Vital materiality in the art film series A tree doesn’t fall far from the mountain

Risba, Jatun (author)

This paper examines Jatun Risba and Franco G. Livera’s four-act art film series A Tree Doesn’t Fall Far From the Mountain (2022–2023) and its associated transdisciplinary Live Art screening events, Poetics of Relation, to explore how performance-based methodologies can reshape the aesthetics, formats and materiality of film production and representation. As the project’s author, co-director and performer, Risba investigates how immersive, unpredictable and tactile encounters with more-than-human entanglements during the filmmaking process – undertaken without scripts, production crews or budgets – can generate instinctive, ad hoc configurations of subjectivity that re-enchant both the creative work and the world it engages. This approach offers a potent, transformative remedy to the limited foresight characteristic of the current Anthropocene (Capitalocene) era. Filmed across different seasons within the same natural reserve, the films capture the biosphere’s circular rhythms and transformations. This approach underscores the significance of embodied, place-based knowledge and highlights the interdependence between human and nonhuman agents as they navigate the ever-changing tapestry of life. By integrating Édouard Glissant’s concept of Relation, the project fosters emergent, rhizomatic communities that embrace multiplicity and opacity, challenging dominant narratives and enabling novel modes of cocreation and coexistence. Contributing to discourses on new materialism, eco-aesthetics and relational art, the author argues that performative, collaborative approaches can cultivate ecological awareness and foster more inclusive, participatory and decentralised forms of art production, community engagement and collective world-making.

• Language: English
• Keywords: vital materiality, new materialism, posthumanism, performative filmmaking, more-than-human ecologies, relational art, A tree doesn’t fall far from the mountain
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: AGRFT - Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 270-285
• Numbering: Letn. 14, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-188392
• UDC: 791.241
• ISSN on article: 1855-4539
• COBISS.SI-ID: 288747011
• Publication date in RUL: 22.09.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Amfiteater : revija za teorijo scenskih umetnosti
• Publisher: Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Društvo gledaliških kritikov in teatrologov Slovenije, Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Društvo gledaliških kritikov in teatrologov Slovenije, Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Slovenski gledališki inštitut, Slovenski gledališki inštitut, = Slovenian Theatre Institute, Založba Univerze v Ljubljani, = University of Ljubljana Press
• ISSN: 1855-4539
• COBISS.SI-ID: 239685632

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Živa materialnost v umetniških filmih Drevo ne pade daleč od gore

Abstract

Prispevek obravnava štiridelno umetniško filmsko serijo A Tree Doesn’t Fall Far From the Mountain (Risba & Livera, 2022–2023) ter z njo povezane transdisciplinarne live art dogodke Poetics of Relation, in sicer z namenom raziskati, kako lahko performativne metodologije preoblikujejo estetiko, formate in materialnost filmske produkcije ter reprezentacije. V vlogi avtorice, sorežiserke in performerke raziskujem, kako lahko imerzivna, nepredvidljiva in taktilna srečanja z več-kot-človeškimi prepletenostmi v procesu snemanja – izvedena brez scenarijev, produkcijskih ekip ali proračuna – ustvarjajo instinktivne, ad hoc konfiguracije subjektivnosti, ki lahko ponovno očarajo tako ustvarjalno delo kot svet, s katerim vstopajo v odnos. Takšen pristop ponuja močan, transformativni odgovor na omejeno, atomizirano predvidljivost, značilno za trenutno epoho antropocena (kapitalocena). Filmi, posneti skozi različne letne čase znotraj istega naravnega rezervata, beležijo krožne ritme in transformacije biosfere. Ta pristop poudarja pomen utelešenega, na kraj vezanega znanja ter izpostavlja soodvisnost med človeškimi in nečloveškimi akterji, ki soustvarjajo nenehno spreminjajočo se tapiserijo življenja. Z vključevanjem koncepta relacije Édouarda Glissanta projekt spodbuja nastajanje emergentnih, rizomatskih skupnosti, ki sprejemajo mnogoterost in neprosojnost, izzivajo dominantne narative ter omogočajo nove načine soustvarjanja in sobivanja. Prispevek, ki se umešča v diskurze novega materializma, ekoestetike in relacijske umetnosti, zagovarja, da lahko performativni in sodelovalni pristopi krepijo ekološko zavest ter spodbujajo bolj vključujoče, participatorne in decentralizirane oblike umetniške produkcije, družbenega angažmaja in skupnega oblikovanja sveta.

• Keywords: živa umetnost, novi materializem, posthumanizem, perforamtivno filmsko ustvarjanje, več-kot-človeške ekologije, relacijska umetnost, A tree doesn’t fall far from the mountain