Conference Papers by Duncan Caillard
Archipelagic Encounters Symposium, Lasalle College of the Arts, 2019
This paper outlines the use and function of sleep in the cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and... more This paper outlines the use and function of sleep in the cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and considers its radical departures from conventional modes of art cinema spectatorship. Theorist Jonathan Crary identified a transformation in visual culture throughout the nineteenth century that culminated in the disciplined intensification of human attention, coinciding with the emergence of cinema as a visual technology. Western cinematic spectatorship operates as a concentration of visual experience that assumes a continuous and attentive perceiving subject, and as such sleep – as a form of complete spectatorial inattention – is conventionally understood as incompatible with art cinema. Despite this, Apichatpong has frequently noted his comfort with spectators sleeping through his films, and understands sleep as fundamentally in continuum with (rather than opposition to) cinematic spectatorship. Through analysis of Apichatpong’s 2018 installation SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL, this paper argues Apichatpong’s sleep cinema departs from conventional narrative cinema by inverting dominant hierarchies of attention and textual understanding. Rather than positioning an attentive spectating subject at its centre, sleep cinema assumes discontinuous attention, dismantling concepts of whole or complete texts and blurring the division between objective textuality and subjective imagination. Through this radical revision, Apichatpong proposes an alternative form of spectatorship in which communality, vulnerability and intimacy are prioritised over individualist, comprehensive textual participation.
Asian Cinema Studies Conference, 2019
This paper addresses queer human-animal ethics in the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and est... more This paper addresses queer human-animal ethics in the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and establishes the act of ‘straying’ as key to his creative practice and the relationships between his characters and their environments. Barbara Creed theorises the stray as a subject who – due to the rising threats of authoritarianism, economic inequality and climate change – has diverged, become banished or been rejected by its society, a concept applicable to both human and non-human animals cohabitating the Anthropocene. Drawing from Creed, this paper considers the diverse strays found in Apichatpong’s filmmaking – its wandering dogs and chickens alongside its queer, impoverished and dislocated humans – and questions their uncertain relationships with the spaces in which they inhabit. Apichatpong’s characters exist in uncertain spaces, frequently leaving behind the restrictive structures of urban life behind for the open possibilities of rural life and the wilderness. Yet considering Apichatpong’s filmmaking more broadly, straying also serves as a creative practice. Like the recurrent images of dogs moving in uncertain ways within a frame, his plots are spasmodic and unfixed. On this basis, this paper links the unpredictable behaviours of stray dogs and non-professional actors undermine traditional processes of scripting and continuity editing, and conceptualises a new approach to cinematic production: a fluid process open to chance, improvisation, and the movement of stray bodies.
In this paper, I consider slowness as an ethical alternative to dominant screen cultural viewing ... more In this paper, I consider slowness as an ethical alternative to dominant screen cultural viewing practices. Until now, ‘slow cinema’ has referred to a style of filmmaking that emphasises long takes, silence and static compositions as a counter to the increasing speed and interconnectedness of screen texts in the digital era. But in their emphasis on form, slow cinema discourses have missed other possible manifestations that move beyond diegesis and into the space of viewers themselves. Drawing from the slow philosophy of Michelle Boulos Walker, I propose a slow alternative to screen spectatorship that prioritises open readings and opposes easily-aggregated criticism, valuing each film as an individually-crafted work to be respected, not idly-skipped through. In this way, I seek to reorient the ethical responsibility of slowness from filmmakers to spectators, opening space for us to engage contemplatively with screen media regardless of form --- not only as researchers and critics, but also as consumers, players and cinephiles.
Talks by Duncan Caillard
Asian Art Dialogue, The University of Melbourne, 2020
Over the past 20 years, the global film industry has undergone a comprehensive shift from cellulo... more Over the past 20 years, the global film industry has undergone a comprehensive shift from celluloid to digital media, impacting every level of production, distribution, exhibition and preservation. Parallel to this, Southeast Asian cinema has assumed an increasingly prominent position within global art cinema, gaining in increased prominence for its daring auteurs, exciting genres and fusion of film style with contemporary art. These two entangled forces provide new opportunities for film archivists to share SEA film histories with new audiences across the world, but also new challenges to preserve media produced using increasingly volatile technologies. This panel brings together film archivists from across Southeast Asia to address some of the challenges and opportunities in this new digital environment: what role does film archiving serve in preserving national memory? How do digital technologies impact the distribution of historical films? What are the challenges of archiving digital films? What is the future of film archiving in the region?
Melbourne International Film Festival, 2019
This panel was presented at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2019, and brought... more This panel was presented at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2019, and brought together disability experts, practitioners and industry stakeholders to discuss the current state of disability support in the Australian film industry and potential steps forward to create a more inclusive and supportive film industry.
Thesis Chapters by Duncan Caillard
Doctoral Dissertation, 2022
This thesis presents a systematic investigation of the moving image works of Apichatpong Weeraset... more This thesis presents a systematic investigation of the moving image works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, concentrating on the contemplative and non-representational dimensions of his creative practice. Apichatpong's practice operates in the space between transnational art cinema and contemporary art and draws from a wide range of creative and conceptual influences from Theravada Buddhism to postwar American experimental filmmaking and contemporary 'slow cinema,' often diverging from conventional expectations of narrative cinema to dwell in moments of emptiness, contemplation and dead time. In this thesis, I trace these influences through Apichatpong's feature films, short films and installations the formal appearances of stillness, silence and extended duration, and reflect upon the broader political and phenomenological implications of these empty moments. Rather than understand emptiness as an incidental feature of his creative practice, I argue that emptiness is integral to Apichatpong's understanding of film form and the world. Through this investigation, I argue that Apichatpong's idiosyncratic film practice challenges many of the basic structures of conventional film form and spectatorship by orienting away from narrative logics of cinematic meaning to instead sensitise spectators to other ways of being in and experiencing the world.
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Conference Papers by Duncan Caillard
Talks by Duncan Caillard
Thesis Chapters by Duncan Caillard