Defence of doctoral thesis in the field of Film and Television, MA Katri Lassila

MA Katri Lassila will defend the thesis "Näkymä ajan ulkopuolella. Maisemakuvan apokronia ja valokuvallinen affordanssi elokuvassa" on 28 April 2023 at 12:00 in Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Film, Television and Scenography, in lecture hall AS2, Maarintie 8, Espoo.

Opponent: Dr. Annette Arlander, Uniarts
Custos: Prof. Susanna Helke, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Film, Television and Scenography

What is the meaning of the image of landscape in cinema? Why does the image of landscape seem often to stand still in a film? Working with analogue black and white photography techniques and essayist film, artist Katri Lassila focuses in her dissertation on the image of landscape as an intersection between photography and film. 

The research proposes that the image of landscape enables photography and film to lend between them their respective aspects. In a film, the image of landscape can break away from the narrative time of the film or even completely halt the narrative and open up a secondary, non-eventful temporality. In the study, this outsideness of time is conceptualized as apochrony. In the manifestation of the photographicity or cinematicity of an image, the media through which the image is not as definitive but simply a collection of affordances which can be applied across media forms. 

The artistic part of the defence, an essayistic short film The Cliff, illustrates theory of the research deriving its inspiration from the Finnish classic of the essay film, Kanerva Cederström’s Trans-Siberia – Notes from the Camps (1999) and Chris Marker’s cult film La Jetée (1962).

Contact information of doctoral candidate:

Thesis available for public display at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/
Doctoral theses in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/54