Román Domínguez Jiménez

In his seminal book, »On The Mode of Existence of Technical Objects«, Simondon states that at the dawn of relationship between humanity and the world, there is a kind of Magical Unity, where knowledge and praxis are blended in a "reticulation of the world into privileged places and privileged moments" (Simondon 1959). Before any division between objects and subjects, there is a milieu made of landmarks and moments with power: summits, lowlands, rivers; eclipses, sunrises, seasons. Technicity begins with the detachment of an object from its milieu: the first object is already a technical one. On the opposite pole, the first subjectivity is a religious one. Hence for Simondon, Aesthetics arises as a thinking‐phase that desires to recover the lost unity by creating a bond between technicity and religion.

In another text, Simondon thinks that Film challenges humanity by a “new way of consciousness and knowledge, of awareness and representation. … Film is a certain regime of the relationship of mankind to itself ” (Simondon 2013). It’s hard to believe today that Film constitutes alone a new regime of representation for humanity. But even if we think today’s world as a hasty network of digital stimuli, of which Film is only a particular portion, we’d like to suggest that, thanks to its technical configuration, Film constitutes, still today, a privileged way to create new bonds for humanity. By means of analysing two films: »Jauja«, from Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso, and »Meek’s Cutoff«, from American directress Kelly Reichardt, we’d propose that we have to rethink the bond between humanity and territory, between the individual and the desert. In this sense, both films could be regarded as a way of thinking and perceive the challenge of humanity by means of a »Pan-­American experience of loneliness«.

References

• Gilbert Simondon, »Sur le mode d’existence des objets techniques«, Paris, Aubier, 1959.
• Gilbert Simondon, »Psychosociologie du cinema«. Sur la technique, Paris, P.U.F., 2013.

Román Domínguez Jiménez worked and studied in France, where he finished a Ph. Degree in Philosophy, in 2012 at the Paris 8 University with a thesis guided by Professor Alain Brossat: »Rhythm, Gesture and Montage, Towards a technologico‐politics by the means of cinema.« Afterwards he joined the Faculty Staff at the Aesthetics Institute of The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 2013. Before he was a Bachelor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and was granted a scholarship in order to enable his doctorate degree in France by the Mexican Council of Science (CONACYT). During his Parisian years, Mr. Dominguez founded with the then Ph. Candidate Adolfo Vera, and Professor Emeritus Jean-Louis Déotte a Film and Philosophy Seminar at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris Nord, an Institution supported by the Paris 8 and Paris 13 Universities along with the French National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS). Mr. Dominguez uses to write in Spanish an French about, film, contemporary continental philosophy, and the new forms of subjectivity that arises from the use of new digital technologies in reviews such as »Appareil.org« and »El Resplandor«, »Revista de cine de la Universidad de Valparaíso«. Right now, he is preparing the publication of the adaptation of the French and Spanish versions of his Ph. D. Thesis. His philosophical interests are mainly in the field of the relationship between aesthetics, technology, popular culture and politics, and between his most beloved authors and directors we can found Borges, Ozu, Lyotard, Deleuze, Murnau, Béla Tarr, Mikio Naruse, Nietzsche, Lars Von Trier, Godard, Simondon, Bergman, Georges Bataille, Gilbert Simondon, Harmut Rosa, Carlos Monsivais and Octavio Paz. Besides his intelectual interests, Mr. Dominguez also loves Mexican and French cuisines, Mexico City popular slang and is, »malgré lui«, a hard‐die fan of NFL American Football.