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The article considers how the public art of Krzysztof Wodiczko’s acts as part of the discourse of political intervention in the urban space of marginalized people through technological and artistic media. The analysis of his “Xenological Instruments” designed in the 1990s - and in particular their last version, the Mouthpiece (1995) – focuses on Wodiczko’s “maieutic” work about immigrants in several international cities, and on his efforts to give them a voice and visibility in public space. Brought to different urban locations by “stranger’s” bodies, these “instruments”, which are technological prostheses with a portable screen, are able to stimulate the dialogue with local people opening the possibility of creating new democratic spaces of confrontation. Wodiczko audience interactivity outside the exhibition space of the museum, hoping to test the actual dynamics of our democracies and to charge his art with a “scandalous functionalism”., Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti, No 14 (2018)

This thesis aims to question the place of diasporic subjects - all individuals who have experienced immigration directly or who come from a family diaspora - in France, directly through their most intimate voice. By adopting an unpublished corpus of 91 autobiographical documentaries produced by these diasporic subjects in France, this text aims to introduce a new film genre, which we call diasporic autobiographical documentary, and which is at the crossroads of autobiographical documentary and diasporic cinema. Since almost all of the titles have been produced in the last twenty years, the constitution of this genre helps to highlight a phenomenon that contributes to the contemporary definition of the French nation, as well as all the multicultural societies of today: the questioning of the bond that unites individuals with a diasporic origin and their communities of belonging. The autobiographical dimension of these films expresses all the challenges of this I-Us dialectic: the director's questions about his identity, his affiliations with the country of origin and with the host country, his attempts to recover his family's collective and diasporic memory, and, finally, his subjective ways of building a self-image that can guide him in between his plural belongings. Through a transdisciplinary approach, combining in particular Film Studies, Postcolonial Studies and social sciences, this work aims to present a first systematic reflection on the audiovisual self-representation of diasporic subjects in France, in order to contribute on one hand to the analysis of the relationship between cinema and migration, and on the other hand to the debate on living together, starting by including the voice of all those who form our society., Cette thèse vise à interroger la place des sujets diasporiques – tous les individus qui ont vécu directement l’immigration ou qui sont issus d’une diaspora familiale – en France, directement à travers leur voix la plus intime. En adoptant un corpus inédit de 91 documentaires autobiographiques réalisés par ces sujets diasporiques en France, ce texte entend introduire un nouveau genre filmique, que nous appelons documentaire autobiographique diasporique, et qui se situe au croisement du documentaire autobiographique et du cinéma diasporique. La quasi-totalité des titres étant réalisés dans les vingt dernières années, la constitution de ce genre aide à mettre en avant un phénomène qui contribue à la définition contemporaine de la nation française, ainsi que de toutes les sociétés multiculturelles d’aujourd’hui : le questionnement du lien qui unit les individus ayant une origine diasporique et leurs communautés d’appartenance. La dimension autobiographique de ces films exprime tous les enjeux de cette dialectique Je-Nous : les interrogations du réalisateur sur son identité, ses affiliations avec le pays d’origine et avec le pays d’accueil, ses tentatives de récupération de la mémoire collective et diasporique de sa famille, et, enfin, ses manières subjectives de construire une image de soi qui puisse l’orienter dans l’entre-deux de ses appartenances plurielles. À travers une approche transdisciplinaire, mêlant notamment études cinématographiques, études postcoloniales et sciences sociales, ce travail a alors l’ambition de présenter une première réflexion systématique sur l’autoreprésentation audiovisuelle des sujets diasporiques en France, afin de contribuer d’un côté à l’analyse du rapport entre cinéma et migrations, et, de l’autre côté, au débat sur le vivre ensemble, en commençant par inclure la voix de tous ceux qui forment notre société.