Ambiguity in Contemporary Cinema

For this session of our research colloquium we are happy to have Christina Zimmermann as a guest to host. She is as an artist and filmmaker and will talk about the topic of her recently finished dissertation:

In my dissertation on Ambiguity in Contemporary Cinema – Attempts in Aviation I trace a prominent narrative tendency in cinema, outlining its dramaturgical potential as well as its ethical (or micropolitical) implications. In order to describe a number of typical patterns in ambiguous film narration that are operative already on the pre-conscious level of affects, I draw on concepts from the process philosophy by Alfred North Whitehead and its more recent reformulations by Gilles Deleuze and Brian Massumi. Departing from Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel we get on a virtual flight through carefully chosen film examples with a cultural anchor point in Contemporary Japan.