Unfortunately, last October, our Film-Phil Lisbon Seminar with James Williams had to be canceled. But this month, he has kindly shared his notes regarding the theme of his presentation: "Perishing and Démontage in the Works of Jean-Marc Rochette: a Process Philosophy of Life and Death".
To read the full text, and stay updated on his research, you can access his website here.
ABSTRACT Starting from the concept of 'démontage' as applied to bande dessinée, this talk reflects on the implications for time and death of the shift from narrative and linear times to a free floating and interventionist interaction with chains of images and within images themselves. If movements in time can be rearranged, broken, interrupted by any reader (and maybe any watcher) does this also mean that death can be manipulated and reinvented in this way? The French author Jean-Marc Rochette's recent works are, among other things, an intimate and original portrayal of many interacting deaths: from human, to animal, to machines and the cosmos. Taking inspiration from his artistry, I will begin to sketch a process logic of time in its implications for thinking about death, while reflecting on its implications for film, as perhaps a less liberated opportunity for accessible démontage.
James Williams is Honorary Professor of Philosophy and member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization at Deakin University (jamesrwilliams.net). He is also a member of FILM AND DEATH's advisory board.
🎨 Ailefroide, altitude 3954 (2018), Jean-Marc Rochette
