BATTLEFIELD EXPANSION. WAR IN EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA AND VIDEO CREATION

Experimental cinema and video creation propose formal and ideological strategies that contribute to debating, in audiovisual terms, such a delicate subject as war. The filmmakers and video creators who make pieces about armed conflicts "mistrust the images", question their conventions and subvert the original messages generated by the mass media. In artistic contexts, there are critical readings regarding audiovisual content of a warlike nature, initially distributed by television channels or commercial cinematographic exhibition circuits. Questioning the credibility and semantic value of this type of moving images is the starting point for artists such as Bruce Conner, Aernout Mik and Harun Farocki. They expand the aesthetic possibilities of the medium to broaden its theoretical foundations and ethical codes. Deconstructing past materials and giving new meaning to pre-existing images of war are common resources of some creators who counteract spectacularism with disassembly. The works analyzed here are formal manipulations and semantic deviations that promote a critical awareness of the military iconography. The iconoclastic character of the works reveals a desire to expand this dialectical battlefield.