University Montpellier 3 : “I did not know it, but I’m my camera”

Overview of my filmmaking efforts from 1997 to 2017, in relation to technological developments, and the making of a “mental” film.

In the framework of a study day entitled “Self-narrative: Tool and features of the” I “on screen, organized by Claire Chatelet and Julie Savelli (University Montpellier 3) Intervention:”I did not know, but I am my camera", here is the short presentation:

Visit of 20 years of autobiographical and autofictional productions of Benoît Labourdette (1997-2017), closely related to the new tools that gave birth to them: DV cameras, mobile phones, cameras, drones, virtual reality cameras. Machines manufacture us more than we manufacture machines. A diachronic perspective on the evolution of “audiovisual” in a work. Linked to workshop practices using these same tools.

I articulated this presentation, which was accompanied by excerpts of my films, in three stages:

1. Philosophical inventory of what are and we make digital images today. How images make us more than we make them.
2. Crossing my practice and my cinematographic experiments.
3. Practice: collective realization of a mental film. The following pictures are the written reactions of a number of participants after “viewing” the film.

Listen to the speech and watch the movie “Plage de l’Espiguette”