Extension of Avant-Garde Practices towards New Media: Possible Theoretical Readings of Documentary Art Film Segunda Vez

Abstract

The subject of this analysis is the 94-minute documentary art film Segunda Vez (Second Time Around, 2018) by contemporary Spanish artist Dora Garcia, whose script consists of six separate sections arranged in an authentic narrative whole. The content of the film material is constructed on the basis of a complex theoretical and practical exploration of archival material and the original writings of the Argentine avant-garde theorist Oscar Masotta who devoted significant work questioning the societal and artistic context of the Happening in the 1960s, as a marginal counterpoint to the avant-garde developments that deviated from the cultural norms of Western civilization. Garcia's work represents a complex intertextual network of historical, literary, and philosophical data that encompasses the sensory aspect of the viewer's perception, creating a coherent film unit in which the author uses the mechanisms of narration to create a conceptual artwork. The main goal of this research is to provide a theoretical basis for analysis through narratology, editing as a conceptual tool, and final reading according to semiotics, in order to interpret artistic language as a possible domain for absorbing the experiences of art in extension. Article received: April 21, 2020; Article accepted: July 1, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper