OF HAUNTED SPACES – Filmmaking as Artistic Research
Filmmaking as Artistic Research is new territory. The freedom of searching the unsearchable in this process allows combining different disciplines, such as philosophy, cultural study, urban study, and film study to enhance each other’s range of knowledge production in making a film. In her ongoing art-based research projects, Ella Raidel investigates Chinas urban spaces in and through cinema. The subject investigated is how global capitalism is affecting and haunting the living conditions of our time. In exploring the line between documentary and fiction Ella Raidel develops a method of performative documentary to create a discursive space in which facts, analyses, commentaries, and references can be woven into one narrative. This research is not only to scrutinize the social reality and to render the social discourse, but also to reflect on the convention of filmmaking and its representations. Her new film A Pile of Ghosts on Chinese Ghost cities will be released in 2021 and will be the subject of this talk.