As part of its research residency and curatorial program, Vidéographe welcomes researcher and artist Lucie Szechter for a project based on our collection. In Son propre visage en partage, she explores the issues raised by the face in the practice of self-filming.

Following on from this work, and in partnership with UdeM’s Vice-Deanat à la recherche et à la création, UdeM’s Department of Art History and Film Studies, Le labdoc (Le laboratoire de recherche sur les pratiques audiovisuelles documentaires) and Vidéographe, a study day will be held at UdeM.

“This study day will explore the issues surrounding self-filming today in documentary cinema, art video, fiction cinema and the hybrid zones at the frontier between these three filmic registers. We understand “self-filming” in the broadest sense, since self-filming occurs when the filmmaker is present on screen in his or her own film.

We’ll be looking at how the practice of self-filming questions the “documentary pact” (assuring the viewer that it is indeed the real world that is shown in the film) and the “autobiographical pact” (affirming in the text that the identities of author, narrator and character coincide). Some works attempt to thwart these implicit pacts, while others seek to affirm them. We’ll explore the various cinematic devices used to achieve these ends.

We will also explore the tension between intimacy, vulnerability and critical intent in certain uses of self-filming. What point of view should we adopt as filmer-filmer? What form of address to the viewer and engagement does the filmer’s presence on screen imply? This meeting will also allow us to continue the debate initiated by Rosalind Krauss in 1976 on the question of narcissism in self-staging. What is the situation today, with the emergence and expansion of new technical means for filming oneself on a daily basis?

Finally, we will reflect on the political actions involved in the practice of self-filming. Can the practice of self-filming subvert the procedures of control and identification to which we are subjected, while ensuring visibility in the public space? By way of example, we’ll be looking at the implications of certain self-filming techniques, including the use of masks and make-up.

Marion Froger, Viva Paci and Lucie Szechter
Organizers and members of the event’s scientific committee

Guest researchers :
– Olivier Asselin, professor, Université de Montréal – Canada
– André Habib, Professor, Université de Montréal – Canada
– Alice Michaud-Lapointe, doctoral student, Université de Montréal – Canada
– Mathilde Roman, professor at the École Supérieure d’Arts Plastiques de la ville de Monaco
and art critic – France
– Joëlle Rouleau, professor, Université de Montréal – Canada
– Claire Savoie, professor, Université du Québec à Montréal – Canada
– Rui Silveira, doctoral student in research-creation at Université du Québec à Montréal, labdoc – UQAM – Canada

With contributions from :
– Marion Froger, Associate Professor, Director of the magazine Intermédialités at the Université
de Montréal – Canada
– Viva Paci, Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal, labdoc – UQAM – Canada
– Lucie Szechter, filmmaker and doctoral student in research-creation at Erg (École de recherche graphique)
and Université de Liège, mandat Fresh (F.R.S – F.N.R.S) – France/Belgium

Program description

Course of the day
. 9 h 45 – 10 h : Welcoming remarks
– Sébastien Sauvé, Vice-Dean of Research and Creation, Université de Montréal – (to be confirmed)
– Silvestra Mariniello, Department of Art History and Film Studies, UdeM
– Julie Tremble, Vidéographe
– Viva Paci, Labdoc – UQAM
. 10 a.m.: Introduction Lucie Szechter
. 10:10 – 10:50 a.m.: Mathilde Roman – From images of the body to bodies facing images
. 10:50 – 11:30 a.m.: Alice Michaud-Lapointe
– Filmer l’autre en soi : fascination et geste de captation cinéphile chez Mathieu Amalric, Maïwenn
and Xavier Dolan
. 11:30 – 12:10: André Habib
– Self-portrait and other ruins’. Reflections on the cinema of Louise Bourque
. 12 h 10 – 13 h 40 : BREAK
. 1:40 – 2:20 pm: Rui Silveira – The crisis of 2015, “Os olhos do meu amor” .
. 2:20 – 3:00 p.m.: Joëlle Rouleau – Audiovisual representation and mediation .
. 3:00 – 3:40 pm: Claire Savoie – Je me constitue
. 3:40 – 4:00 p.m.: COFFEE BREAK
. 4:00 – 4:40 p.m.: Olivier Asselin
– Le miroir sans tain: narcissisme et surveillance du circuit fermé au réseau
. 4:40pm – 5:20pm: Wrap-up by Marion Froger, Viva Paci and Lucie Szechter,
followed by a group discussion