Lecture

12 November 2005

On Documenting (truth and politics)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNkLm9s6cx4&list=PLKRIMgiirxA7aT11arzChimn9V6bws2v8&index=2&t=0s

“I’ve been told that it’s a documentary, but I don’t know the meaning of that word,” Godard once said talking about one of his “documentary-like” films. This seemingly simple remark touches upon the complexity of documentary approaches in visual arts production. One is faced above all with a paradoxical situation: while we are accustomed to the post-structural denouncement of truth, we also observe the increasing tendency of adopting documentary methods in contemporary arts—“documentarism.” Further, given that the definition of documentary is “presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter,” the use of documentary elements in the arts is unavoidably problematized in terms of its subjective and rhetorical manner. It is in this context that the complexity arises: Is the word “document” valid any longer in its practical usage? Why “documentation” instead of “staging?” What kind of knowledge does art produce by way of documentary approaches if not facts or truth? If it doesn’t pretend to be objective, how does art deal with the given or found documents? What kind of effects does it achieve? And crucially, does this kind of production involve any political responsibility? Particularly with regard to the subject of war, cultural critic Boris Buden, filmmaker and theoretician Hito Steyerl, and artist Renzo Martens present diverse examples of the use of documents-including their own practices—and critically interpret these questions.

Suggestions from the archive

Sint Maarten Parade

22 October–10 November 2023

BAK at the Sint Maarten Parade 2023

For Sint Maarten Parade 2023, Tools for Action—a non-profit organization that develops artistic interventions for political actions—collaborates with Utrecht-based members of Filipino, Caribbean, and other communities to collectively dream a parade compartment.

Crowdfunding Campaign

09 September–08 December 2023

Join Our Crowdfunding Campaign: Support Freefilmers!

The project To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) and the project To Watch the War, In Solidarity are accompanied by a crowdfunding campaign in support of Freefilmers—some of its members are artists and activist filmmakers included in the exhibition and public program.

Panel Discussion

30 September 2023, 16.30-18.30

To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall

A book launch and panel discussion reflecting on the Jina Uprising, one year after its beginning.

Saturday, 30 September, 2023, 16:30–18:30 hrs at BAK, basis actuele kunst, Utrecht Organized by Jina Collective, a Netherlands-based feminist, leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, and pro-LQBTQIA+ action group that emerged from the Jina Uprising. This event launches a book of translated essays, co-published with BAK, which include some of the first English translations of texts by journalists […]

Public Program

09 September–29 October 2023

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023)/Public Program

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) involves a hybrid off- and online sequence of conversations and screenings around discursive and artistic interventions that reimagine the social implications of watching the war through ways that disrupt, subvert, resist the media’s incessant spectacularization of war.