Guerrilla Images: Archeologies, Geographies, Aesthetics of Political Filmmaking and Videoactivism

Cinema and video have always played a fundamental role in the unfolding of collective uprisings: while films have often dramatised the development of various forms of rioting (as in the quintessential Battleship Potëmkin), images have played a variety of roles in more recent forms of revolt. Taking into account a variety of different case studies, this thematic issue aims to outline some lines of research for the study of contemporary uprisings and the role of moving images in this context. Looking at different geographical contexts (from Italy to Cameroon) and considering heterogeneous media devices and languages (from film to amateur digital video), this issue analyses and questions the many ways in which digital images can acquire a political role in the context of a re-appropriation of political space and agency that takes place performatively in the realm of the visual. It considers both a possible archaeology of insurgency and a phenomenology of the visual act performed by insurgents.