Event
SG - Talking Movies: On Opacity and the Limits of Perception
Can film help us imagine the end of the world? This night we talk movies with cultural scientist Jeroen Boom, challenging us to think through the ethical and political implications of what we see – or rather, not see.
About Talking Movies: On Opacity and the Limits of Perception
It’s impossible to actually witness the end of the world. But film can at least help us imagine witnessing the end. Guided by film fragments from a wide array of essay films, and using the concept of opacity, Jeroen Boom challenges us to think through the ethical and political implications of what we see - or rather, not see. How can non-visibility incite reflection on our own perspective as the consumer of images?
Opacity deprives us of our stable base, and forces us to interact differently with what we observe. But can it also help us care more about the end of the world, or for the others whose world has already ended? Can visually obscure images force us to bear witness in an ambiguous, but more fruitful manner?
About series The Talk Show at the End of the World
What better way to start the academic year than with the end of the world! We live in times of turmoil; catastrophic climate change, the collapse of human civilisations, and the threat of nuclear annihilation are but a few omens of an apocalypse. But the end of the world is notoriously difficult to wrap your head around - until it happens of course. But then it’s already too late. Join The Talk Show at the End of the World and find (dis)comfort in the talks we’ll be having with a wide variety of guests.
About Jeroen Boom
Jeroen Boom is an Assistant Professor in Visual Culture Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen. His research focuses on the politics and ethics of seeing and not seeing in the context of contemporary (documentary) cinema, global politics, and ecological violence. He is currently working on a book project on opacity and other visual disruptions in essay films about migration. He co-directed the seminar series Minor Movements: How to Create Space for Personal and Political Change with Niels Niessen and currently co-organises the seminar series Aquatic Thinking in a Fluid Age with László Munteán at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis.
