<p>Impure Cinema: Political Pedagogies in Film and Theory asks what are the ways that the politics of film theory have been conceptualized since the era now known as "70s film theory." In particular, it analyzes the writings on cinema, politics and art by contemporary French philosophers Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière in relation to the influential approaches of Louis Althusser and Gilles Deleuze and to theories of documentary cinema. I argue that unlike the political modernism of 70s film theory and the post-theory turn of 90s film studies, Badiou and Rancière offer an approach to film theory that neither assumes that all films are political, nor that politics underdetermine theory, but rather suggests that we analyze both theories and films in terms of how they construct connections between cinema and politics. Following Deleuze, I call these connections "pedagogical" not because they transmit knowledge but because they always involve a new kind of connection or relation that seeks to transform habitual ways of seeing, saying or doing. For Badiou and Rancière this is based on a conception of cinema as "impure." Cinema, they argue, is never free of elements from other arts or daily life, but it is this impurity that is the grounds for linking its artistic and political possibilities. I look at various film forms that highlight cinema's impurity, in particular the "actuality" and how it has been reappropriated in various forms of documentary and essayistic practices as a way of giving cinematic form to questions of political equality.</p> / Dissertation

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[pt] problema que orienta o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa pergunta pelo lugar do espectador na arte contemporânea levando em consideração os seus limites e as suas possibilidades críticas. Marcel Duchamp ilustra a questão declarando, na sentença de abertura do seu texto O ato criador, Consideremos dois importantes fatores, os dois polos da criação artística: de um lado o artista, do outro o público, que mais tarde se transforma na posteridade. É desta dupla polaridade que se ocupa esta tese. Mais especificamente, ocupa-se, como princípio, da possibilidade de reconhecer no público ajuizador dos fenômenos estéticos, um lugar efetivo como salvaguarda de obras de arte. Neste sentido, caberia ao público-espectador proteger, preservar e garantir a integridade e a perenidade de obras artísticas. Do ponto de vista desta pesquisa é mediante a capacidade humana de julgar que se efetuaria a salvaguarda. Com efeito, o exercício do juízo é condição primeira fundamental para a efetuação da salvaguarda, porém, seguido de uma segunda condição: que o juízo se faça público ou, em outros termos, que se faça compartilhar. Ainda que incluso em uma malha de relações na qual figuram o artista, a obra artística e o local de exposição da obra, dentre outros componentes, o espectador, tradicionalmente, tem assumido papel acessório ou de permanente subordinação em suas relações com o mundo da arte. Um tanto alijado do plano das artes, parecem caber ao espectador (de fato, porém, não de direito) intervenções tímidas, periféricas, algo guiadas, impregnadas por uma suspeita de inoperância estética e de um despreparo como tradutor ou contratradutor dos fenômenos artísticos. Na tese, proponho que a relação entre o espectador e a obra seja tratada a partir de moldes kantianos. Naturalmente, dado o domínio dessas relações, o domínio artístico, refiro-me ao julgar, ou ao juízo, entendido em sua função reflexiva. Põe-se em causa, aqui, questões ligadas à contemplação, à produção de ideias, à comunicabilidade e à sociabilidade, bem como à ação do sujeito no mundo e à diversidade característica do discurso e do juízo. E, não tanto como um desdobramento, mas como algo intrínseco, quiçá anterior a todas estas questões, põe-se em causa, também, o lugar ocupado pelo sujeito do juízo de um ponto de vista político. Como nos lembra Hannah Arendt, sempre que a relevância do discurso (do juízo, neste caso) entra em jogo, a questão torna-se política por definição, pois é o discurso que faz do homem um ser político. Na tese, o espectador é proposto como sujeito do juízo, o juízo como lugar da salvaguarda e a salvaguarda se efetivando na condição da promulgação pública e compartida do juízo. Neste contexto, o espectador, em sua singularidade, é sempre plural, diverso, não necessariamente conforme e cultor de relações intersubjetivas. Por sua vez, o juízo é público, manifesto, partilhável, disponível a qualquer outro e portador de uma dimensão criativa que reconstrói o sentido da obra artística por meio do seu testemunho. Por extensão, a condição pública e plural de enunciação do juízo, revela a importância política do julgamento estético. / [en] The problem which guides the development of this research inquires about the spectator s place in contemporary art considering his or her limits and critical possibilities. Marcel Duchamp illustrates the question by declaring in the opening sentence of his text The Creative Act, Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity. It is with this double polarity that this thesis occupies itself. More specifically, it occupies itself, as a principle, with the possibility of recognizing in the judging public of aesthetic phenomena an effective place as a safeguard of works of art. In that sense, it would fall to the public-spectator to protect, preserve and assure the integrity and perenniality of works of art. From this research s standpoint it is through the human power of judgment that this safeguarding would be accomplished. In fact, the exercise of judgment is a first fundamental condition for the fulfillment of the safeguarding, followed, however, by a second condition: that the judgment be made public or, in other words, that it be made shareable. Although inserted in a web of relations which includes the artist, the work of art and its place of exhibition, among other components, the spectator has traditionally played an accessory role or one of permanent subordination in his relations with the world of art. Somewhat excluded from the plane of arts, it seems to fall to the spectator (de facto but not de jure) to make timid, peripheral, somewhat guided interventions, impregnated with a suspicion of aesthetic inoperability and ill-preparedness as translator or counter-translator of artistic phenomena. In the thesis, I propose that the relation between spectator and work be treated with Kantian patterns. Naturally, given the dominion of these relations, the artistic dominion, I refer to judging or judgment when understood in their reflective function. Questions linked to contemplation, production of ideas, communicability and sociability, as well as to the subject s action in the world and to the characteristic diversity of discourse and judgment are called into question here. And not exactly as an unfolding, but as something intrinsic, perhaps prior to all these questions, the place occupied by the judgment s subject from a political standpoint is also called into question. As we are reminded by Hannah Arendt, whenever the relevance of the discourse (of judgment, in this case) comes into play, the question becomes political by definition, because discourse turns man into a political being. In the thesis, the spectator is proposed as the judgment s subject and judgment as the place of safeguard, this safeguarding being accomplished on condition of the public and shared promulgation of judgment. In this context, the spectator is always, in his singularity, plural, diverse, not necessarily conformist and adherent to intersubjective relations. In its turn, judgment is public, manifest, shareable, available to any other and carries a creative dimension which reconstructs the meaning of a work of art through its testimony. By extension, the public and plural condition of judgment s enunciation reveals the political importance of the aesthetic judgment.

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[pt] Os ensaios reunidos nesta tese se voltam sobre diferentes ficções, poemas e ensaios críticos brasileiros com a intenção de examinar suas respectivas políticas do tempo. Como ponto de partida, esses textos compartilham a ideia de que modernismo, pós-modernismo, contemporâneo e termos afins são empregados no debate crítico brasileiro de maneira a designar não apenas períodos distintos no tempo, mas também modos distintos de estar no tempo. A discussão de alguns momentos decisivos do debate pós no Brasil procura demonstrar esse pressuposto, examinando textos de Haroldo de Campos, Silviano Santiago e Idelber Avelar, entre outros. Por outro lado, a leitura de textos de Murilo Rubião, Renato Pompeu e Ferreira Gullar permite tensionar os contrastes propostos por esses críticos, dando a ver temporalidades que não se enquadram bem nas categorias por eles formuladas. A atenção aos diferentes modos de figuração, organização e escansão do tempo nos textos estudados ressalta o potencial de invenção de outras historicidades por meio da criação literária. Política, nesse sentido, é a possibilidade de entrever ou experimentar no tempo literário outras possibilidades para o tempo histórico em que ele ou seu leitor se inscrevem. Concentrando-se em textos publicados entre os 1940 e os 1970 no Brasil, os ensaios buscam fugir às demarcações mais usuais do moderno, pós-moderno ou contemporâneo no debate crítico brasileiro. Em vez de circunscrever um período pré, pós ou de transição entre dois momentos, a tese propõe a constituição de um limiar, que borra os contornos dessas fronteiras historiográficas. / [en] The essays collected in this thesis consider the politics of time of different Brazilian fictions, poems and critical texts. These essays share the premise that modernism, post-modernism, contemporary and similar terms are used in Brazilian critical and historiographical debates not only to designate periods chronologically distinct in time, but also distinct ways of being in time. The discussion of some decisive moments in the post debates in Brazil tries to demonstrate this point, examining texts by Haroldo de Campos, Silviano Santiago and Idelber Avelar, among others. On the other hand, critical readings of works by Murilo Rubião, Renato Pompeu and Ferreira Gullar aim to question the contrasts drawn by these critics, considering temporalities that do not fit well into the categories they formulate. Attention to different practices of figuration, organization and escansion of time in the literary texts under consideration highlights the potential for the invention of other historicities by means of literary creation. Political, in this sense, is the possibility of intuiting or experiencing in literary texts new possibilities for one s own historical time. Focusing in texts published between the 1940s and the 1970s in Brazil, these essays look to reconsider usual periodizations of the modern, the post-modern and the contemporary in Brazilian critical debates. Instead of circumscribing a period pre, post or of transition between two moments, the thesis aims to build a threshold, a zone of proximity which fades the outlines of these historiographical frontiers.

This thesis considers a theoretical tradition which is concerned with how adult literacies education might not always serve to socialise students into existing society, instead encouraging possibilities for desirable alternatives to it. Without this possibility, adult literacies education might only be understood as a socialising machine that slots students into society as it stands and where the role of research is to describe its operation. My research describes a long-standing refusal by educators, researchers and students to accept this possibility and my thesis continues this tradition. Through the analysis and interplay of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, James Paul Gee, Paulo Freire, Jacques Rancière, I distinguish between empowerment and emancipation in the context of literacies education. I set out the assumptions that Bourdieu and Gee make, how they understand power, identity, discourse and oppression, and what this means for the practice of an empowering adult literacies education. I also present assumptions made by Freire and Rancière, how they understand equality and oppression, and how an emancipatory literacies education might be understood and practiced. In particular, I describe how education for ‘empowerment’ encourages practices underpinned by the assumption that ideological processes prevent students from understanding how oppression is manifested. In contrast, I describe how an emancipatory education implies enacting educational relationships that are not reliant on this assumption, whilst exerting a social response to societal oppression. I make three claims. Firstly, that the idea of an emancipatory literacies education has come to be neglected or conflated with the idea that literacies education might empower, which has come to hold great sway. In so doing, I critique Freire’s work whilst reclaiming it as an emancipatory project. Secondly, that the educational practices associated with adult literacies for empowerment can be understood to encourage the socialisation of students into society as it stands. This emphasises the importance of distinguishing between empowerment and emancipation in the context of adult literacies education. Finally, that emancipation is a notion that must continue to be questioned and explored if educators, students and academics are to take responsibility for the practice of adult literacies education and its consequences. An emancipatory literacies education cannot be reliant upon the assumption that discourse is inherently ideological. Instead, it is predicated upon teachers and students assuming that emancipation is possible and acting on that assumption.

Gilles Deleuze’s ontology is often understood to ground a kind of radical pluralism, the political defense of which is thought to be articulated most strongly in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia books. It is clear, however, that this “politics” is defined in a wholly negative way, and that the revolutionary dimension of these books is animated by a strictly ethical logic. In my view, if there is a politics in Deleuze it must be understood in relation to the central problem of his ontology: namely, the problem of understanding how Being is produced. To grasp politics as a singularity, as a mode of ontological production, has a number of radical consequences – consequences, however, that Deleuze himself did not embrace. Ultimately, Deleuze’s conception of ontological production appears marked by an apolitics, in that any effective mobilization of Being’s transformative potential requires that we stand posed to sacrifice anything of the integrity and organizational capacity of political existence that limits the expression of Being itself.

This submission comes in two parts; the written dissertation, Contemporary art: the key issues, and the exhibition Melbourne - Moderne. When taken together they present a discourse on the conditions facing contemporary art practice and one artist’s response to these conditions in the context of Melbourne 2003-2007. (For complete abstract open document)

Gilles Deleuze’s ontology is often understood to ground a kind of radical pluralism, the political defense of which is thought to be articulated most strongly in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia books. It is clear, however, that this “politics” is defined in a wholly negative way, and that the revolutionary dimension of these books is animated by a strictly ethical logic. In my view, if there is a politics in Deleuze it must be understood in relation to the central problem of his ontology: namely, the problem of understanding how Being is produced. To grasp politics as a singularity, as a mode of ontological production, has a number of radical consequences – consequences, however, that Deleuze himself did not embrace. Ultimately, Deleuze’s conception of ontological production appears marked by an apolitics, in that any effective mobilization of Being’s transformative potential requires that we stand posed to sacrifice anything of the integrity and organizational capacity of political existence that limits the expression of Being itself.

Exploring both political aesthetics and the politics of aesthetics to outline an environmental ruralism for art in public spaces, this practice lead research project postulates a “complemental practice”, outlining its methodology and contexts for operation, the rural, spaces of leisure and the public realm. It is a response to threats to spatial and environmental commons from heritage, place-making and nostalgia, psychological inhibition such as a sense of global contingency and widespread economic exploitation. Responses by artists to this situation can be characterised as a binary of dialogism (Kester, 2004) and relational antagonism (Bishop, 2004), i.e. consensual/collaborative or antagonistic/autonomous practices. Informing both is the work of Jacques Rancière who theorises an ethical and social turn in the arts. Through both commissioned and self-initiated projects this thesis offers an interpretation of Jacques Rancière’s conception of dissensus (Rancière, 2010) modulated through an application of the work of philosopher Slajov Žižek on environmental politics and complementarity - the inscription of the universal within the particular (Žižek, 2011). The thesis’ originality lies in this theoretical synthesis which sets out a complemental practice based on dissensus and the undecidability of subject and context, but which dismisses any inflexible schema of either aesthetic autonomy or ethico-political egalitarianism. In addition it suggests an approach to practice in this field and a situation for this - a dissensual infrastructure for the common public realm which is socially relational and evolutionary over time.