Engaging with a scene of the iconic movie Smoke (by Wayne Wang, 1995) in which a rephotographic project is sensitively elicited, this paper addresses the technique of repeat photography to contribute to methodological debates that have arisen within the nascent ‘Mobility and Humanities’ subfield. Through a humanistic perspective, the paper reviews and expands the nexus between mobility, photography and the urban by comparing the technique with three methodological issues: the blurring of supposed binaries, such as traditional/innovative, static/moving and fast/slow; the possibility of grasping the mobilities of the world in a post-human vein; and the opportunity to also consider techniques as sites for reflection. To address these issues, the paper draws from philosophies of movement, post-phenomenological and object-oriented stances and visual and urban cultural geographies. With reference to the urban realm, this paper proposes three perspectives on rephotography, namely (1) rephotography as a practice of slow and rhythmic attunement with circumstantial spacetimes moving backwards and forwards; (2) rephotography as a visual ontography that displaces the human and opens up space for the apprehension of the agency and mobility of things; and (3) rephotography as a continual process of activation of moving gazes on cities and their imaginaries.
Repetition, movement and the visual ontographies of urban rephotography: learning from Smoke (1995)
Vanolo, Alberto
2022-01-01
Abstract
Engaging with a scene of the iconic movie Smoke (by Wayne Wang, 1995) in which a rephotographic project is sensitively elicited, this paper addresses the technique of repeat photography to contribute to methodological debates that have arisen within the nascent ‘Mobility and Humanities’ subfield. Through a humanistic perspective, the paper reviews and expands the nexus between mobility, photography and the urban by comparing the technique with three methodological issues: the blurring of supposed binaries, such as traditional/innovative, static/moving and fast/slow; the possibility of grasping the mobilities of the world in a post-human vein; and the opportunity to also consider techniques as sites for reflection. To address these issues, the paper draws from philosophies of movement, post-phenomenological and object-oriented stances and visual and urban cultural geographies. With reference to the urban realm, this paper proposes three perspectives on rephotography, namely (1) rephotography as a practice of slow and rhythmic attunement with circumstantial spacetimes moving backwards and forwards; (2) rephotography as a visual ontography that displaces the human and opens up space for the apprehension of the agency and mobility of things; and (3) rephotography as a continual process of activation of moving gazes on cities and their imaginaries.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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Rossetto, Vanolo (2022) - Repetition movement and the visual ontographies of urban rephotography. Learning from Smoke (1995).pdf
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