Abstract

This paper discusses my documentary film practice, which explores the filmic mediation of subjectivity through materiality on two levels: the pro-filmic event and the film form. The concept of “materiality” offers a good starting point for identifying and capturing physical manifestations of subjectivity in line with Searle’s theory of externalized subjectivity. ‘Materiality refers to the fleshy, corporeal and physical, as opposed to spiritual, ideal and value-laden aspects of human existence’. Chateau posits that the filmic mediation of subjectivity constitutes in the employment of specific signs of subjectivity, depending ‘both on the subjectivity taken as a reference point … and on the material and formal choices made to the purpose of subjectivity’. This distinction between referred or pro-filmic subjectivity, and depicted subjectivity, is key to the process of mediation. I argue that these two levels of subjective experience require different, though interrelated methodologies, which requires their distinction from each other. But, this distinction should not be seen as a structuralist-semiotic separation. It is rather a cross-disciplinary interpretation of Searle’s anti-representationalist approach to subjective perception. ‘There is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed, between the perception and the object perceived’. For the first level that relates to the pro-filmic encounter I will propose two anthropological methods that facilitate the identification and filming of subjective experiences manifested through objects and spaces: the “biographical object” and the concept of “objectification”. For the second level that relates to film form and its impact on the audience, I will suggest methods based on film spectatorship theories, especially cognitive film theory. I will demonstrate the proposed methodology by reference to a particular scene from my current documentary film, “Material Experiences”, which is work-in-progress and explores the filmic mediation of subjectivity with regards to the representation of blind people.