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Philosopher Rosi Braidotti's keynote at the 'Planetary Poetics' workshop at UCL in September advocated a posthuman vision that would reimagine the shared affinities and differences of species-being in resistance to a necropolitical anthropocene. Viewed through the lens of the Karrabing Film Collective's works, however, posthuman visions, as well as being in excess of human time, are all too human in subjecting others to what Karrabing member Elizabeth A Povinelli terms the regulatory systems of 'late liberal governance'. The two screenings and following 'masterclass' by Povinelli - a lecture titled 'Karrabing Film Improvisation in the Shadow of Colonial Law' which comprised the Karrabing Film Collective: Saltwater Dreams twoday event - exemplified how 'film' technology can be harnessed to convey a resilient poetics of existence. But first, who is Karrabing?
Comprising over 30 individuals from different indigenous family groups in Australia's Northern Territory along with US anthropologist Povinelli, who has visited this area since 1984, the Film Collective initially assembled as a grassroots organisation to produce a GPS media archival project that would be an educative and business tool for the community. When participants decided to make a film, Povinelli enlisted director Liza Johnson, who had previously made issuebased documentaries with non-professional actors, to work with the group. Johnson codirected their first film, Karrabing: Low Tide Turning, 2012 (Karrabing means 'low tide turning' in Emiyengal). This film was not shown, but the films in the second screening, When The Dogs Talked, 2014, and Windjarrameru, The Stealing C·nts, 2015, evidenced a more traditional cinematographic language, albeit hybridised with other forms of visuality and enactment. While this might sound like a worthy project of liberal professionals' up-skilling impoverished indigenous communities...