Appropriate, quote, fictionalize: the construction of possible realities between document and fabulation

Abstract

Narrative works based on appropriation, citation, and fictionalization of verbal-visual repertoires are significant in current artistic production. Artists explore interstices identified in these resources that are thus placed on the verge of being represented in different formats. Documentary forms of these resources will be of special interest, as they create tension between fact and fabulation, and between reality and imagination. The question that arises from this tension is: how can we create an alternate account, in the form of a possible reality, from interstices traced in images, texts, and discourse? This question is approached through the study of the creative process of Elena Landkraut’s (2017-2019) biographical trajectory, which is placed in dialogue with Austerlitz (2001), work by W. G. Sebald, and with the theoretical contributions of C. Ginzburg (2007) and L. Wolff (2014). In this study, documentary forms linked to values of authenticity and truthfulness are understood as partial representations of the past. Possible representations of the past are thus elaborated through the imaginative and conjectural dimension of fictional creation.