- Steyerl talks about how the “unbroken belief” of the documentary form is challenged. What does Steyerl mean by this? Certain movies and films are based on a true story. How does truth inform the fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?
In the article by Hito Steyerl, he mentioned “documentary images are so powerful because there is no more unbroken belief in their truth”. By talking about challenging the “unbroken belief” in documentations, he means to challenge the “truth-value of the documentary” that conventionally pursued. He believes that the “paradoxical power” of documentation is not coming from this “unbroken belief” in the perfect objective representation of the truth, but the “uncertainty” and lack of focus that bring a rather subjective sense of authenticity. The powerful truth in documentation, in his word, is a “series of emotional simulations”.
In certain movies and films which are based on true stories, the truth is embedded in “the form of their construction presents the real image of their conditions” from the reality. The content may correspond to reality, and some elements may be the representation of what has happened. However, through expressions, some details in the truth are amplified to create consternation and to trigger horror and disbelief, which may seem distant from the truth and inform the fiction. However, these parts that lack focus can particularly evoke emotional awareness and allow viewers to understand reality in a short period. In the documentary, truth and fiction are intertwined. Truth sets the basis for the story-telling, but fiction is the core methodology, the expression, that helps to make sense of the reality with a stronger impact through bringing the sense of authenticity to the audiences.
- What is the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media that you consume on a daily basis? What is the role of a live broadcast?
Truth is the basis of the media that we consume in our daily lives. They use the real images to construct a scene that situates us into the space, but not physically being there. However, the alteration and filters through documentary editing become questionable as the connection between the “real” images that are separately captured from the artist’s contemporary conditions. Therefore, the level of authenticity in the media in everyday life might be doubtful. Despite the almost impossibility of achieving the absolute truth through this medium of representation, losing the ability to bring the audience the feeling of authenticity is also detrimental for any media, especially in a live broadcast.
The role of a live broadcast, as well as many news media, is to present the event as closely as possible to the reality. However, instead of reflecting the objective truth one second by one second at a 100% similarity, live broadcasts recompose the ubiquitous images into a more relatively more subjective, less “focused”, and more abstract composition. “They evoke a situation of permanent exception and constant crisis, a state of heightened tension and vigilance.” (Steyerl). Besides the “huge emotional potentials” that documentary forms “convey, regulate, and administrate”, most importantly, I think they break our “habitualization” – which is an over-automized perception towards the “reality” we see in daily life. The live broadcasts recall the sensitivity of perceiving the world – just as the CNN broadcast Steyerl mentioned, they bring “an admixture of panic and excitement that comes from the feeling of being there” (Steyerl). “We do not need to see anything concrete to feel the atmosphere of war” (Steyerl). Thus, live broadcasts always have a limitation of reflecting the truth. This filter of representation is also inevitable because the audiences are seeing the event through the lenses of perspective of the broadcast or the media producers. Therefore, we can say that the “critical documentary” cannot present the reality that we conventionally say, but “express”.