Repräsentation als agentieller Schnitt? Provokationen und Potentiale im Verhältnis von New Materialism und (feministischer) Filmwissenschaft

Authors

  • Kristina Pia Hofer Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2017.12

Keywords:

Repräsentation, New Materialism, Film, Exploitationkino, Filmton, Textur, Exzess

Abstract

Karen Barad’s concept of material-discursive intra-action seems hardly compatible with questions about meaning in cinematic representation. For Barad, focussing on mediation distracts from the articulations of the physical world. Studies of representation would privilege human-made systems of signs without bodies. Barad frames meaning as a product of entanglements of human and non-human agential components, who mutually constitute each other only in their moment of contact. She calls this process the “agential cut.” This article reads Barad against the grain to make productive use of this concept for a semiotic analysis of a case study from exploitation cinema. The excessive soundtrack of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ She-Devils on Wheels (1968) shows how material sound contributes considerably to how this film represents female empowerment, and how Barad’s concept can help incorporate this contribution in existing film theoretical concepts of texture, touch, and excess.

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Published

2017-09-22

How to Cite

Hofer, K. P. (2017). Repräsentation als agentieller Schnitt? Provokationen und Potentiale im Verhältnis von New Materialism und (feministischer) Filmwissenschaft. Open Gender Journal, 1. https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2017.12

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Section

Research Articles