Geographies of Love(Lessness), Space and Affectivity in Viajo Porque Preciso , Volto Porque Te Amo (I Travel Because I Need to, I Come Back Because I Love You) (Karim Aïnouz and Marcelo Gomes, 2009) and Turistas (Tourists) (Alicia Scherson , 2009 )

Abstract

This article looks at how the idea of open space, articulated within a theoretical matrix that privileges affect, might be used to think through the inscription of subjects in the contemporary world. The audio-visual construction of space in the films Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo (2009), by Karim Aïnouz and Marcelo Gomes, and Turistas (2009), by Alicia Scherson, resonates with Giuliana Bruno’s (2002) idea of a cinema informed ‘by a cartographic practice of the intimate that sets out a haptic route’, a ‘mobile geography’ that blurs the limits between external space and affectivity. In these films, the co-existence of inner and outer mappings on the same surface, as pure filmic materialities, visual and sound potentials, problematises the hermetic nature of the private, making inner space porous, open to flows and contaminations. I will give an account of this new mobile and affective geography by analysing the trajectories of the protagonists of these films – a geologist and a female biologist – along with the relations they establish with the flora, fauna and physical and human environment they traverse. The central claim of this article is that through a visual, sonic and tactile inventory of nature, these films introduce a haptic dimension which is both aesthetic matrix and a way of thinking affects and subjectivity in the contemporary world.