Paper short abstract:

We will discuss animism in visual culture through the re(presentation) of climate change and extinction in both Western film theory and indigenous film, focusing on Video nas Aldeias (Brazil), Karrabing Film Collective (Australia) and "Story telling for Earthly Survival" by Fabrizio Terranova.

Paper long abstract:

Climate change entails that contemporary societies are now making natural history and climates become inscriptions of human culture. Reversely, climate change is also about the "intrusion of non-humans" in human temporality, generating a kind of geo-subjectivity (the Anthropocene), where one can no longer divide nature and humanity as equidistant representations and models. In the case of cinema, the visualisation of the Anthropocene paradox becomes more and more an issue to film theory, not only as thematics but as foundation of the cinematic experience (Adam Ivakhiv). Carbon capitalism, extraction and disposal become thus intimately connected with the cinematic experience. In a way, the eventfullness of the Anthropocene gives a step further in the discussion between naturalism and animism as opposite ontologies (as Descola demonstrated), while it also builds common imaginaries to Western cinema and indigenous cinema around extinction, and the fragile distinction between life and non-live (Povinelli, 2016). In this presentation, we will focus in the documentary film "Story telling for Earthly Survival" by Fabrizio Terranova (2016) about Donna Haraway, and on the work of Video nas Aldeias (Brasil) and Karrabing Film Collective (Australia), and we will bound the problem of animism in visual culture to the re(presentation) of climate change and extinction.