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In the archival multiverse, the blubber decays but the fever increases. : A contribution to VIOLENCE: the fourth biennial PARSE Research Conference at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Under the "Archives and Witnessing" section of the conference. Moderated by Åsa Sonjasdotter
- 2021
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Konstnärligt arbete (film/video) (refereegranskat)abstract
- The presented work is composed by Marc Johnson — a memory worker — who is currently a Ph.D. candidate in performative and media-based practices at the Stockholm University of the Arts. The shared perspectives are engaging issues of violence from the center of an artistic practice-based research focused on archival practices and concerned with how a documentary heritage circulates, is formed, debated, shared, and re-interpreted.The lecture-performance starts by considering the “Rights of Nature” — from recent environmental litigations in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Bolivia, and Ecuador — which focus on the idea of legal standing. What does it take to enforce the legal personhood of a river or other natural entities?Marc Johnson investigates and reflects on some ways to deal with representations of murdered bodies — human and more-than-human (cellular life forms) — without replicating historical patterns of abuse? Under what conditions shall these documents, artifacts, or, images be seen?Marc Johnson collaborates with Hitomi Ohki 大木瞳 — Soprano singer — to expose how polyphony[1] and counterpoint[2] applied to cinema can be used practically to navigate the uncertain archive(s) of violence studies.Marc Johnson addresses the dynamics of archival silences[3] and archival amnesty[4] as an important reminder of the ways in which violence — despite its presence in the everyday life of most people mainly through paper-based, and online news media (including social networks) — can also be deeply buried and invisible through institutional and corporate powers and other means; nonetheless impacting the lives of ordinary people (as opposed to powerful people, military, political and business leaders).The proposal does not intend to resolve; but rather to expose and to put oneself in the presence of using the means of montage.Skepsis is the deployed strategy throughout the duration of the time-based work as defined by Jacques Derrida as a “vigilance, and attention of the gaze during an examination. […] One is on the lookout, one reflects upon what one sees, reflects what one sees by delaying the moment of conclusion.”[5] [1] A process of combining two or more voices so that they harmonize with each other but maintain their individuality.[2] A process of adding one or more melodies as an accompaniment to a given melody according to certain fixed rules; a composition in which melodies are thus combined.[3] Rodney G. S. Carter, “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence,” Archivaria, September 25, 2006, 215–33.[4] Tonia Sutherland, “Archival Amnesty: In Search of Black American Transitional and Restorative Justice,” ed. Michelle Caswell, Ricardo Punzalan, and T-Kay Sangwand, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, Critical Archival Studies, 1, no. 2 (2017): 1–23, https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v1i2.42.[5] Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
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