About

My project will use the audiovisual essay to investigate the significance of dialectical thinking as a philosophical mode of inquiry in film theory and criticism – both for the historical development of these fields and their current evolution in the burgeoning practice of the video essay. Dialectics is a mode of thought concerned with oppositions, change and movement, drawn from studying processes of transformation in nature, history, philosophy, and society. It examines the often contradictory inner logic of development in phenomena as philosophised by thinkers like G. W. Hegel and Karl Marx. As there are currently no systematic accounts of the role of dialectical thinking in film studies, my project will trace this influential but under-examined tendency through the work of five foundational thinkers whose writings explicitly combine the practices of film theory and criticism: André Bazin, V.F. Perkins, Serge Daney, Gilberto Perez, and Nicole Brenez. My PhD will build from analyses of existing criticism, constructing a meta-critical investigation that focuses on the dialectical aspects implicit in Bazin, Perkins, Daney, Perez and Brenez's methods of argumentation. While from different backgrounds, eras and traditions, these writers, who have never been studied in relation to each other, are selected for their ability to weave together historical, technological, philosophical, and critical observations to explore the role of conceptual contradictions in understanding cinema as a medium. Their writing navigates the narrow (and rapidly disappearing) space between academic film scholarship and sophisticated non-academic criticism, combining the former's theoretical rigour with the latter's imaginative fluidity. I will publish my research as a series of video essays complemented by written components. When combined, the study will constitute a multi-chapter, feature-length experiment in audiovisual film-philosophy. Further, this methodological approach will mirror my research's dialectical content.

You can find out more about Arta's work through his personal website.