Javier Peñafiel. ‘Perfeccionando muerte’
— A dramatised conference on the strange Idea of the death of cinema
Saturday 28 May 2016, 12 — 2 pm
"Perfeccionando muerte" consists of the re-enacting of certain films that are part of our collective imagination and of the artist’s personal reflections. Halfway between a conference and performative poetry, this presentation will investigate the announced death of cinema, as well as the relationships between cinema and art.
The death of God, the death of the author and the end of history have left us uncertain in what concerns our place among so many corpses. This “post-” culture, from post-Fordism to post-politics and even post-film, is born from necrophilia. As a heterodox figure within this necro-culture, artist Javier Peñafiel (Zaragoza, 1964) proposes us to improve our death with an invitation to anti-speciesism , where the animot defined by Derrida appears as the pull of culture.
This proposal will be developed through a dramatised conference in which animalised gestures will be at the heart of a whispered reading of cinema quotes, suggesting films that have been forgotten by those who announce the death of cinema. Faced with this radical cemetery, we can only exclaim, like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “let animals guide us!”.
‘Perfeccionando muerte’ by Javier Peñafiel ©Ignacio Molteni
‘Perfeccionando muerte’ by Javier Peñafiel ©Ignacio Molteni
