Expresiones audiovisuales

Definir el gag visual es como definir la risa, imposible. Y sin embargo, reconocemos uno cuando lo vemos. El gag es una de las imágenes más misteriosas de nuestra cultura, una de esas ideas que palpitan libremente entre la diversión y el absurdo. Por eso este libro no habla de qué es un gag, sino de cómo funciona. Lo que se plantea aquí es una cartografía, un mapa de sus formas. Un recorri­do por los mecanismos y rutinas de cientos de gags, desde el cine mudo hasta las pantallas de videojuego, donde esta forma visual se revela como una poderosa herramienta de experimentación, viva y bastarda, con la libertad como principio de conducta estética. El gag reinventa nuestra realidad y transforma la risa en un síntoma, una forma de resistencia que desborda la categoría de lo cómico y hace (posible) reír.

Esta publicación continúa la senda iniciada en el volumen “Territorios y fronteras. Experiencias documentales contemporáneas” (2112), recogiendo el testigo de los encuentros entre directores, académicos y críticos de cine organizados por la Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea junto a la Fundación BilbaoArte. Una vez más, equilibristas del cine contemporáneo y de la academia se dan cita en este volumen, que emerge también de largos e intensos debates, discusiones, e-mails y conversaciones, prestando especial atención al crecimiento y las mutaciones del cine contemporáneo.

Esta obra reúne diferentes artículos de investigadores y profesiones del cine relatando sus experiencias y poniendo en debate el tema del Cine y la Comunicación. Se trata también de un registro de XXVIII Coloquio de la Escuela Latinoamericana de Comunicación (CELACOM), realizado por la Cátedra UNESCO de Comunicación, evento que reunió académicos, profesionales del cine y autoridades políticas en torno a un mismo objetivo: entender el cine, más allá del arte, como un proceso comunicacional emancipador. Es por ello que se trata de una obra emblemática para la discusión del Cine en América Latina, desde una perspectiva comunicacional.

El grafiti es parte de la panoplia comunicacional alternativa a las expresiones de poder, una expresión polemológica, transgresora, antihegemónica, o, como lo propone el autor, "una escritura o representación de lo prohibido". Una expresión que con el paso del tiempo se manifiesta no solo como estrategia política sino como tatuaje citadino generador de estéticas y de realidades.

A través de las páginas de este texto sugerente, el autor termina por ser un poco ese historiador que acumula el archivo precioso de lo que está a punto de desaparecer; nos regala su visión del mundo: lúcida y siempre sorprendente a través de los tatuajes de las ciudades.

The Highway Horror Film argues that 'Highway Horror' is a hither-to overlooked sub-genre of the American horror movie that articulates profound unease about the increasingly transitory nature of modern American life, as well as the wider impact of mass automobility. Along with the establishment of the suburbs, the post1956 construction of the Interstate Highway System represents one of the most dramatic innovations of post-war American society. The new network of well-maintained and well-constructed roads provided Americans with a freedom to move around the entire nation that had previously been denied to them. In addition, the car assumed the vitally important practical and symbolic function it holds to this day. Both of these innovations are questioned in this landmark study. In Highway Horror films, the American landscape is by its very accessibility rendered terrifyingly hostile, and encounters with other travellers (and with those whose roadside businesses depend on highway traffic) almost always have sinister outcomes.

Screenwriting in a Digital Era examines the practices of writing for the screen from early Hollywood to Dogme, the new realism and beyond. Looking back to prehistories of the form, Kathryn Millard links screenwriting to visual and oral storytelling. From the shadow playwrights of twelfth century Egypt to semi-improvised ensemble films played out on the streets of cities around the globe, she draws on a wealth of insights from music, photography, performance, writing, psychology and organisational studies to explore the creative processes underlying writing for the screen. Looking also to the future, Screenwriting in a Digital Era examines the blurring of genres, production stages and roles in digital ecologies and the rise of sustainable screenwriting.

In response to the significant increase of judgment and judgmentalism in contemporary film and television, A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television investigates the evolving connections between the aesthetics and ethics of judgment. The volume ultimately contemplates whether we should, and can, do without judgment, questions that are just the beginning of a much-needed re-examination. The individual contributions of the collection all work towards a very specific focus on judgment that is unprecedented in its transdisciplinary composition and contemporary relevance. By exploring examples of entertainment that aim to instigate judgment, A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television advances the as yet underdeveloped area of research into television and philosophy.

Nonfiction cinema in Latin America has undergone remarkable changes in the last thirty years. Documentary film was part of the ambitious movements that helped shape the region's cinematic landscape half a century ago, and it has for many years influenced socially committed filmmaking worldwide. The past three decades have taken this tradition in new directions. In this volume, contributors highlight the significance of recent Latin American documentaries and explore contrasts and parallels with works made in previous decades. Examining the vast breadth and diversity of contemporary documentary production, while also situating nonfiction film and video within the cultural, political, and socio-economic history of the region, this book addresses topics such as documentary aesthetics, indigenous media, and transnational filmmaking.

An interdisciplinary work in philosophy and film studies, Joseph Kupfer investigates narrative theory through the analysis of five films that have narrative as their subject matter and where stories and storytelling are central: A River Runs Through It, Wonder Boys, Ordinary People, The Shape of Things and Unforgiven. Kupfer's readings of the films explore the role of story creation in knowing ourselves and planning our future, in structuring social relationships, and in sharpening our experience of popular culture – including mass-marketed films.

Body, Soul and Cyberspace explores how recent science-fiction cinema addresses questions about the connections between body and soul, virtuality, and the ways in which we engage with spirituality in the digital age. The book investigates notions of love, life and death, taking an interdisciplinary approach by combining cinematic themes with religious, philosophical and ethical ideas. Magerstädt argues how even the most spectacle-driven mainstream films such as Avatar, The Matrix and Terminator can raise interesting and important questions about the human self and our interaction with the world. Apart from these well-known science fiction epics, her analysis also draws on recent works, such as Inception, The Thirteenth Floor, eXistenZ, Aeon Flux, Total Recall (2112), Transcendence and TRON: Legacy. These films stimulate an engaging discussion on what makes us human, the role memory plays in understanding ourselves, and how virtual realities challenge the moral concepts that govern human relationships.