How to Think with Films? - Didem Pekün
This presentation is formed of a series of questions. These questions are concerned with how to navigate through our crisis-ridden times. They seek ways to further a dialogue within a society that is increasingly alienated and polarized. These questions are structured by five of the video entries from Didem Pekün's essayistic video diary called Of Dice and Men, which she kept in London and Istanbul between 2011–2016. Within it she has recorded some of the different forms that violence takes within differing geographies as well as the numerous ways that we respond to such violence. Each diary entry is a reflection of different power structures, both in terms of their content and the forms that the audio-visual entries take. How can we discuss such sensitive material on-screen? With what formal tools?And how can we communicate with a potential spectator? These aesthetic problems, which are essentially also political. The spectator thus accompanies the subject of the film by thinking through such events and constantly crossing borders and attempting to undo set identifications and subjectivations. Ultimately, this is a search for a way of living that is deeply immersed in day-to-day politics. How this agency is brought to screen, who is present to receive it, and who is waiting to be recognized?