Immersive Reflexivity
Abstract This chapter examines Peter Mettler’s film Picture of Light (1994) as an exploration of what is at stake in the debates about the documentary recording practices essential to soundscape research. Mettler and his crew travel to Churchill, Manitoba, and attempt to capture the aurora borealis...
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | unknown |
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Oxford University PressNew York
2023
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190226077.003.0003 https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/50806184/oso-9780190226077-chapter-3.pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract This chapter examines Peter Mettler’s film Picture of Light (1994) as an exploration of what is at stake in the debates about the documentary recording practices essential to soundscape research. Mettler and his crew travel to Churchill, Manitoba, and attempt to capture the aurora borealis on film. They take an overtly reflexive strategy that foregrounds the filmmaking process while continually questioning if our experience of the lights on film could be anything like being there in person. Asking what it might mean to hear the lights, they stage the soundscape of Churchill in ways that continually challenge the limits of documentary representation while meditating upon the role of media in shaping our engagement with the world they seek to document. This chapter argues that Mettler’s use of sound calls attention to how we perform with our media as the very basis of our engagement with the world, a strategy the author calls immersive reflexivity: the foregrounding of mediality as a tool for engagement rather than distanciation. This chapter situates Mettler’s strategy within the long history of experimental film, particularly visual music, and its attempts at generating more holistic experiences through self-conscious means, particularly with respect to sound/image relationships. By framing Picture of Light through the discourses of documentary and experimental film, this chapter demonstrates how Mettler’s film teaches us to address the practice of field recording in soundscape research as highly staged material that can, nevertheless, provide faithful means of engaging with the world that presents itself to the microphones. |
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