11th Annual Graduate Student Conference CRITICAL THEMES IN MEDIA STUDIES The New School
Kino-Made: In search of an emancipated cinematic pedagogy through a de-centered montage A Thesis by Pedro Vidal (704) 650-1722 pedrovidal4@gmail.com MA Media and Film Studies
“In the logic of emancipation, between the ignorant schoolmaster and the emancipated novice there is always a third thing - a book or some other piece of writing - alien to both and to which they can refer to verify in common what the pupil has seen, what she says about it and what she thinks of it. It is the third thing that is owned by no one, whose meaning is owned by no one, but which subsists between them, excluding any uniform transmission, any identity of cause and effect�
KINO-MADE ! What is an emancipated spectator? Is there something in the construction of a work of art that allows for an emancipated spectator? Is it possible for the object of a spectatorʼs gaze to facilitate an egalitarian discourse between the construction of the object, the artist, and the spectator? ! This essay and video project is going to investigate Jacques Ranciereʼs notion of the ʻemancipated spectatorʼ and the cinematic object realized by the spectator, as realized in certain films by Jean Luc Godard. In the case of the essay, the cinematic object will be signified as Kino-Made, the juxtaposition and synthesis of the theories and practices of Soviet documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertovʼs ʻKino-Eyeʼ and French artist Marcel Duchampʼs ʻReadymadesʼ. ! Thus, Kino-Made is a cinematic object constructed from the already-processed sounds, images and texts from everyday life and situations. This cinematic object is a de-centered object held together by the relations between its assembled elements. It proposes an emancipated pedagogical relationship between artist and spectator through the work of art, an art object that allows for observation and analysis of its intervals, elements, appearance, and construction in a heterogeneous manner.