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Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography
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Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography

A special issue of Arts (ISSN 2076-0752).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 July 2023) | Viewed by 9761

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Tomasz Łysak

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
Interests: film; representations of the Holocaust; trauma studies; photography; digital media

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Trauma studies may have been borne from a dissatisfaction with the prevalence of the textual approach in poststructuralist philosophy, but Cathy Caruth already kickstarted a discussion of cinema as a vehicle for trauma back in 1996. In recent years, there has been a consensus among cultural critics that trauma studies may have lost some of their vigor, losing ground to a number of more fashionable theories of affects, New Materialism, eco-criticism, etc. The ambition of this Special Issue is to reinvigorate the study of cinematic and photographic accounts of trauma, embracing a variety of new approaches to the phenomenon. The broadening of this concept is not seen herein as a problem but rather as an opportunity to engage with a greater variety of traumas. On one hand, individuals in different parts of the globe are still facing psychological burdens, stemming from interpersonal relations, violence, war, displacement, psychic trauma and physical injury, racism, bigotry, etc. On the other, the imminence of a climate catastrophe is ushering in a new set of traumas, including climate trauma (anxiety stemming from predictions of the inevitability of ecosystems being destroyed). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the vulnerability of the social, the shortcomings of global capitalism, and the environmental consequences of the Anthropocene. Finally, media representations have extended the capacity of experiencing trauma to non-human subjects, including posthumanist beings such as cyborgs and other humanoids. Ideally, contributions to this Special Issue of Arts should reconcile a theoretical reconfiguration of the concept of trauma with an analysis of mediatized accounts of wounds.

To propose an article for publication, please send a title and short abstract to the Guest Editor, Tomasz Łysak ([email protected]), with a copy to [email protected] by 15 May 2022. Full manuscripts should be submitted by the deadline.

Dr. Tomasz Łysak
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • trauma
  • cinema
  • photography
  • climate trauma
  • COVID19
  • therapy
  • cli-fi
  • science fiction
  • disability
  • digital media

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 227 KiB  
Article
Painful Images: Ukraine 1993, 2014, and 2022
by Tomasz Szerszeń
Arts 2024, 13(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010008 - 26 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1275
Abstract
Ukrainian art, from the economic and political transformation of the 1990s through the events of 2014 (Crimea’s annexation and war in Donbas) to the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion in 2022, has been haunted in various ways by the question of trauma and loss. [...] Read more.
Ukrainian art, from the economic and political transformation of the 1990s through the events of 2014 (Crimea’s annexation and war in Donbas) to the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion in 2022, has been haunted in various ways by the question of trauma and loss. At the same time, however, the problem of trauma is not just a problem of war or conflict but is somehow inscribed in post-Soviet space. Photography has a special role to play here, as a medium constantly oscillating between visible and invisible and between presence and absence. Since traumatic images transform and question the medium, a discussion about trauma becomes a discussion about the image itself. This article analyses selected projects by Ukrainian artists in various disciplines made in three chronological moments: the first half of the 1990s, after 2014, and now, in response to the ongoing war. Each project touches in different ways on the issue of trauma and the traumatic view while also touching the broader level of relationships between affects, vision, and history. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography)
20 pages, 8935 KiB  
Article
Traumatic Female Gaze: Julia Pirotte Looking at the Kielce Pogrom
by Katarzyna Bojarska
Arts 2023, 12(6), 239; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12060239 - 09 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1462
Abstract
In this article, I analyze Julia Pirotte’s photographs of the immediate aftermath of the Kielce pogrom as a resource for conceptualizing the relationship between trauma and photography, gendered ways of seeing, memory and trauma, body and archive, vision and death, death and the [...] Read more.
In this article, I analyze Julia Pirotte’s photographs of the immediate aftermath of the Kielce pogrom as a resource for conceptualizing the relationship between trauma and photography, gendered ways of seeing, memory and trauma, body and archive, vision and death, death and the archive, images and history, survival, and destruction. These specific atrocity pictures make a difference to contemporary conceptions of trauma photography and the female gaze in relation to racist, political violence. I work with theories that go beyond thinking about trauma and photography based on the Lacanian concept of tuché on the one hand, and Barthes’ punctum on the other. I investigate to what extent Pirotte’s documentation of the Jewish victims and survivors of the pogrom can be read as a belated encounter with the trauma of the Holocaust, and what it reveals about survival at the site of violence. The article is a work of a feminist academic oriented at reclaiming a space within the narrative on visual violence; the reflection on the female traumatic gaze is an element of a broader gesture aimed at reorienting the theory of atrocity pictures and documentations of political violence, as well as photography of trauma. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography)
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12 pages, 311 KiB  
Article
The Future: Missing Children, Time Travel, and Post-Nuclear Apocalypse in the Dark Series (Netflix)
by Tomasz Łysak
Arts 2023, 12(6), 235; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12060235 - 06 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1588
Abstract
The concept of the post-apocalypse, a cultural imagination of nuclear energy, the temporality of trauma, and time travel are linked herein in order to arrive at a political reading of the Dark series. This show is a commentary on the phasing out of [...] Read more.
The concept of the post-apocalypse, a cultural imagination of nuclear energy, the temporality of trauma, and time travel are linked herein in order to arrive at a political reading of the Dark series. This show is a commentary on the phasing out of nuclear power in Germany in response to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. Two readings of this series are proposed: a meditation on the possible futures of the world (the possibility of reparative action and the post-apocalypse) and a traumatic narrative (the concepts of trauma and loss are crucial to understanding the plot, while both the visuals and the plot borrow from posttraumatic cinema). Nevertheless, the series plays by the rules of popular trauma culture, rules whereby a tragedy suffered by others serves the economic interests of the media. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography)
14 pages, 816 KiB  
Article
Coming Home (2014) and Its Symptoms
by Jun Lu
Arts 2023, 12(5), 180; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12050180 - 23 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1083
Abstract
This paper is an in-depth analysis of the Chinese movie Coming Home (2014), which mimics the way trauma works and brings the problem of memory into focus. I draw on a psychoanalytic perspective to interpret the storyline, characters, and metaphoric meaning embedded in [...] Read more.
This paper is an in-depth analysis of the Chinese movie Coming Home (2014), which mimics the way trauma works and brings the problem of memory into focus. I draw on a psychoanalytic perspective to interpret the storyline, characters, and metaphoric meaning embedded in the construction of the film. My analysis focuses on three symptoms displayed: forgetting, repetition, and historical void. As the most successful Cultural Revolution-related film in the Chinese-speaking world, Coming Home confronts the phenomenon of cultural amnesia and visualizes the subjective experience of struggling to remember. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography)
11 pages, 1078 KiB  
Article
Spectator as Witness: Trauma and Testimonio in Contemporary Cuban Art
by Katherine Mato
Arts 2023, 12(4), 152; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12040152 - 11 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1520
Abstract
The current scholarship on testimonio largely focusses on its application in literature, failing to address the genre’s possibilities beyond written and spoken narratives. However, voices that exist outside of the literary realm have employed testimonio-driven strategies to produce witness accounts of events [...] Read more.
The current scholarship on testimonio largely focusses on its application in literature, failing to address the genre’s possibilities beyond written and spoken narratives. However, voices that exist outside of the literary realm have employed testimonio-driven strategies to produce witness accounts of events and experiences that were previously ignored by or erased from the collective consciousness. Broadening the genre’s scope, this article examines visual manifestations of testimonio in contemporary Cuban and diasporic art, focusing on works by Coco Fusco, Felix González-Torres, and Ana Mendieta that speak to personal and collective experiences of trauma. Experiences associated with exile, displacement, and erasure are particularly relevant to this article, as the artists in focus identify as dissident, immigrant, Latinx, queer, woman, and/or Other. Given the growing interest in accessible approaches to reworking trauma, this article contributes towards the current scholarship on nuanced understandings of healing, ultimately participating in uncovering the complexities of living through and with trauma. The works discussed offer critical reflections related to the AIDS crisis, colonization, and violence against female and Latinx bodies, which have produced personal, collective, and generational traumas that are rarely acknowledged by Western societies. Therefore, by employing a framework centered on testimonio, this article reveals possibilities for marginalized and minoritized spectators to partake in the reworking of trauma through witnessing, while also illuminating, the limitations of art’s healing capabilities for victims. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography)
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9 pages, 262 KiB  
Article
“Experiencing Trauma”: Aesthetical, Sensational and Narratological Issues of Traumatic Representations in Slasher Horror Cinema
by Groh Florentin
Arts 2023, 12(4), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12040132 - 28 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1660
Abstract
In the field of horror film studies, the question of trauma is generally related to the spectator’s experience. The trauma of images occurs in the context of socio-cultural actualization. The degree of violence involved in the images, either graphic or symbolic, implies an [...] Read more.
In the field of horror film studies, the question of trauma is generally related to the spectator’s experience. The trauma of images occurs in the context of socio-cultural actualization. The degree of violence involved in the images, either graphic or symbolic, implies an experience that marks the viewer. Trauma, in this way, acts as a sensitive degree of perception, the image being an event. We start from this theoretical point but decide to take as our object of study only films where the horrific experience is based on a figurative representation of trauma. Therefore, we want to detach ourselves from a symbolic reading of the horrific image, leaving aside the psychological implications of the image’s effect. We decide to adopt a phenomenological and enactive reading of the image in order to include our spectatorial sensations in the narrative and aesthetic analysis of the representations issues of trauma as a horrific experience. Thus, in our corpus, trauma does not intervene in the cognitive formation of the spectator but is built into the experience of the filmic corpse according to a visual and narrative continuity specific to the films. We designate two types of traumatic events that occur in the corpus films: Halloween II; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. We try to understand the emergence of the traumatic feeling within the spectator and demonstrate that the trauma experienced by the viewer arises from the horrific experience specific to the aesthetic and narrative aims of the films, mirroring the symptoms and the wounds of the characters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Picturing the Wound: Trauma in Cinema and Photography)
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