Johan Van Der Keuken : le documentaire Amsterdam Global Village, improvisation et vérité cartographique
Johan van der Keuken. Amsterdam Global Village, improvisation and cartographic truth

Summary/Abstract: Directly linked to the issue of globalization, the information technology revolution opens up access to many cultures, languages, and technologies for people and it also promotes a variety of inter-sensory relationships. Made possible by the technical revolution, ubiquity is one of the significant characteristics of global man, who now has to face “the acceleration of history” (Augé: 1992) and “event overabundance” (ibidem). Globalization implies the emergence of a new scale and new thinking of social and spatial dynamics. Following the example of the 17th century Dutch cartographers who had placed their country at the heart of the world’s map, Johan van der Keuken chose his hometown, Amsterdam, as “the rossroads of nations, a tolerant refuge” (Van der Keuken: 1998), to film here “the absurdities and contradictions” (ibidem) of his time. This paper intends to show that Amsterdam Global Village is a “film-world” and that, by the realization of this dispositive which allows him to contemplate from home the most distant places, Van der Keuken confirms the hypothesis of Shohat and Stam (1997), according to which we could consider the cinematographic medium as the successor of cartography.

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