Signs of Genesis: A Study of Ambiguity in Contemporary Experimental Cinema

This thesis conducts a synoptic study of experimental cinema using the central notion of cinematic ambiguity, here defined as any means of probing cinema’s boundaries of intelligibility, thereby thematizing the process by which the medium becomes intelligible in the first place. Using largely contemporary film examples, it identifies three main types of ambiguity, each intended to clarify established but sometimes ill-defined traditions, namely: the lyrical and structural film (ambiguities of sound and sense), the “experimental documentary” (ambiguities of description), and the “political avant-garde” (ambiguities of myth). Building on this discussion, it then uses Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the “genetic sign” to forward a genetic definition of experimental cinema, attempting to give consistency to the term “experimental.” The animating conviction is that a more explicit specification of our terms, far from restricting our recognition of artistic possibilities, might in fact expand our notions of what an “experimental” work can be.