André Brasil

Tikmũ’ũn’s Caterpillar-Cinema: Off-Screen Space and Cosmopolitics in Amerindian Film

This chapter engages with a series of three Amerindian films by the Tikmũ’ũn people from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, which portray the ritual of child initiation ceremonies. By analyzing the aesthetic dynamics of the films, it problematizes the relationship between cinematic screen and off-screen spaces, and proposes that these films verge on what could be defined as a “shamanic critique of the political economy of the image”, thereby revealing the inevitable relationship of the films to the cosmology of the Tikmũ’ũn.

Formas do antecampo: performatividade no documentário brasileiro contemporâneo

A partir da constatacao de um regime performativo das imagens, desdobramos, neste artigo, a hipotese de que, no dominio do documentario, um relevante traco formal desta performatividade esta na exposicao do antecampo: trata-se de um espaco etico que nao deixa de ser recurso estilistico e recurso estilistico que nao deixa de ser espaco etico. Essa proposicao se desenvolve desde o percurso por documentarios brasileiros contemporâneos, em dialogo estreito com o repertorio critico acerca dos filmes: A falta que me faz (Marilia Rocha, 2009), Os dias com ele (Maria Clara Escobar, 2013), Pacific (Marcelo Pedroso, 2009), Domesticas (Gabriel Mascaro, 2013), Jogo de Cena (Eduardo Coutinho, 2007), Moscou (Eduardo Coutinho, 2009), Bicicletas de Nhanderu (Ariel Ortega e Patricia Ferreira, 2012).

Amateur Biopolitics: Generalization of a Practice, Limits of a Concept

In the current stage of capitalism, amateur images emerge as a paradigmatic format of production that reflects controversy about the subjective and affective practices of consumer–spectators who have also become producer– collaborators. This chapter discusses the biopolitical slant of this universe of images: the modulation strategies developed by companies and the modes of capitalization of life they engender. Our main goal is to discuss the concept of the amateur, indicating its limits in the face of contemporary practices of image production, as well as the constraints and the possibilities of judgment these images pose to us.

Formas de vida na imagem: da indeterminação à inconstância

From reality shows to personal web videos, from social networks to games, from documentary films to contemporary art experiences, ordinary life is being called, stimulated and provoked to participate and interact in a constant self-performance. Therefore images become a biopolitical place in which life forms perform. Facing that diagnosis, shared by other authors, this text proposes a conceptual map, still a work in progress, of a research program. In order to do so, we characterize such performance in the sphere of advanced capitalism and, further on, in the scope of Amerindian cultures. By such differentiation, we intend to better understand some deadlocks of critical thinking when facing different ways in which life has been currently creating and modulating itself through image.