Knut Erik Jensen: Stella Polaris

The Real of Reality | International Conference on Philosophy and
Film


Wed, 02.11.2016 – Sun, 06.11.2016
ZKM_Media Theater, ZKM_Lecture Hall, ZKM_Media Lounge, ZKM_Cube


Following a long series of documentary movies, “Stella Polaris”
was Knut Erik Jensen’s first feature film, yet it transcends
pre-existing genres. It can probably be best described as a
poetic constellation of memory fragments pertaining to life in a
northern Norwegian fishing village over a period of 50 years. It
provides a new perspective on Norway’s northernmost county,
Finnmark, its inhabitants, and recent history, setting it as a
liminal location, referring to Homi Bhabha’s notion of third
space. Such a concept of liminality includes a focus on the
“other” and thereby allows us to catch sight of various forms of
“othering” that prove constitutive of not only official Norwegian
cold war discourse and identities, but indeed of any war
discourse. The camera follows a young woman, the narrative’s main
protagonist, who walks barefoot through the relicts of a northern
Norwegian coastal fishing village. She appears like a ghostly
apparition, rather than a realistic character in a historical
reenactment. This way, “Stella Polaris” questions, challenges,
and potentially subverts borders and barriers in political,
historical, and aesthetic registers. Jensen develops a peculiar
aesthetic that puts high value on transi­tions between shots and
that actively juxtaposes the visual with the audible. His
spectator does not enter the cinema to relax or forget, but to
engage what he refers to as “audio-visual riddles.” This peculiar
aesthetic values an in-between and can therefore be termed as a
“liminal aesthetic.”


(This text is based on Holger Plötzsch’s review of the film
entitled “Aspects of Liminality in Knut Erik Jensen’s ‘Stella
Polaris’”, 2012)


International Conference on Philosophy and Film
Photography and film in particular paved the way for complex
philosophical questions regarding the nature of reality and its
mechanical reproduction. What does film reproduce and how can we
grasp this element, which has the transactive ability to form
reality although originating in reality? This shaping takes palce
through a complex interaction of image, action and narration and
tends to permeate reality completely. It is an inconspicuous
process that already affects our everyday life profoundly and is
based on a revolution of the real. What does film show? Do we
have access to reality that is not based on images or narrations?
And what can film and its analysis contribute to philosophical
debates on the real?
These are questions we are asking to engage in a dialogue between
philosophy and film. For five days, one hundred and fifty
philosophers, media scholars and filmmakers will connect
philosophical theory with cinematic practice and open up new
ideas and concepts. To accompany the program, there will be film
screenings of documentaries of the invited filmmakers.
The participation at the conference is also possible without the
presentation of a paper.
The conference will be held in English.