The Fool of Posillipo and Other Stories

Overview

In the winter of 1882, the physiologist and scientist Étienne-Jules Marey spent hours on the beach of Posillipo in Naples, pointing an odd-shaped gun at flying birds. The locals started calling him "the fool of Posillipo," as no one ever heard a gunshot. Nor did any birds die. Or, perhaps, Marey was involved in an imperceptible process of killing, shooting birds twelve times a second with his latest invention, the chronophotographic gun - a precursor to moving image technology. The audio-visual assemblage locates the "gun camera" as a speculative prototype of imperialist technology, shadowing related practices from the colonial sport of bird hunting to cartography, anthropometry, ethnographic field recordings, and modern warfare.

No reviews yet. Be the first to share one.

Recent activity

No tracking activity yet.