A World in the Making: Contingency and Time in James Benning’s BNSF

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of James Benning’s film, BNSF (2013). It argues that the film comprises a landscape rendered in such a way that the temporal aspects of the processes, both cultural and natural, of which it is composed are brought forth. The article also asserts that, by relating a world that unfolds with a measure of contingency, the film not only manifests the inherent inadequacy of representation, but also it draws attention to the efficacy of the world in the making of its moving image. Finally, the article demonstrates that the qualities of the world delimited by the film impel the viewer to attempt to envision facts of nature that greatly outsize the horizon of her human point of view.