Social representations in experimental art films: from aesthetics to social indignation

Abstract

The aim of this text is to present some of the results of an international research project on the perception of university students, from different countries, of a synthesis of three experimental art films (the Qatsi trilogy by Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass). Based on the results, I intend to cast some light on the possible dialogue between the message that the creators of the trilogy intended to communicate and its reception by the sample of Mexican students who participated in this study. The text is divided in two parts. First, I analyze the sequences of the synthesis that had the highest recall frequency, using ideas of Barthes on cinema and those of Vygotsky on the psychology of art, to observe the social representations that the sequences (composed of images and music) vehiculate. Then I analyze the social representations evoked by these sequences, expressed in the open responses to the questionnaire applied to the students about the recalled fragments. The results show that the political critique of the contemporary world transmitted by Reggio and Glass in the trilogy is well understood by the respondents. In terms of aesthetic experience, the film generates contradictory emotions and representations of the world and the social injustices which could explain them.