Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ), The - Current Issue
Volume 13, Issue 1-2, 2024
- Editorial
-
- Articles
-
-
-
Corporeal topographies: Body-oriented art of Mona Hatoum and Amal Kenawy
By Oğuz KayırThis article takes a closer look at a selection of body-oriented art practices by two artists – Mona Hatoum and Amal Kenawy – to unearth how women artists render female corporeality as a topographical map. Interdisciplinary in nature, these artists’ earlier practices explore corporeality to underscore how their gender, far from being a static phenomenon, is in fact a series of processes that are co-constituted via a multitude of material, sociopolitical or geographical contexts. Drawing upon Elizabeth Grosz’s theory of corporeal feminism, along with her reiterations of Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘Body without Organs’, I argue that these two artists delineate their own and other women’s bodies as corporeal topographies that encapsulate the fluid carnality or porous surfaces of the female body. Moving beyond representational paradigms that approach female bodies as fixed constructs, this article foregrounds the ontologically fluid and non-representational nature of corporeal feminism to understand how these women conceptualize the female body as an open-ended composition that always remains in ceaseless flux.
-
-
-
-
Monkey’s Birthday (1975): Digression and self-othering on the hippie trail
More LessThis article places David Larcher’s avant-garde travelogue Monkey’s Birthday (1975) in the wider context of alternative budget travel on an epic overland route commonly known as ‘the hippie trail’. I argue that the film’s digressionary tactics reflect some of the perspectives implicit in this kind of travel, which valorized ecstatic experience, financial precarity, spiritual questing and nomadism. While the film’s pluralist point of view attests to Larcher’s profound engagement with diverse spiritual practices and belief systems – this thread runs through much of his cinema and was embedded in his peripatetic, bohemian lifestyle – it also reveals a countercultural orientalism through its alignment with and romanticization of the Other. The film’s colonial gaze is implicit (and at times explicit) in how it engages in psychedelic self-othering, portraying the Other as magical, timeless and ‘authentic’, while also transforming sites of religious significance into shimmering special effects.
-
-
-
Image, sound, water: Ursula Biemann’s Acoustic Ocean (2018)
More LessAcoustic Ocean (2018) by Swiss filmmaker Ursula Biemann presents a significant contribution to an emerging movement among moving image artists who are depicting underwater spaces with eco-political motivation. Set within the vast coastal landscapes of the Lofoten Islands of Northern Norway, Acoustic Ocean explores cetacean communication through sonar technology by tracing the actions of Sofia Jannok, a musician and climate activist from the Sámi community of Northern Scandinavia who performs the role of a ‘biologist-diver’. In this article, the interplay of image and sound in the work is framed within emerging literature and artistic practices at the intersection of technology, the blue humanities and environmental justice. Close analysis of the work highlights the importance of recognizing the limitations of sensory access in ocean spaces. These sensory limitations have political and epistemological implications concerning the dissemination of Indigenous knowledge systems to, and beyond, artistic audiences. At a time in which deep-sea mining and noise pollution are increasingly having a detrimental impact on submarine environments, Acoustic Ocean provides a lens for conceiving more non-intrusive connections with underwater worlds.
-
- Features
-
- Reviews
-
-
-
The Recent, Eglė Budvytytė, Helen Cammock, Dorothy Cross, Regina de Miguel, Mikala Dwyer, Nicholas Mangan, Angelica Mesiti, Otobong Nkanga, Katie Paterson, Micol Roubini and Simon Starling, curated by Tessa Giblin, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 28 October 2023–17 February 2024
By Maria WalshReview of: The Recent, Eglė Budvytytė, Helen Cammock, Dorothy Cross, Regina de Miguel, Mikala Dwyer, Nicholas Mangan, Angelica Mesiti, Otobong Nkanga, Katie Paterson, Micol Roubini and Simon Starling, curated by Tessa Giblin, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 28 October 2023–17 February 2024
-
-
-
-
Marina Abramović, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 23 September 2023–1 January 2024
More LessReview of: Marina Abramović, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 23 September 2023–1 January 2024
-
-
-
Signals: How Video Transformed the World, curated by Stuart Comer and Michelle Kuo, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 5 March–8 July 2023
More LessReview of: Signals: How Video Transformed the World, curated by Stuart Comer and Michelle Kuo, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 5 March–8 July 2023
-
-
-
The Vanishing Point: Moving Images after Video, Rashmi Devi Sawhney (ed.) (2022)
More LessReview of: The Vanishing Point: Moving Images after Video, Rashmi Devi Sawhney (ed.) (2022)
New Delhi: Tulika Books, 378 pp.,
ISBN 978-8-19471-758-4, h/bk, £45
-
-
-
Paravel and Castaing-Taylor: Cosmic Realism, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, curated by Jaap Gueldmond, Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, 20 January–20 May 2024
More LessReview of: Paravel and Castaing-Taylor: Cosmic Realism, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, curated by Jaap Gueldmond, Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, 20 January–20 May 2024
-
Most Read This Month Most Read RSS feed

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed
-
-
Editorial
Authors: Michael Mazière and Lucy Reynolds
-
- More Less