Think:Film
International Experimental Cinema Congress 2012
10-14 October 2012
Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg, Berlin

Following a period of diversification of experimental forms of artistic production, it has become necessary to come up with new ways to think about film and the types of thought created by it and within it.

The ability to break down and translate image and sound into digital codes represents a fundamental shift in filmmaking practice and has led to massive changes with regard to production technology. The concentration and processing of different time-based art forms within computers has let loose a wealth of new synesthetic opportunities, many of the examples of which were anticipated by certain advanced film forms. Practices that used to be the strict reserve of the experimental, avant-garde and underground film genres have been seized upon thanks to these new technologies, placed in new commercial contexts and popularized. In this way, the economic history of the "avant-garde" has become of relevance above and beyond its cultural impetus. The position of artistic authorship and curatorial and production activity within this new distribution landscape needs to be reflected upon in new ways.

The central goal of Think:Film is to make a philosophical reassessment of the special position enjoyed by film and the cinematic image in artistic and intellectual practice and to redefine what this position might be. What direct influence does the cinematic image have on current thought and how can film itself become a way of thinking? The congress is not concerned primarily with film genres, but seeks instead to pose fundamental questions: What is thought in connection with cinematic images and what are these images in connection with thought? Which types of images trigger which types of thought, which are capable of eradicating which types of thought? Which types of images can become an integral part of which types of thought? Which cinematic images are in circulation and which kind of thinking does this point to?