Politics of prehension - Agnes Varda's essay films and Alfred N. Whitehead's process philosophy

This article deals with Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I (2000), a film that is not only a portrait of gleaners, but is itself a gleaning film. Varda gleans her moving images with a handheld camcorder and develops an essayistic and cinematographic thinking. In Alfred N. Whithead's process philosophy the concept of prehension (from "to grasp") describes a non-representational and bodily mode of perception and a process metaphysical theory of relationality. Following a media-philosophical perspective, this article tries to see and to describe Varda's film through the lens of Whitehead's concepts and to read Whitehead anew through Varda's film. By using this method, the article wants to stress the aesthetical and political aspects of Agnes Varda's film-making, as well as the relevance of Whitehead's concept of prehension for topics and questions in media theory and media philosophy.