Travelogue as an Embodied Gaze: Inner and Outer Terrains

Abstract

This paper, an outcome of an ongoing practice-based artistic research process (journey), explores creative strategies related to the experiences of the embodied creator and delves into issues of self- and spatial representation within experimental travelogue films. The paper analyses how the filmmaking approach that I am currently developing focuses on using psychogeographical experiences and the embodied gaze as guiding principles for crafting images and sounds. It examines the impact this approach can have on the filmmaker’s thinking, behaviour, and artistic practice itself. My considerations are framed within the personal travelogue genre – films that trans- form outer terrains into inner terrains (from landscape to mindscape) and vice versa. These films explore the structures of society and cultural context through the act of travelling in unfamiliar natural and urban landscapes, and through the inner transformations of the filmmakers themselves. The final movement of the paper addresses considerations on the significance of the tactile analogue film medium for such practice and explores how the expanded cinema form can be employed to communicate captured personal images and embodied experiences to the spectator. Furthermore, I reflect on the personal stakes of my inquiry as a traveller, filmmaker, and researcher.