This thesis investigates temporal dimensions of reenactment in experimental filmmaking, with a particular focus on the prominent use of this practice in the cinema of Portuguese director Pedro Costa. The research analyzes the non-professional actors’ performances in Costa’s films and broadly explores the implications of cinematic in-person reenactment, a term coined by Ivone Margulies. More specifically, the analysis sets out to challenge the predominant discourse of documentary reenactment by bringing closer attention to the intricate expression and materiality of cinematic temporality in these films, an approach that is also informed by Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the crystal-image. This concept, I argue, enriches our understanding of temporality in relation to reenactment, and ultimately also the impact Costa’s images have in providing us with a more attentive acknowledgment of the cinematic screen event. The aesthetics activated in these works exemplify what I call aesthetics of ambiguity. Contributing to the scholarly debate on reenactment within cinema studies, this work offers new perspectives on the phenomenon from the conceptual, aesthetic, and phenomenological examples of these films. The aesthetics of Costa exemplifies the temporal ambiguity that manifests itself in instances of in-person reenactments. I argue that this aesthetics challenge – and possibly also enrich - the predominant discourse of cinematic reenactment, by loosening its traditional connection to documentary filmmaking and examining it beyond categories of the real and the fictional.

Submitted by Livia Mello (liviacmello@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-09-30T18:06:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissGRE.pdf: 20596395 bytes, checksum: 662d48320b8a4f1d65cde94f98b0731e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-20T16:17:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissGRE.pdf: 20596395 bytes, checksum: 662d48320b8a4f1d65cde94f98b0731e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-20T16:17:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissGRE.pdf: 20596395 bytes, checksum: 662d48320b8a4f1d65cde94f98b0731e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-20T16:18:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissGRE.pdf: 20596395 bytes, checksum: 662d48320b8a4f1d65cde94f98b0731e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / This research aims to investigate the mechanisms of creation and production by the British artist Banksy, the leading exponent of what became known as Street Art in the early 2000. It starts with his incursion as an audiovisual director of the work launched in 2010 Exit Through the Gift Shop to discuss the relations between the street artist and the documentary filmmaker. From the constitutive elements of the filmic text it is noticed various mirroring of the processes initiated by the artist: appropriation and subversion of cultural texts, parodying and social criticism. Initially it discusses the film from the perspective of some film theories (markedly the documentary film) and other film genres. Following it draws up an overview of the genesis of Street Art and its reception and finally it shows the intersection and dialogue between the street artist and the documentary filmmaker based on the proposals of Julio Plaza and the Intersemiotic Translation. / A pesquisa propõe a investigação dos mecanismos de criação e produção do artista britânico Banksy, principal expoente do movimento que ficou conhecido como arte de rua no início dos anos 2000. Parte-se de sua incursão como diretor audiovisual da obra Exit Through the Gift Shop, lançada em 2010, para discutir as relações entre o artista de rua e o documentarista Banksy. A partir dos elementos constitutivos do texto fílmico, notam-se espelhamentos com os processos encetados pelo artista: apropriação e subversão de textos culturais, parodização, crítica social. Inicialmente, discute-se o filme pela perspectiva das teorias do cinema (marcadamente de filmes documentários) e dos gêneros cinematográficos. Em seguida, traça- se um panorama sobre a gênese da arte de rua e sua recepção; e, finalmente, os processos de intersecção e diálogo entre o artista de rua e o documentarista, embasados principalmente nas propostas de Julio Plaza e da Tradução Intersemiótica.

This thesis examines strategies of anticipation in contemporary post-cinematic art. In the Introduction and the first chapter, I make the case for anticipation as a cultural technique for the construction of and adjustment to future scenarios. This framing allows analysis of constructions of futures as culturally and media-historically specific operations. Via anticipation, constructions of futures become addressable as embedded in specific performative and material economies: as regimes of prediction. The hypothesis is that cultural techniques of anticipation do not only serve to construct particular future scenarios, but also futurity, the very condition for the construction of futures. Drawing upon the philosophical works of, in particular, Vilem Flusser, Jacques Derrida and Elena Esposito, and the theory of cultural techniques, I conceptualize anticipation through the analysis of post-cinematic strategies. I argue that post-cinematic art is particularly apt for the conceptualization of anticipation. The self-reflexive multi-media interventions of post-cinematic art can expose the realisms that govern regimes of prediction. Three cultural techniques of anticipation and their use as artistic strategies in post-cinematic art are theorized: enactment, soft montage and rendering. Each of these techniques is examined in its construction of futures through performative and material operations in art gallery spaces. The second chapter examines strategies of enactment in post-cinematic installations by Neïl Beloufa. My readings of Kempinski (2007), The Analyst, the Researcher, the Screenwriter, the CGI tech and the Lawyer (2011), World Domination (2012) and Data for Desire (2014) propose that enactment allows for an engagement with futures beyond extrapolation. With Karen Barad's theory of agential realism, the construction of futures becomes graspable as a political process in opposition to a mere prolonging of the present into the future. The third chapter focuses on the strategy of soft montage in works by Harun Farocki. I interpret Farocki's application of soft montage in the exhibition Serious Games I-IV (2009-2010) as a critical engagement with anticipatory forms of organizing power and distributing precarity. His work series Parallel I-IV (2012-2014) is then analyzed as a speculation on the future of image production technologies and their role in constructing futures. The final chapter analyses the self-referential use of computer-generated renderings in works by Hito Steyerl. The installations How Not To Be Seen (2013), Liquidity Inc. (2014), The Tower (2015) and ExtraSpaceCraft (2016) are read as interventions in the performative economies of contemporary image production. I argue that these works allow us to grasp the reality-producing and futurity-producing effects of rendering as anticipatory cultural technique. My thesis aims to contribute to the discussions on a 'turn towards the future' in contemporary philosophy and cultural criticism. My research thus focuses on the following set of questions. What can we learn about the operations of future construction through encounters with post-cinematic art? How are futures and future construction framed in such art? What realisms do future constructions rely on? And how can anticipation as a cultural technique be politicized and democratized?