Turbo Film As Artistic Apparatus And As Manifesto For The Uncertain Future Of Moving Images

Abstract

The following research is a practice-based Ph.D. in filmmaking that proposes to define an unclassified film genre and its specific artistic practice. This practice, at the intersection of experimental films, art-cinema and Youtube user- generated videos, I refer to as “Turbo Films.”

Beginning with a critical perspective on video art and experimental film history, as it relates to today’s public approach towards the production of moving images, the concept of “Turbo Films” is proposed as an opportunity to understand new trajectories in the production of image-culture, and as holistic modus operandi for the current cross-media environment.

Turbo Films have been the natural offspring of a specific methodology and approach to cinematic production, that was shared horizontally in within my collective. Our structure, with no hierarchies or role's definitions, offered a fluidity in the production of content, that became the perfect ground for the rise of this specific format.

In the first section I focus on the recent history of art and filmmaking in the production of moving images. Through a selection of theories and their critiques, I identify the need for a holistic strategy to integrate different practices and methodologies for a new, organic form of cultural production. I then propose and define Turbo Films as a new possible trajectory, an integrated toolset that combines research, writing, filmmaking, visual art performance, and political activism.

At the end of this section I also explore Turbo Films specific media context, focusing on a new trajectory for cinematic narrative structures that I define as expanded journalism. A new group of filmic works that emerges from the encounter between investigative journalism practices and creative activists and artists attitudes and tactics. This first section will outline the conceptual milestones and the development of theories from which the practice of Turbo Films derives.

Each of the concepts analyzed in this first section will be then integrated in the constitution of the Turbo Film Manifesto and its consequential practical outcomes.

In the second section I will introduce the background of each Turbo Film and examine some of the most significant scenes, characters, and specific features, focusing on the praxis and highlighting some of the theoretical aspects and the creative processes behind them.

The final outcome of the thesis is the Turbo Film Manifesto, intended as a “rhetorical dispositive” to trigger the creation of new cross-platform media objects in today visual culture context.

The Turbo Films produced during the course of my research have the double function of defining a practice and testing its theoretical framework. In this research I will show how Turbo Films have the potential to become a new powerful cinematic dispositive that enables cross-cultural interferences between media and their contexts .