‘The practice of the filmic place as a practice of fieldwork and mapping’
Ana Francisca de Azevedo
Department of Geography
Minho University
Portugal
Abstract
This paper examines some of the dimensions of a very particular field inside which I
developed my research; the filmic place. Here I developed my own practice of fieldwork
and, through it, I’ve tried to understand a specific spatiality that emerges as a dimension
of this practice; the cinematic landscape. With the methods applied in the research
process, iconology and filmic semiotic, I’ve tried to unveil the game performed by
geographical sign systems operating within the confluence of the different texts which
converge in each film. Diverse results emerged from this practice as a complex and
powerful source of geographical meanings. As a practice of fieldwork, the practice of the
filmic place is at the same time an instance of dwelling and traveling, a mapping practice
of bodies and identities that constantly readdresses to the cultural archives through which
we organize our experience of landscape. Intercepting a material semiotic of space, this
practice appears as a privileged arena to the rereading and to the rewriting of
geographical sign systems.
As consequence of this practice of fieldwork, this study contributed to the understanding
of a lived and relatively unexplored place; the filmic place. But it also contributed to the
consolidation of a poignant object of research; the cinematic landscape. At another level,
the practice of the filmic place forces a renewed considering of the relations between
subject and object of knowledge, forcing the revision of the instances through which
fieldwork and mapping practices has been thought and exercised within academic
contexts.
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