Christian Ferencz-Flatz

Video chatting is most often discussed in its specificity as a means for communication. Instead it could just as well be approached as a specific type of moving image, that is: of film. As such, it could be encompassed within the broader category of non-fiction films together with documentaries, film diaries, television shows, home movies or youtube recordings; it could be compared to reality TV or live broadcasts in general in the perspective of its synchronicity; and it could be contrasted to the various species of interactive film with respect to the active reciprocity it demands on part of the viewer. The following presentation sets out to phenomenologically explore not so much the specific form of communicative interaction that is engendered by video chatting as well as its limits (like the lack of proper eye contact etc.), but rather the particular type of film form that is produced in virtue of such interactivity, and its impact on the shared reality that is thus constituted. To this extent, it will focus primarily on the particular apperception of reality that builds up in the case of most video chat programs due to the simultaneous display in split screen of the other’s image as viewed by me and of my image as viewed by the other. In this context, the presentation will also briefly outline the use of video chatting as a filmic motive – starting from the anticipations of earlier science fiction movies up to the experiments of contemporary desktop films like »Noah« (2013) – in order to follow the particular form of intersubjective reality that can thus be obtained in fiction cinema.

Christian Ferencz-Flatz (born 1981) is a researcher in philosophy at the »Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest«. Since February 2016, he is a fellow of the »Alexander von Humboldt Foundation« at the Husserl Archives, University of Cologne, with a research project titled: »Film as a Social Experience«. He is the Book-Review Editor of the journal Studia Phaenomenologica. He has authored four monographs: »Obișnuit și neobișnuit în viața de zi cu zi: Fenomenologia situației și critica conceptului de valoare la Martin Heidegger« [The Usual and the Unusual in Everyday Life. The Phenomenology of Situations and Heidegger’s Critique of the Concept of “Value”] (Humanitas, Bucharest, 2009), »Retro. Amorse pentru o fenomenologie a trecutului« [Retro. Rudiments for a Phenomenology of the Past] (Humanitas, Bucharest, 2014), »Incursiuni fenomenologice în noul film românesc« [Phenomenological Incursions Into the New Romanian Cinema] and »Sehen Als-Ob. Ästhetik und Pragmatik in Husserls Bildtheorie« (Bautz, Nordhausen, forthcoming), as well as numerous articles in journals like »Husserl Studies«, »Phänomenologische Forschungen«, »Contintental Philosophy Review«, »Research in Phenomenology« etc. He translated into Romanian several works by Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. His research interests include phenomenology, critical theory, the philosophy of history, image- and film theory.