Archival poetics in contemporary documentary

Abstract

This article deals with the works of filmmakers and artists who self‐impose certain protocols linked to archival configuration to structure and make sense of their films or videos. In this way, collecting, classifying, making lists, series or catalogues will be common practices in this type of work, thus following some of the steps of the artarchive binomial that starts at the beginning of the 20th century with photographic archives such as Augène's Atget or August Sander and that expands and develops through various artistic practices to this day. Radical documentary pieces with a clear allusion to photography ‐ showing special attention in the portrait and landscape ‐ and where repetitive structures, fixed planes and, in general, a slow rhythm that invites contemplation proliferate. Countenance (2002) by Fiona Tan, Twenty Cigarettes (2011) by James Benning, Ruinas (2009) by Manuel Mozos or Equí y n'otru tiempu (2014) by Ramón Lluís Bande are some of the examples of this cinema that appropriates archival principles, not only to question the very idea of archive, but also as a post‐narrative strategy that probes the possibilities of what cinema is and can be.

Keywords

• documental experimental
• principios archivísticos
• posnarrativo
• serialidad
• pautas creativas