Contaminating a Tropical Malady
Darja Filippova, Princeton University
Re/Active Image Conference, NYU 2019







"I want to emphasize the tactile and contagious quality of cinema as something we viewers brush up against like another body. The words contact, contingent, and contagion all share the Latin root contingere, “to have contact with; pollute; befall.” The contingent and contagious circumstances of intercultural cinema events effect a transformation in its audience. As hybrids, the works challenge the separateness of cultures and make visible colonial and racist power relations that seek to maintain that separation. The works pollute viewers’ ideas of cultural distinction, implicating each of us in them."
Marks, L. U. (2000). The skin of the film: intercultural cinema, embodiment, and the senses.






“What is erotic is being able to become an object with and for the world, and to return to being a subject in the world; to be able to trust someone or something to take you through this process; and to be trusted to do the same for others.”
Laura U. Marks. Touch: Sensuous Theory And Multisensory Media. 2002
Re/active Image
By Dasha Filippova
Re/active Image
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