Transformations
Journal of Media, Culture, & Technology
2024 Issue No. 37 Idealism and Contemporary Film Theory
Idealism and Contemporary Film Theory: Subjectivity, Politics, Technics
Guest Editors:
Corey Cribb (University of Melbourne)
Laurent Shervington (University of Western Australia)
Laurence Kent (University of Bristol)
[in]Transition
volume 11 issue 2 2024
Art Cinema’s Suicidal Posthuman Women | video essay
authors
Missy Molloy, Pansy Duncan, Claire Henry & Caitlin Lynch
abstract
Air Doll (Kûki ningyô, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2009) introduces a posthuman perspective through its protagonist Nozomi, an inflatable sex doll who miraculously comes to consciousness. Meanwhile, On Body and Soul (Testről és lélekről, dir. Ildikó Enyedi, 2017) centers on a surreal romance between Mária and Endre that thrives, in part, on their posthuman connections to animals and objects. Strong narrative, erotic and traumatic elements bind these films—in particular, their treatments of their posthuman women protagonists—which video editing offered the ideal method for unpacking. Air Doll and On Body and Soul explore the posthuman possibilities inherent in their protagonists’ nonhuman and neurodivergent subjectivities, yet the films’ handling of Nozomi and Mária's leaky bodies reveals their confinement within humanist norms. Left bleeding and deflated, what do Nozomi and Mária foretell for posthuman cinema?
07. 24
Play with Man Ray: Human-canine intra-action in William Wegman’s video art.
Claire Henry
In Senses of Cinema’s "Film and the Nonhuman" dossier (Issue 109), Claire Henry considers human-canine intra-action in the works of American artist William Wegman in collaboration with his companion, Man Ray, and how this video art "invites us to reconsider the centrality of play to human-canine communication and aesthetics onscreen."