'Movement is Power': Aesthetics and Politics of Motion in East German Experimental Cinema

我提出的项目旨在探讨实验性和先锋派电影如何在德意志民主共和国实现政治功能。具体来说，我将把运动现象作为德意志民主共和国实验电影中的一种美学和话语手段加以考虑。电影制作人经常尝试用不同的方式让事物运动（动画、电影、实验配乐），在德意志民主共和国后期，许多相关的政治问题都是通过运动的隐喻来构建的，比如历史和记忆工作的进步（或停滞）、作为抵抗手段的身体代理和活动，以及马克思列宁主义形而上学核心的物质和运动的二分法。我的假设是，德意志民主共和国的实验电影人利用他们的实验（para）电影运动来构建对德意志民主共和国社会的政治颠覆性和论战性批评。这项工作将有助于电影研究和德国研究。在《电影研究》中，我的目标是提供一个严谨的分析，实验电影是如何嵌入政治话语的，不是尽管，而是通过它的正式实验，一个适用于民主德国及其他地区的模型；在德国研究方面，我的目标是使目前关于德国前卫文化的学术研究多样化，这些研究在考虑东德实验电影方面存在明显的差距。

My proposed project aims to interrogate how experimental and avant-garde cinema fulfilled a political function within the German Democratic Republic. Specifically, I shall consider the phenomenon of motion as an aesthetic and discursive device within GDR experimental cinema. Filmmakers frequently experimented with different ways of making things move (animation, screendance, experimental soundtracks), and many pertinent political questions in the late stage of the GDR are framed through metaphors of motion, such as the progress (or stagnation) of history and memory work, bodily agency and activity as a means towards resistance, and the dichotomy of matter and motion which lies at the heart of Marxist-Leninist metaphysics. My hypothesis is that GDR experimental filmmakers used their experiments into (para)cinematic motion to frame politically subversive and polemical critiques of GDR society. This work would contribute both to Film Studies and German Studies. In Film Studies, I aim to provide a rigorous analysis of how experimental cinema is embedded in political discourse not despite, but through its formal experimentation, a model which applies to the GDR and beyond; and in German Studies, I aim to diversify current scholarship on German avant-garde culture, which contains a notable gap in consideration of East Germanexperimental cinema.