Affective modes of cinematic inquiry: oil and subjective distance in Crude (2016) and Flight (2016)

Abstract: This article, and accompanying photo-essay, present snapshots of some of the images and thoughts that reside in and around the recently completed essayist film Crude (2016) and a companion video installation Flight (2016). The works, produced by the writer, attempt 'essayer' to see and hear some of the elusive signs of anthropogenic climate change through affective cinematic devices, making what is invisible visible, to evoke contemplations on the subject of ecological crisis through subjects directly or tenuously connected to human reliance on fossil fuels. They seek to agitate a space of contemplation, uneasiness and sadness by engaging with the residual and stratified signs of our collective impact on our environment. The practice-based project works from the position that another tactic for progressing discourses around anthropogenic climate and geological change might be poetic or affective modes of cinematic inquiry.