DOI issue:
Zwrot kinematograficzny w praktyce i teorii sztuki / The Cinematic Turn in Art Practice and Theory
DOI article:Lipiński, Filip: Cinematic art (history) and Mieke Bal's thinking in film
Citation link:https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/artium_quaestiones2020/0020
14 Filip Lipiński
reflective mode of rational thinking. In this account, cinema becomes, as it
seems (he does not put it that way), an underlying but repressed model for the
constitution and operation of art historical methods, always already a part of
the field. Preziosi's vision of cinema is very instructive, but he regards it as an
instmment of ordering and control, rather than one which has an emancipatory
potential and can serve as an alternative to the familiar art historical models.
This remains in telling contrast to the account of film favored in this article
and in Bal's texts, whose potential, if activated within the domain of art history,
should be seen as critical and disruptive of the existing state of the field.
The above-signaled issues, in their diverse aspects, have been addressed
and expanded in the past two decades by the leading cultural theorist writ-
ing extensively on art - Mieke Bal. In addition to her influential theoretical
work, in 2002 she took up making documentaries, videos and multi-screen
video installations, which also became the object, and an extension, of her
"auto-theory," a way of developing ideas, or thinking with art.26 Here, how-
ever, let alone a rather general reference to her art practice towards the end of
this article, I will concentrate on Bal's rich body of writing concerning film,
moving images, video and the cinematic.
Since the beginning of her career, Bal's theoretical paths have fluctuated
across disciplines, but her involvement in the visual arts remains the most
consistent and prominent. She has always been vocal about her interdiscipli-
nary position (as opposed to a transdisciplinary one), which has enabled her
to come up with unorthodox ways of using concepts, approaching an object
of analysis or, indeed, producing a new one. As Roland Barthes wrote: "Inter-
disciplinarity consists in creating a new object that belongs to no one."27 One
of the main vehicles of her interdisciplinary perspective are concepts which,
as the title of one of her best known books indicates, travel across different
fields, disrupt, differentiate and displace disciplinary doxa to produce of pro-
found and always subjectively framed analyses, i.e. focusing on her own expe-
26 More on "auto-theory7' see: M. Bal, "Documenting What? Auto-Theory and Migra-
tory Aesthetics?" in: A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film, eds. A. Juhasz,
E. Lebow, New York 2015, p. 125.
27 R. Barthes, Research: The Young, in: R. Barthes, The Rustle of Language, trans.
R. Howard, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1989, p. 72. The quote was used as an epigraph in the
introduction to Bal's book: M. Bal, Emma & Edvard Looking Sideways: Loneliness and the
Cinematic, (exhibition catalogue, Munch Museum), Oslo-Brussels-New Haven-London
2017, p. 9.
reflective mode of rational thinking. In this account, cinema becomes, as it
seems (he does not put it that way), an underlying but repressed model for the
constitution and operation of art historical methods, always already a part of
the field. Preziosi's vision of cinema is very instructive, but he regards it as an
instmment of ordering and control, rather than one which has an emancipatory
potential and can serve as an alternative to the familiar art historical models.
This remains in telling contrast to the account of film favored in this article
and in Bal's texts, whose potential, if activated within the domain of art history,
should be seen as critical and disruptive of the existing state of the field.
The above-signaled issues, in their diverse aspects, have been addressed
and expanded in the past two decades by the leading cultural theorist writ-
ing extensively on art - Mieke Bal. In addition to her influential theoretical
work, in 2002 she took up making documentaries, videos and multi-screen
video installations, which also became the object, and an extension, of her
"auto-theory," a way of developing ideas, or thinking with art.26 Here, how-
ever, let alone a rather general reference to her art practice towards the end of
this article, I will concentrate on Bal's rich body of writing concerning film,
moving images, video and the cinematic.
Since the beginning of her career, Bal's theoretical paths have fluctuated
across disciplines, but her involvement in the visual arts remains the most
consistent and prominent. She has always been vocal about her interdiscipli-
nary position (as opposed to a transdisciplinary one), which has enabled her
to come up with unorthodox ways of using concepts, approaching an object
of analysis or, indeed, producing a new one. As Roland Barthes wrote: "Inter-
disciplinarity consists in creating a new object that belongs to no one."27 One
of the main vehicles of her interdisciplinary perspective are concepts which,
as the title of one of her best known books indicates, travel across different
fields, disrupt, differentiate and displace disciplinary doxa to produce of pro-
found and always subjectively framed analyses, i.e. focusing on her own expe-
26 More on "auto-theory7' see: M. Bal, "Documenting What? Auto-Theory and Migra-
tory Aesthetics?" in: A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film, eds. A. Juhasz,
E. Lebow, New York 2015, p. 125.
27 R. Barthes, Research: The Young, in: R. Barthes, The Rustle of Language, trans.
R. Howard, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1989, p. 72. The quote was used as an epigraph in the
introduction to Bal's book: M. Bal, Emma & Edvard Looking Sideways: Loneliness and the
Cinematic, (exhibition catalogue, Munch Museum), Oslo-Brussels-New Haven-London
2017, p. 9.