Ark: a return to Robson Valley

Abstract

What follows is a fictional conversation with a reviewer about the cinematic research-creation film Ark: A Return to Robson Valley(MacDonald 2022, dir.) published in this first issue of JAVEM. The purpose is to begin to discuss the value of fiction/neorealism in knowledge creation. The title and form of the essay riffs off of Brian Massumi’s (2008) “The Thinking-Feeling of What Happens: A Semblance of a Conversation.” In this conversation I am addressing comments from both reviewers, though playfully use the name Reviewer 2 to make a point about what Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari call conceptual personae from “What is Philosophy?” that: “names are intrinsic conceptual personae who haunt a particular plane of consistency” (1994:24). Authors quite often make jokes about the critical nature of Reviewer 2, and some will possibly have an affective response to the name, which may open further the space I am trying to flow through with this essay.