921
Film Screening and Discussion: The Naked Soul (by Syd Krochmalny)

Thursday, July 17, 2014: 5:30 PM-7:20 PM
Room: 416
WG03 Visual Sociology (host committee)

Language: English

The video is a poetic and philosophical meditation on nakedness, loosely inspired by the case of Stephen Gough, 'the Naked Rambler', who spent over six years cumulatively in prison in Scotland for his naked walks across Britain, and who is now a prisoner in England. The inspiration for the video was the myth of the origins of justice or ‘The Naked Souls’ recounted by Plato. The video’s voiceover also includes texts from the Bible, Hume, Descartes, Mill, John Locke, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Merleau-Ponty among others all of which reflect on the body and nakedness. The video was first projected in Edinburgh's Old Calton Cemetery, which contains the tombs of, and monuments to, among others David Hume, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Muir and other campaigners for universal suffrage who were transported to Australia (the 19th solution to bodies out of place) on 10 May 2013. It was also shown at the Augustine Central Church in Edinburgh on the same day, in the School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in July 2013, and was an official selection at the Oakland Underground Film Festival in September 2013. The story of the film’s projection, and the unexpected way in which it started to mirror themes related to Stephen Gough’s story incuding access to ‘public’ space and the fear and self-censure provoked by risk management practices in the university and other workplaces is related here: http://redflag.org.uk/wp/?p=499
Session Organizer:
Sarah WILSON, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Chair:
Regev NATHANSOHN, University of Michigan, USA
Film Screening


Discussion


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