The Fraternity of Metaphors: Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme

Since the 'completion' of Histoire(s) du cinema (1988-1998), Jean-Luc Godard's work has become increasingly mosaic-like in its forms and configurations, and markedly elegiac in its ruminations on history, cinema, art, and thought. While his associative aesthetic and citational method –including his choice of ‘actors’, and the fragmentariness of his ‘soundtracks’ – can combine to create a distinctive cinematic event, the films themselves refuse to cohere around a unifying concern, or yield to a thematic schema. Not surprisingly, Film Socialisme does not offer us the illusion of narrative or structural integrity anymore than it contributes to the quotidian rhetoric of political and moral argument. It is, however, a political film in the sense that it alters something more fundamental than opinions and points of view. It transforms a way of seeing and understanding reality and history, fiction and documentary, images, and images of images. If anything, it belongs to that dissident or ‘dissensual’ category of artwork capable of ‘emancipating the spectator’ by disturbing what Jacques Rancière terms ‘the distribution of the sensible’ in that it generates gaps, openings, and spaces, poses questions, invites associations without positing a fixed position, imposing an interpretation, or allowing itself to invest in the illusion of expressive objectivity and the stability of meaning. The myriad citations and fragments that comprise the film are never intended to culminate into anything cohesive, never mind conclusive. In one sense, they have no source and no context beyond their moment in the film itself, and what we make of that moment. This article studies the degree to which Godard allows these images and sounds to combine and collide, associate and dissolve in this film, arguing that Film Socialisme is both an important intervention in the history of contemporary cinema, and necessary point of reference in any serious discussion of the relations between that cinema and political reality.

Evaluation of effective groundwater recharge of freshwater lens in small islands by the combined modeling of geoelectrical data and water heads

In small islands, a freshwater lens can develop due to the recharge induced by rain. Magnitude and spatial distribution of this recharge control the elevation of freshwater and the depth of its interface with salt water. Therefore, the study of lens morphology gives useful information on both the recharge and water uptake due to evapotranspiration by vegetation. Electrical resistivity tomography was applied on a small coral reef island, giving relevant information on the lens structure. Variable density groundwater flow models were then applied to simulate freshwater behavior. Cross validation of the geoelectrical model and the groundwater model showed that recharge exceeds water uptake in dunes with little vegetation, allowing the lens to develop. Conversely, in the low-lying and densely vegetated sectors, where water uptake exceeds recharge, the lens cannot develop and seawater intrusion occurs. This combined modeling method constitutes an original approach to evaluate effective groundwater recharge in such environments.
[Comte, J.-C., O. Banton, J.-L. Join, and G. Cabioch (2010), Evaluation of effective groundwater recharge of freshwater lens in small islands by the combined modeling of geoelectrical data and water heads, Water Resour. Res., 46, W06601, doi:10.1029/2009WR008058.]

Cross-validation of geo-electrical and hydrogeological models to evaluate seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers

The validation of variable-density flow models simulating seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers requires information about concentration distribution in groundwater. Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) provides relevant data for this purpose. However, inverse modeling is not accurate because of the non-uniqueness of solutions. Such difficulties in evaluating seawater intrusion can be overcome by coupling geophysical data and groundwater modeling. First, the resistivity distribution obtained by inverse geo-electrical modeling is established. Second, a 3-D variable-density flow hydrogeological model is developed. Third, using Archie's Law, the electrical resistivity model deduced from salt concentration is compared to the formerly interpreted electrical model. Finally, aside from that usual comparison-validation, the theoretical geophysical response of concentrations simulated with the groundwater model can be compared to field-measured resistivity data. This constitutes a cross-validation of both the inverse geo-electrical model and the groundwater model.
[Comte, J.-C., and O. Banton (2007), Cross-validation of geo-electrical and hydrogeological models to evaluate seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L10402, doi:10.1029/2007GL029981.]