Talk: Forensic Landscapes of State Terror, Civil War, and Cartel Violence in Latin America: Transmediality as a Method for Critical Scholarship | 19 April 2023 | 15:00-17:00 | The Hague

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.   Details on the presenter, respondent and registration: https://www.recntr.nl/wp-admin/post.php?post=1087&action=edit The room number is: A2.04 in the Schouwburgstraat Building of Leiden University