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Film, Media and Design Research Seminar Series 2017 Dr Michael N. Goddard, University of Westminster Destroying the Cinema Machine: The Radical 1970s Counter Cinemas of Godard and Miéville, Straub and Huillet and Harun Farocki Date: Wednesday March 1st Time: 4.00-5.30pm Location: University of West London, St Mary’s Road, London W5 5RF Room: BY.01.022 To reserve a place please email Prof. Garin Dowd ([log in to unmask]) The statement and call of iconoclast militant and filmmaker Guy Debord at the end of the 1950s that “The cinema too needs to be destroyed” (On the Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Period of Time, 1959) was answered in multifarious ways during the decade of the 1970s, perhaps beginning with Godard’s own much later premonition of these developments in Le Gai Savoir (1969). Apparatus theory as developed from the work of Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry and others was taken up in film theory circles as a form of psychoanalytically inflected Althusserian ideological critique of mainstream cinema, but in the sphere of radical cinema was taken more as a challenge for a joyful destruction of the cinema machine and the creation of something new. This something new can be seen in several different practices, form radical film collectives like SLON and the Dziga Vertov Group, to new developments of the essay film, to experiments with video and multi-media as Expanded Cinema (Youngblood 1970). This talk will especially show how in the work of Godard and Miéville, Straub and Huillet and Harun Farocki, whether in film, television or video, radical reinventions of the cinematic apparatus and new forms of ‘audiovision’ were being invented. The talk will examine the stakes of this attempted dismantling of the cinematic apparatus, arguing that new methodologies such as media archaeology and ‘anarchaeology’, coupled with media ecological approaches are able to shed light on this practical side of apparatus critique and its radical audiovisual subversion. It will further argue that the contributions of these projects extend beyond the period of the 1970s and have aesthetic implications with relevance to contemporary digital moving images cultures. Dr Michael Goddard is a Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Moving Image at the University of Westminster. His research broadly falls under three key areas of transnational cinema, popular music and media theory. He has published widely on Polish and Eastern European cinemas, and has also written a series of publications on post-punk and industrial music. Dr Goddard is also a media theorist, especially in the fields of media ecology and media archaeology, as well as in digital media. For further information, see this link <https://www.westminster.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/directory/goddard-michael>. -------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA mailing list -------------------------------------------------------- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1 ------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. This mailing list is a free service and is not restricted to members. It is an unmoderated list and content reflect the views of those who post to the list and not of MeCCSA as an organisation. MeCCSA recommends that the list be used only for posting of information (for example about events, publications, conferences, lectures) of interest to members or to promote discussion of current issues of wide general interest in the field. Posts to the MeCCSA mailing list are public, indexed by Google, and can be accessed from the JISCMail website (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/meccsa.html). Any messages posted to the list are subject to the JISCMail acceptable use policy, which states that users should avoid engaging in unreasonable behaviour, or disrupting the general flow of discussion on a list. For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/ --------------------------------------------------------