Making Digital Images in the Light of Experimental Cinema

Abstract

Drawing on the universe of experimental cinema, this practice-based research examines the use of algorithms in the production of animated digital images. The thesis builds on a body of work in which personal productions interact with those of other artists such as Rosa Menkman, Jacques Perconte, and Disnovation.org. The aim is to develop a conceptual framework for considering these practices and appraise how they might clarify our times. Drawing on Bernard Stiegler’s recognition of the role of material supports – from silex to digital memories – and Gilbert Simondon’s reflection on the genesis and becoming of technical objects, the algorithm is approached not as a language, but in terms of its gestural nature.

The research aims to break down barriers between fields of knowledge, favoring broad definitions and temporalities. The approach thus aligns with the perspectives of media archaeology, paying particular attention to the continuities at work in the joint evolution of technology and the arts. This approach opens up a renewed understanding of how digital images function, based on interactions between signals and technological supports, aligning their regime with the dynamics between light and the surfaces of inscription specific to traditional images.

Seized through the prism of the artworks, the concrete mode of existence of images reveals the anatomy of the Internet, which then appears as the main contemporary biopolitical device. In this global network, the fluidity and speed of information can be understood in relation to heavy and rigid infrastructures, where material traces accumulate. In a quest attentive to the dynamics of individuation, each creative process constitutes a microcosm in which the possible futures of the human relationship with technology are replayed. Technology presents itself as neutral, without an inherent essence or predetermined future, but proves to be dependent on political actions and decisions, thus engaging individual and collective responsibility.

Keywords: Digital image / Algorithm / Experimental cinema / Art and technology / Materiality / Algorithmic gesture / Signal-support / Biopolitics / Internet

Jury: Jean-Marie Dallet (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, reviewer), Jean-Paul Fourmentraux (Aix-Marseille Université, reviewer), Daphné Le Sergent (Université Paris 8, examiner), Marta Severo (Université Paris Nanterre, examiner), Patrick Nardin (Université Paris 8, supervisor).