Issue Abstracts<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Guest Artist and Interview<\/strong><\/p>\n

Midi Onodera | Sheena Wilson<\/em><\/p>\n

Midi Onodera is a well-recognized Canadian filmmaker with more than thirty years of filmmaking experience. She has had screenings internationally at such prestigious venues as the Andy Warhol Museum, the International Festival of Documentary and Short Films, Bilbao, Spain, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Toronto International Film Festival. Her first film, a seven-minute short film entitled\u00a0Reality-Illusion\u00a0that she shot on Super Eight, appeared in 1979, while she was still in high school. She now has twenty-four films, two television-writing credits, two commissioned artist profiles, two feature length works, two interactive DVDs, 434 short videos, and a total of 467 films and videos to her name.\u00a0As an acknowledgement of Midi Onodera\u2019s long and productive career as a Canadian artist and filmmaker who has consistently demonstrated critical engagement with her subjects and her chosen media, we have invited her to be the guest artist-filmmaker for the inaugural issue of\u00a0Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies.\u00a0 In this dialogue-interview, she provides insight into the Vidoodles (video shorts) she created for this issue of the journal, and she discusses a number of related issues including various transformations that have taken place in technology and how that has impacted her creative production and her relationship with various media over the span of her career.<\/p>\n

Midi Onodera est une cin\u00e9aste canadienne reconnue cumulant plus de trente ans d\u2019exp\u00e9rience. Ses \u0153uvres ont \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es dans des contextes internationaux prestigieux tels que le Andy Warhol Museum, le Festival international du documentaire et du court-m\u00e9trage de Bilbao, le Festival international du film de Rotterdam, le Festival international du film de Berlin, Le Mus\u00e9e des beaux-Arts du Canada, et le Festival international du film de Toronto. Son premier film est un court-m\u00e9trage de sept minutes intitul\u00e9\u00a0Reality-Illusion\u00a0; tourn\u00e9 en format super 8, il a \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 en 1979, alors qu\u2019elle \u00e9tait encore \u00e9tudiante \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9cole secondaire. Elle a d\u00e9sormais \u00e0 son actif vingt-quatre films, deux scripts pour la t\u00e9l\u00e9vision, deux r\u00e9trospectives commandit\u00e9es, deux long-m\u00e9trages, deux DVD interactifs, 434 courts-m\u00e9trages. Elle totalise 467 films et vid\u00e9os \u00e0 son nom.\u00a0En reconnaissance de la longue et fructueuse carri\u00e8re de Midi Onodera comme artiste et r\u00e9alisatrice canadienne ayant d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 une vision critique constante et originale sur le monde, Nous avons le plaisir de l\u2019accueillir en tant qu\u2019artiste invit\u00e9e pour le num\u00e9ro inaugural d\u2019Imaginations\u00a0: Revue d\u2019\u00c9tudes Interculturelles de l\u2019image. Dans ce dialogue-interview, Midi Onodera offre sa propre perspective sur les Vidoodles (courts-m\u00e9trages vid\u00e9os) qu\u2019elle a r\u00e9alis\u00e9s sp\u00e9cialement pour la revue. Elle s\u2019int\u00e9resse \u00e9galement \u00e0 un certain nombre de questions importantes li\u00e9es \u00e0 ceux-ci, incluant les mutations des supports technologiques et l\u2019impact qu\u2019elles ont produit sur son processus cr\u00e9atif et sur ses m\u00e9thodes de travail tout au long de sa carri\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

Cross-border Visualities and the Canadian Image<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will Straw<\/em><\/p>\n

This article examines a number of images (photographs, film extracts, paintings) which stage particular relationships between Canada and the United States.\u00a0 A recurrent feature of Canadian images is the co-presence within them of elements which are recognizably from both Canada and the United States.\u00a0\u00a0 Analyzing several images marked by this co-presence, the article explores the various ways in which the proximity of Canadian and non-Canadian elements may be seen to express broader cultural or social-political relationships between two national entities.<\/p>\n

Cet article examine plusieurs images (photographies, extraits de films, tableaux) qui pr\u00e9sentent des relations bien d\u00e9finies entre le Canada et les \u00c9tats-Unis. Une particularit\u00e9 r\u00e9currente dans les images canadiennes est la copr\u00e9sence \u00e0 l\u2019int\u00e9rieur d\u2019elles d\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ments provenant manifestement des \u00c9tats-Unis ainsi que du Canada. En analysant plusieurs images marqu\u00e9es de cette copr\u00e9sence, l\u2019article explore les mani\u00e8res vari\u00e9es dont la proximit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ments canadiens et non-canadiens peut exprimer des relations plus vastes sur le plan culturel ou socio-politique entre deux nations.<\/p>\n

Soundless Speech \/ Wordless Writing:\u00a0Language and German Silent Cinema<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marc Silberman<\/em><\/p>\n

If language loses its communicative and interpretative functions in direct proportion to the loss of its referential grounding, then the modernist crisis is simultaneously a crisis of its signifying practices. This means that the evolution of the silent cinema is a particularly rich site to examine the problematic relationship of language and image. This essay presents several expressionist films as a specific response to this crisis in order to describe the diverse cinematic forms of resistance to the word, to articulated speech. While some film makers developed the silence of the silent film into a \u201cgestural language\u201d that dramatized light and movement, others reproduced the film figures\u2019 silent speech by means of graphically stylized intertitles. My thesis is that the expressionist cinema maintained an idealistic notion of the film as a pure work of art that aimed at a unified composition of all elements and missed the opportunity to explore the rich semiotic possibilities of the new technological medium with its hybrid, synergetic forms and provocative force. Hence, the expressionist cinema marks a transition or even the endpoint of a long process of reflection about the communicative possibilities of language that shifted to a fundamentally new level with the invention of sound cinema at the end of the 1920s.<\/p>\n

Le langage, dit-on, perd de ses functions communicatrices et interpretatives en proportion directe \u00e0 la perte de sa force r\u00e9f\u00e9rentielle. On dira que la crise moderniste est \u00e9galement une crise des pratiques signifiantes. Ce qui revient \u00e0 dire aussi que l\u2019\u00e9volution du cin\u00e9ma muet serait une site particuli\u00e8rement riche pour examiner les probl\u00e9matiques du langage vs. l\u2019image. Cet essai pr\u00e9sente quelques films expressionnistes comme r\u00e9actions \u00e0 la crise du langage, pour mieux circonscrire les diverses formes cin\u00e9matiques de r\u00e9sistance au mot, \u00e0 la parole claire. Chez certains cin\u00e9astes, le silence du film muet se traduit en \u201clangage gestuel\u201d qui dramatise lumi\u00e8re et mouvement. D\u2019autres reproduisent les paroles silencieuses par le moyen d\u2019intertitres graphiquement stylis\u00e9s. On pourrait dire que le cin\u00e9ma expressionniste, en promuant une notion id\u00e9aliste de l\u2019art pur qui viserait \u00e0 une composition unifi\u00e9e, aura manqu\u00e9 une occasion rare d\u2019explorer toutes les potentialit\u00e9s s\u00e9miotiques offertes par le nouveau m\u00e9dium technique et ses formes hybrides et synerg\u00e9tiques, voire par sa capacit\u00e9 de provocation. Ainsi, le cin\u00e9ma expressionniste marquerait un moment de transition ou m\u00eame le point final \u00e0 un long processus de r\u00e9flexion quant aux capacit\u00e9s communicatrices du langage. La pens\u00e9e se porte d\u00e9sormais sur les conditions nouvellement pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es par l\u2019invention du son \u00e0 la fin des ann\u00e9es 1920.<\/p>\n

The Vanished Child.\u00a0An inquiry into Figures and their Modes of Apparition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bertrand Gervais<\/em><\/p>\n

Sophie Calle\u2019s texts are elaborate devices that facilitate the production of figures, of complex symbolic entities. In fact, her work enables us to better understand how figures emerge and unfold in the imaginary. Thus, we find in her Disparitions (Disappearances), a startling figure, which we can name the \u201cVanished Child\u201d. I will present this figure and explain how it stems from the description of a painting by Rembrandt, stolen at the Gardner Museum in Boston. I will start by identifying some of the essential processes implied in the identification of a figure, and, to do so, I will give two short examples, drawn from Witold Gombrowicz and Don DeLillo. Then, after having described in details the figure of the Vanished Child, I will argue, following the French art historian Georges Didi-Huberman in his reading of Walter Benjamin, that figures are auratic objects.<\/p>\n

Dans ses textes, Sophie Calle emploie des techniques d\u00e9taill\u00e9es qui facilitent la production de figures, d\u2019entit\u00e9s symboliques complexes. Son \u0153uvre nous permet effectivement de mieux comprendre comment les figures \u00e9mergent et se d\u00e9ploient dans l\u2019imaginaire. Ainsi, nous trouvons dans ses\u00a0Disparitions(Disappearances) une figure surprenante que nous pouvons d\u00e9signer comme \u00ab\u00a0l\u2019enfant disparu\u00a0\u00bb. Je pr\u00e9senterai cette figure en expliquant comment elle d\u00e9coule de la description d\u2019un tableau de Rembrandt vol\u00e9 au mus\u00e9e Gardner \u00e0 Boston. J\u2019identifierai d\u2019abord quelques-uns des proc\u00e9d\u00e9s essentiels \u00e0 l\u2019identification d\u2019une figure, et pour ce faire je donnerai deux exemples, tir\u00e9s des \u0153uvres de Witold Gombrowicz et Don DeLillo. Puis je d\u00e9crirai de fa\u00e7on d\u00e9taill\u00e9e la figure de l\u2019enfant disparu, avant de d\u00e9montrer le caract\u00e8re auratique des figures \u00e0 partir de la lecture de Walter Benjamin qu\u2019ex\u00e9cute l\u2019historien de l\u2019art fran\u00e7ais Georges Didi-Huberman.<\/p>\n

On the Undecidability of Images in Communication.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fabrizio Scrivano [trans. Lise Hogan]<\/em><\/p>\n

We often attach a certain evidence to the image, while at the same time we attribute a function to such evidence that, in many cases, the image does not possess. What is extremely problematic is when the image is used in communication, when it happens that we find ourselves in a situation of stalemate before the image. Indeed, in order to be understood, the image in many cases requires aknowledge that it itself does not display, a competence that the image itself does not indicate. Perceiving the object-image and perceiving the meaning-image are often actions that do not coincide and that suggest a residue of information which can be associated with the permanency of a secret dimension of the image. This article seeks to focus on this theoretical question through the analysis of a few concrete examples.<\/p>\n

On attribue souvent \u00e0 l’image une \u00e9vidence, tout en assignant \u00e0 cette \u00e9vidence une fonction que d’ailleurs elle ne poss\u00e8de pas. Ce fait est extr\u00eamement probl\u00e9matique lorsque l’image est utilis\u00e9e dans la communication, lorsqu’il arrive que devant l’image nous nous trouvons dans une situation d’impasse \u00e0 l’essai. En effet, l’image, pour \u00eatre comprise, dans de nombreux cas n\u00e9cessite une connaissance qu’elle-m\u00eame ne montre pas, une comp\u00e9tence que l’image ne sugg\u00e8re pas. Percevoir l’image-objet et percevoir\u00a0 le sens-image souvent ne sont pas des actions identiques qui pr\u00e9supposent un r\u00e9sidu d’information qui peut \u00eatre associ\u00e9 \u00e0 la permanence d’une dimension secr\u00e8te de l’image. Cet article vise \u00e0 se concentrer sur cette question th\u00e9orique \u00e0 travers l’analyse de quelques exemples concrets.<\/p>\n

Images of a sound.\u00a0Portraits and Pictures of Jazz.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Davide Sparti [trans. Lise Hogan]<\/em><\/p>\n

It has always been maintained that jazz reflects the social and urban changes of its times, but little attention has been given to the reversed statement, or rather, that twentieth-century culture reflects jazz, reacting and responding to its presence, and re-elaborating its sounds in visual (as well as textual and choreographic) forms. This paper, inspired by an exhibition of jazz album covers, examines the interplay between jazz and the visual arts. Notwithstanding the significant link between image and sound at the referential level of the content (album covers represent a mirror of the era and of its political changes), it is primarily the relationship established through the notion of process, action or operation that is crucial. We live in a videocentric age that greatly emphasizes the defined and completed object, and that has sanctioned the existence of a place for its worship: the museum. But an (improvised) performance is above all an\u00a0action, the action of generating music during the course of a performance. By focusing on the final product of a performance, we risk losing sight of the \u201cphenomenon\u201d: the emergence, sound after sound, of a musical sense.\u00a0 For many painters, precisely because they can take their time deciding what to \u201cexpress\u201d, the process recedes to the background and what becomes relevant (also for the evaluation of the artwork) is what they produce. Yet, dating from the Surrealists and from Pollock, many visual arts exhibitors have been inspired by jazz and have placed the notion of process at the centre of their artistic practice.<\/p>\n

On a toujours affirm\u00e9 que le jazz refl\u00e8te le changement social et urbain de l’\u00e9poque, mais peu d’attention a \u00e9t\u00e9 pay\u00e9 \u00e0 la d\u00e9claration inverse, c’est-\u00e0-dire, que la culture du XXe si\u00e8cle refl\u00e8te le jazz, elle r\u00e9agit et r\u00e9pond \u00e0 sa pr\u00e9sence, elle r\u00e9\u00e9labore ses sons en formes visuelles (et aussi chor\u00e9graphiques et textuelles). Cet \u00e9crit pr\u00e9sente une \u00e9tude de l’interaction entre le jazz et les arts visuels, inspir\u00e9 d’une exposition de pochettes de disques jazz. Au-del\u00e0 d’un lien d\u00e9j\u00e0 assez important entre les images et les sons sur le plan r\u00e9f\u00e9rentiel du contenu (les pochettes de disques repr\u00e9sentent un miroir de l’\u00e9poque et de ses changements politiques), c’est essentiellement le rapport r\u00e9gl\u00e9 sur le concept de processus, d’action ou d’op\u00e9ration qui est d’importance cruciale. Nous vivons dans un \u00e2ge vid\u00e9ocentrique qui accorde une grande importance \u00e0 l’objet r\u00e9alis\u00e9 et d\u00e9fini, et qui a \u00e9tabli l’existence d’un lieu pour son culte: le mus\u00e9e. Cependant, une performance (impromptue) est avant tout une\u00a0action, l’action de cr\u00e9er de la musique au cours d’une performance.\u00a0 En mettant l’accent sur le produit effectu\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin de l’exercice, nous risquons de perdre de vue \u201cle ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne\u201d: l’\u00e9mergence, son apr\u00e8s son, d’un sens musical. Dans le cas de beaucoup de peintres, et pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment parce qu’ils ont tout le temps qu’il faut pour d\u00e9cider quoi \u201cexprimer\u201d, le processus recule \u00e0 l’arri\u00e8rre-plan et ce qui est pertinent (aussi pour l’\u00e9valuation), c’est ce qu’ils produisent. Pourtant, \u00e0 partir des Surr\u00e9alistes et de Pollock, de nombreux exposants des arts visuels ont \u00e9t\u00e9s inspir\u00e9s par le jazz et ceux-ci ont plac\u00e9 le concept de processus au centre de leur pratique artistique.<\/p>\n

Publish and Anguish:\u00a0Reconsidering the Never Ending Crisis of the Humanities<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russell Cobb<\/em><\/p>\n

This article reviews three books (Michael B\u00e9rub\u00e9.\u00a0The Left at War. New York: New York University Press, 2009;\u00a0Stanley Fish. Save the World on Your Own Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; Louis Menand,\u00a0The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Reaction in the American University. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010) in the larger context of the decline in funding and enrollment numbers in humanities departments. The article explores various responses to the crisis in the humanities in North America and ultimately agrees with Menand that reforms must be taken to make the humanities more relevant to fields outside the academy. The author disagrees with Fish that it is advisable or even possible to separate academic work from politics and also disagrees with Menand that the radical Left, or “Manichean” Left, represents a substantial problem in mainstream academic culture.<\/p>\n

Cet article examine trois ouvrages r\u00e9cents (The Left at War\u00a0par Michael B\u00e9rub\u00e9, New York: New York University Press, 2009;\u00a0Save the World on Your Own Time, par Stanley Fish, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008;\u00a0The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Reaction in the American University\u00a0par Louis Menand, New York: W.W. Norton, 2010) dans la perspective du d\u00e9clin du financement et des inscriptions au sein des d\u00e9partements de sciences humaines. L\u2019auteur y passe en revue un certain nombre de positions adopt\u00e9es jusqu\u2019ici face \u00e0 cette crise du point de vue nord-am\u00e9ricain, pour finalement se ranger aux arguments de Menand selon lesquels une r\u00e9forme est n\u00e9cessaire en vue de rendre les sciences humaines plus compatibles avec des domaines ext\u00e9rieurs au monde acad\u00e9mique. L\u2019article s\u2019oppose toutefois \u00e0 Menand sur la pr\u00e9tendue nature probl\u00e9matique d\u2019une intelligentsia radicale de gauche dans les universit\u00e9s, et prend le contrepied des propos de Fish quant au besoin de s\u00e9parer la recherche fondamentale de la sph\u00e8re politique.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imaginations 1-1\u00a0| Inaugural Issue | Table of Contents Introduction & Acknowledgments After Imagining\/Apr\u00e8s l\u2019imaginer\u00a0|Managing editors: William Anselmi, Daniel Laforest, Andriko Lozowy,\u00a0Dalbir Sehmby, Carrie Smith-Prei, and Sheena Wilson Acknowledgements Invited Artist Portfolio and Interview Moving Image Artist Midi Onodera\u2019s \u201cVidoodles\u201d: Animal Crossing Underground, Blame Warhol, If Wishes Came True\u00a0|\u00a0Midi Onodera Dialoguing on Miniature Cinema as New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4062,"featured_media":39,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inaugural-issue","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/animal-crossing-underground2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p707hj-6Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4062"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8013,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/8013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}