Territories of the Archaeometric Body: Power, Illness and Finitude in Bergman
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34640/ct10uma2025paolaKeywords:
archaeometric body, Bergman, biopower, necropower, type 1 diabetes, intertextualityAbstract
"Territories of the Archaeometric Body: Power, Illness and Finitude in Bergman" offers a reading of the physical, psychological, and symbolic spaces in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries and Cries and Whispers through the concept of the “archaeometric body” (Matos, 2025). By articulating biopower and necropower through Bergman’s cinema, we question who holds power over the body and who witnesses its deterioration: who sees it, who measures it, and who administers its death.
Drawing on an autoethnographic perspective, the article reflects on the oscillations of the sick body within the context of type 1 diabetes and on its inscription in the continuous experience of measurement. The concept of the “archaeometric body” is mobilised as an analytical tool to understand how cinema measures, records, and monitors the body through light, colour, sound, and framing, elements that operate as sensory metrics for reading the sick body. Chronic or prolonged illness presents an intrinsic relationship with temporality and with the place and value attributed to sick bodies. This framework also makes it possible to explore the intertextuality between cinema, performance and artistic practice through Pina Bausch, Robert Gober, Michael Landy, and the author
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