The Perfidy of Matter: Notes on the Animation of the Inorganic

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Erick Felinto de
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: E-Compós
• Texto Completo: https://www.e-compos.org.br/e-compos/article/view/1328
• topic: objetos; cinema experimental; barroco; Walter Benjamin; Jan Svankmajer

would it be possible to speak of a tradition that expresses the “animation of the inorganic” in experimental film and in the intercessions between cinema and art? In other words, would there be, in cinema’s history, enough examples for the vivification of inanimate objects (which sometimes even become the focal point of the camera’s gaze), so that we could therein identify an expressive aspect of modern aesthetics? Through some brief analyses of cinematographic examples, but also of elements from the fine arts and literature –, this paper puts forward the hypothesis of a progressive decline of the traditional anthropocentric point of view and of the model of the liberal humanist subjectivity from the turn of the XIX century on. This decline will be exemplarily represented in cinema and the arts through the ever more decisive protagonism of objects.