Post-fiction affect after the Spanish crisis in La plaga/The Plague (Ballús 2013) and Estado de malestar/State of Distress (Ruido 2019)

Abstract

This article examines post-fiction affect in filmic landscapes produced in Spain over the last decade, focusing on La plaga/The Plague (Ballús 2013) and Estado de malestar/State of Distress (Ruido 2019). It suggests post-fiction affect as an innovative type of audio-visual discourse that confronts neo-liberal logic following the global financial crash of 2007–08 and the ensuing crisis years in Spain (2008–14). What characterizes these documentary-inspired works is that they do not intend to represent reality but rather intervene in it. Going beyond Steven Shaviro’s work on affect in cinema, this text examines the specific post-cinematic paradigms at the turn of the twenty-first century and renewed forms of sensibility through emergent technologies and political affect.