Talk by Pablo Martínez-Zárate: Forensic Landscapes of State Terror, Civil War, and Cartel Violence in Latin America | 19 April 2023 | 15:00-17:00 | The Hague [Register to join]
Event Description
This lecture will articulate the idea of transmedia practice as a mode of critical inquiry. To do so, Pablo will reflect on his role as artistic director of Forensic Landscapes, an immersive web documentary that explores forensic resistance in Latin America, created along with researcher and filmmaker Anne Huffschmid. Combining elements such as 360º landscapes, essay films, animations, soundscapes and texts, the aesthetic and narrative strategies were implemented not merely to illustrate but expand their research questions. Evoking forensic procedures of body identification and skeletal reconstruction, the lecture will deploy a reflexive archaeology of the project, presenting the design process as a way of generating new insights on the topics of investigation.
Using this example as the main terrain of interrogation, Pablo will take the opportunity to question the logocentric paradigm operating in academic institutions, sharing the belief that transmedia practice can nurture research cultures across the arts, humanities and social sciences. How can we introduce a transmedia approach to the production of knowledge at universities and research centers? What are the main challenges to build such an open, transdisciplinary framework within these institutional contexts? The lecture is open not only to scholars already engaging in transmedia / multi-modal methods, but all scholars in social sciences and humanities interested in the potential of these methods.
About the Presenter
Pablo Martínez-Zárate is a media artist, filmmaker and scholar living and working in Mexico City. He is currently Artist in Residence at the The Netherlands Film Academy – Amsterdam University of the Arts. Pablo’s work explores the relationship between body, memory and territory through media experimentation. Considered one of the main artists working on interactive and immersive documentary in Mexico and Latin America, his films, interactive works and installations have been shown internationally in festivals, museums and universities. His published work includes two books that reflect on the role of art in a world in crisis, as well as several artist books. As a professor at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, he founded and heads IberoDocsLab, a platform that promotes radical research through documentary practice and pedagogy. He has lectured at EICTV Cuba, Emerson College Boston, University of Southern California, Zurich University of the Arts, amongst others.
About the Repondent
Federico De Musso is an assistant professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University. His research and teaching interests include multimodal anthropology, political ecology, and the anthropology of food. In the field of multi-modality, he experiments with interactive documentaries, film-making, and comics.
When and where
19 April 2023 | 15:00 – 17:00
Room A2.04 | Schouwburgstraat Building | Leiden University
Schouwburgstraat 2, 2511 VA The Hague
Image credit: Forensic Landscapes courtesy of Pablo Martínez-Zárate.
