film, Form & Futurity
Subject Code
FSFV
Course Number
621J
School(s)
Academic Level
GR - Graduate
Description
What lies ahead of us? How do our notions about the future inform and shape the present? Is looking back a way to look forward? If so, what are the different perspectives - historical/cultural/aesthetic - that guide this process? And how do technologies through which we see and represent the world dictate how futures are imagined?
Crisis Aesthetics examines how cinema has long served as a site of speculation and sense-making during periods of upheaval - social, political, ecological, and existential. Through an exploration of futurist imaginaries across the history of cinema and art, this course analyzes how the future has been mediated through film, and the possibilities it offers for transformation, resistance and radical reworlding.
At a moment when the world appears to be on the brink of collapse, the future seems uncertain and fraught with anxiety - yet also charged with potential. This course invites you to engage in speculative thinking as a form of collective divination, to reflect upon the role of filmmaking and art in proposing a way forward. After all, the crystal orb that shows us the future is also a looking glass, carrying a reflection of the present we inhabit.
We will examine futurisms drawn from a diverse range of socio-cultural and geographic contexts, attending to the possibilities that the medium holds for poetic departures. From the genre inflections of science-fiction and horror to afro- and indigenous futurisms, we will trace how artists and filmmakers harness material, form, and technology to respond to their present - and to imagine otherwise.
The course will engage with the cinematic works and processes of filmmakers such as John Akomfrah, the Otolith Group, Mamoru Oshii, Chris Marker, Colectivo Los Ingrvidos, Payal Kapadia, Kamal Aljafari, Ben Rivers, and Zhou Tao, among others. Our inquiry will be further supplemented by readings drawn from philosophy, literature, and cultural theory, including the writings of Kodwo Eshun, Grace Dillon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang, Jason Jorjani, Octavia E Butler, Strugatsky Brothers, and others. We will also draw inspiration from art forms beyond cinema, reviewing fine art and sonic practices that relate to the thematic underpinnings of the course.
Students will participate in weekly screenings, readings, and discussions, culminating in a final moving-image project that articulates a personal vision of the future rooted in their present perspective. In-progress reviews and group critiques will offer a space for feedback, dialogue, and refinement.
Crisis Aesthetics examines how cinema has long served as a site of speculation and sense-making during periods of upheaval - social, political, ecological, and existential. Through an exploration of futurist imaginaries across the history of cinema and art, this course analyzes how the future has been mediated through film, and the possibilities it offers for transformation, resistance and radical reworlding.
At a moment when the world appears to be on the brink of collapse, the future seems uncertain and fraught with anxiety - yet also charged with potential. This course invites you to engage in speculative thinking as a form of collective divination, to reflect upon the role of filmmaking and art in proposing a way forward. After all, the crystal orb that shows us the future is also a looking glass, carrying a reflection of the present we inhabit.
We will examine futurisms drawn from a diverse range of socio-cultural and geographic contexts, attending to the possibilities that the medium holds for poetic departures. From the genre inflections of science-fiction and horror to afro- and indigenous futurisms, we will trace how artists and filmmakers harness material, form, and technology to respond to their present - and to imagine otherwise.
The course will engage with the cinematic works and processes of filmmakers such as John Akomfrah, the Otolith Group, Mamoru Oshii, Chris Marker, Colectivo Los Ingrvidos, Payal Kapadia, Kamal Aljafari, Ben Rivers, and Zhou Tao, among others. Our inquiry will be further supplemented by readings drawn from philosophy, literature, and cultural theory, including the writings of Kodwo Eshun, Grace Dillon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang, Jason Jorjani, Octavia E Butler, Strugatsky Brothers, and others. We will also draw inspiration from art forms beyond cinema, reviewing fine art and sonic practices that relate to the thematic underpinnings of the course.
Students will participate in weekly screenings, readings, and discussions, culminating in a final moving-image project that articulates a personal vision of the future rooted in their present perspective. In-progress reviews and group critiques will offer a space for feedback, dialogue, and refinement.