Speaker: Elena Gorfinkel, Department of Art History, uwm

Presentation: “Wakers, Sleepers, and Others: Figures of Exhaustion”

This presentation draws on research from Gorfinkel’s second book project, Decomposition, Enduration, which explores decelerated, slow temporalities, and the materialities of exhaustion, endurance and decay in contemporary film art practices – as it seeks to link three fields of film practice that are converging in the digital era: global art cinema, experimental film and moving image work for the gallery. For this talk, Gorfinkel specifically examines Tsai Ming Liang’s “postretirement” Walker series, and Sergei Loznitsa’s sleep portraiture film, The Train Stop.