New Materialist Spectatorship: The Moving-Image-Body, the Mockumentary and a New Image of Thought

  • Miriam von Schantz
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2015.85.394

Abstract

In this article I propose to rethink spectatorship as analytic category within cinema studies. Through an engagement with new materialist theory I shift the conversation from the locked positions of spectator and text towards an acknowledgement of the spectatorial event as a becoming increased or decreased in capacity to affect and be affected. By doing so I argue that what is effectuated in the event of spectating is in fact the production of a certain body, what I call a moving-image-body. This, I claim, develops in connection with different so-called spectatorial contracts, contracts that produce different agential conditions. An examination of some examples from the realm of the mockumentary, notably I’m Still Here (Affleck, 2010), leads me to discuss the core of the issue as one pertaining to the potential production of new realities, and my methodological proposal as a way towards mapping, not what the event of spectating means, but rather what it does.

 

 

KEYWORDS

Spectatorship, Mockumentary, New Materialism, Genre theory, Audiovisual Event.

 

Networking Knowledge: Reframing Cinematic Space and Audience Practice in the Digital Age. Cosmopolis (2005) Maurice Benayoun's Giant Virtual Reality Interactive Installation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Benayoun#/media/File:COSMOPOLIS.jpg, CC BY 3.0
Published
August 30, 2015
How to Cite
von Schantz, M. (2015). New Materialist Spectatorship: The Moving-Image-Body, the Mockumentary and a New Image of Thought. Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 8(5). https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2015.85.394
Issue
Vol. 8 No. 5 (2015): Reframing Cinematic Space and Audience Practice in the Digital Age
Section
Articles