James Benning's Environments

NOT AUTHOR APPROVED James Benning's Environments Edited by Nikolaj Lübecker and Daniele Rugo For more than forty years, the experimental filmmaker James Benning has been engaged in a systematic investigation of the relations between man, landscape, and the filmic medium, and during the last decade it has become increasingly clear how much these investigations have to offer to contemporary debates about ecology, the age of the anthropocene and the potentialities of new digital technologies. In James Benning's Environments a range of international scholars highlight the thematic and formal coherence of Benning's practice, whilst providing readers with an artistic and historical context to understand his experimental film work. The volume offers a number of interpretative frameworks drawing on film theory, environmental humanities, visual culture and philosophy, explaining why Benning has emerged as one of today's essential filmmakers. Nikolaj Lübecker is Professor of French and Film Studies at St John's College, University of Oxford. Daniele Rugo is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Arts & Humanities at Brunel University London