Publication:
At the Edges of Sleep: Moving Images and Somnolent Spectators
At the Edges of Sleep: Moving Images and Somnolent Spectators
No Thumbnail Available
Files
Date
2022
Authors
Ma, Jean
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Abstract
Many recent works of contemporary art, performance, and film turn a spotlight on sleep, wresting it from the hidden, private spaces to which it is commonly relegated. At the Edges of Sleep considers sleep in film and moving image art as both a subject matter to explore onscreen and a state to induce in the audience. Far from negating action or meaning, sleep extends into new territories as it designates ways of existing in the world, in relation to people, places, and the past. Defined positively, sleep also expands our understanding of reception beyond the binary of concentration and distraction. These possibilities converge in the work of Thai filmmaker and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who has explored the subject of sleep systematically throughout his career. In examining Apichatpong's work, Jean Ma brings together an array of interlocutors-from Freud to Proust, George Méliès to Tsai Ming-liang, Weegee to Warhol-to rethink moving images through the lens of sleep. Ma exposes an affinity between cinema, spectatorship, and sleep that dates to the earliest years of filmmaking, and sheds light upon the shifting cultural valences of sleep in the present moment.
Description
University of California Press - CC-BY-NC - https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctv2rh2cjz - 280 pages
Keywords
Film Studies,
Communication Studies,
Art & Art History