Abrasion (Mapping of Basinski): Spatial Memory Structures in Grant Gee’s “Patience (After Sebald)”, Paul Bush’s “Babeldom” and Sophie Fiennes’ “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow”

Maciej Stasiowski

kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University (Poland)

Abstract

Time in a film text can be compared to the “blind spot” of the camera. Although this medium is inextricably linked with transformation, “temporality” – unless it is included in the title of the film or expressed by technical solutions (acceleration, deceleration of the film) – is usually “translated” into the space in the frame (Deleuze’s time-image, Bergson’s duration). However the cognitive ap­paratus creates an abstract concept of time in order to tie together diverse phenomena: bodily and natural cycles, entropy and memory ordering events in time. Using the analogy of William Basinski’s tapes, that disintegrate gradually with each playing, in this study Stasiowski chooses an alternative approach and focuses on films that deal with time using models of spatial memory, that appear to rely on architectural representations of time (places marked with decay). In fact, through them, adequate narrative structures are constructed, in which time becomes a variable of memory as a function.


Keywords:

William Basinski, memory, Grant Gee, Paul Bush, Sophie Fiennes

Holl, Steven. 1996. Interwining. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
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Published
2014-06-30

Cited by

Stasiowski, M. (2014) “Abrasion (Mapping of Basinski): Spatial Memory Structures in Grant Gee’s “Patience (After Sebald)”, Paul Bush’s “Babeldom” and Sophie Fiennes’ ‘Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow’”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (86), pp. 144–160. doi: 10.36744/kf.2420.

Authors

Maciej Stasiowski 
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland

Student trzeciego roku stu­diów doktoranckich w Instytucie Sztuk Audio­wizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Przygotowuje rozprawę na temat dynamicznych metod reprezentacji wizualnej (w tym filmu) w eksperymentalnych projektach architektonicz­nych. Publikuje w „Ekranach” oraz „Archu”. Autor książki Atlas rzeczy niestałych. Strategie, struktury i chwyty literackich metafikcji w twór­czości Petera Greenawaya (2014).

 



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