Place and the Moving Image
Experimental Film Practice as Topography
Published on 6. November 2025
220 pages
978-1-040-44883-0 (ISBN)
Description
Place and the Moving Image offers a rethinking of how experimental, essayistic film, engages with spatial knowledge and environmental awareness. At its heart is the concept of Moving Image Topography - a critical and artistic framework of thinking through the camera about the relationship between technological forms and place structures, and how these shape our experience of environments, including the natural, the built, and the lived.
Responding to urgent questions in eco-media and artistic research, Elisabeth Brun argues that place is not merely a setting or a backdrop, but a critical generative force in experimental film - a vital lens for understanding the eco-critical and epistemological potential of moving image arts and their modes of thinking. Through a rigorous and interdisciplinary approach that combines theory, close readings of essayist and materialist film practices, and artistic research in her sub-Arctic home village, Brun explores how the moving image can render visible the subtle dynamics between perception, environment, and technological mediation. Rather than separating theory and practice, this book shows how both emerge from the same topographical foundation.
At stake is not only how we understand film, but how we understand our own grounding - the inseparability of Earth's textures and human forms of experience, through which perspective itself can be (re)gained. Engaging scholars, artists, and practitioners- across fields such as film and media studies, visual art, design, architecture, and philosophy, this book will appeal to those interested in place, environmental aesthetics, indigenous perspectives, and critical film practice.
The experimental film 3xShapes of Home (2020) is central to this study and is included as a Routledge Support Material to this book.
Responding to urgent questions in eco-media and artistic research, Elisabeth Brun argues that place is not merely a setting or a backdrop, but a critical generative force in experimental film - a vital lens for understanding the eco-critical and epistemological potential of moving image arts and their modes of thinking. Through a rigorous and interdisciplinary approach that combines theory, close readings of essayist and materialist film practices, and artistic research in her sub-Arctic home village, Brun explores how the moving image can render visible the subtle dynamics between perception, environment, and technological mediation. Rather than separating theory and practice, this book shows how both emerge from the same topographical foundation.
At stake is not only how we understand film, but how we understand our own grounding - the inseparability of Earth's textures and human forms of experience, through which perspective itself can be (re)gained. Engaging scholars, artists, and practitioners- across fields such as film and media studies, visual art, design, architecture, and philosophy, this book will appeal to those interested in place, environmental aesthetics, indigenous perspectives, and critical film practice.
The experimental film 3xShapes of Home (2020) is central to this study and is included as a Routledge Support Material to this book.
Reviews / Votes
"Place, as distinct from space, remains a problematic topic in contemporary theory, including film theory, often being overlooked or neglected. In a highly original and creative undertaking, Elisabeth Brun's new book addresses this issue head-on, showing how experimental film, and film more broadly, is fundamentally shaped by its topographical character. This a major contribution both to film theory and to the thinking of place that is likely to have an important impact well beyond the confines of film theory alone."-- Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania, Australia
"Numerous studies of the essay film have appeared in recent years, but Brun's book stands out as one of the most sophisticated and original. It brilliantly focuses on the topos of place as part of the recent spatial turn in the arts and humanities and as a rich and often overlooked arena for essayistic epistemological strategies. That the author's own stunning essay film 3xshapes of Home--a meditative representation about the village in which she grew up--parallels and supports this argument adds a scintillating layer to this superb work."
-- Timothy Corrigan, University of Pennsylvania, USA
"Elisabeth Brun's book is a beautifully fluid synthesis of explorations between theoretical and creative realms, offering its readers engaging and stimulating perspectives through which to deepen understandings of the human relationship with place. Through the tool of the camera and essay-film, and with emphasis on embodiment and ways of knowing, her research foregrounds 'topographical thinking' and the essential role of place in meaning-making and identity. Brun's weaving of artistic practice, theoretical inquiry, and methodological innovation makes compelling reading for academics and practitioners across film, geography, architecture, landscape architecture, the environmental humanities, and all those concerned with the power and potential of spatial experience."
-- Anna Ryan, architect and geographer, University of Limerick, Ireland
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
3 Tables, black and white; 19 Halftones, black and white; 19 Illustrations, black and white
File size
109,04 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-040-44883-0 (9781040448830)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
11/2025
1st Edition
Routledge
€206.20
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Elisabeth Brun is a media artist, filmmaker, and theorist working across media theory, artistic research and critical spatial practice. She holds a PhD in Media and Communication from the University of Oslo, and a Post-Master's in Public Art from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Her doctoral work was awarded King's College?s Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment in Visual arts.
Content
Introduction
Part I: Place, Perception and Cinematic Thinking
1. Beyond Politics: On How the Essay Film Thinks
2. Born Out of a Topographical Sense: From Space to (Unspoken) Place in Cinema Theory
Part II: Towards a Moving Image Topography
3. Thinking Film through Place: Topos and Experimental Practice
4. Topographical Acts of Movement (TAM): The Acts and Attitudes of Film Thinking
5. 3xShapes of Home: a Topographical Moving Image Experiment
Conclusion
Script - 3xShapes of Home (7:00 min)
Index
Part I: Place, Perception and Cinematic Thinking
1. Beyond Politics: On How the Essay Film Thinks
2. Born Out of a Topographical Sense: From Space to (Unspoken) Place in Cinema Theory
Part II: Towards a Moving Image Topography
3. Thinking Film through Place: Topos and Experimental Practice
4. Topographical Acts of Movement (TAM): The Acts and Attitudes of Film Thinking
5. 3xShapes of Home: a Topographical Moving Image Experiment
Conclusion
Script - 3xShapes of Home (7:00 min)
Index
