Abstract

This paper outlines deductively the results from a research on how the forced disappearance is displayed in artistic documentaries. Art is conceived herein as a resistance practice before violence. Therefore, art questions what it is to create a collective memory, a highly important issue in the current Colombian conjunction. This paper is focused on the artistic documentary Geometría de la conciencia (2010) by Alfredo Jaar, as it is a work that portrays the said crime in a unique way. The documentary displays an archive by denying it, shows unrecognizable pictures (indexes) and expands the denial to other elements forming the documentary. This paper contends that the documentary does not require elements working individually as indexes so that it can be an artistic documentary. In addition, by denying those elements the documentary does not focus mainly on those who suffered forced disappearance but on the crime itself, which violently denies the presence.