Memorias en el presente. Afecto y espectralidad en imaginarios acuáticos contemporáneos”, Aniki: Revista Portugesa da Imagem em Movimento 4.1 (enero 2017).

Considering recent contributions on affective geographies and on the relationships between memory and spectrality, this article analyse aquatic imaginaries in a corpus of audiovisual works from Argentina and Chile. Through water, “El botón de nácar” (Patricio Guzmán, 2015), “Los durmientes”, “El exilio imaginado” (Enrique Ramírez, 2012-2014), and “Las aguas del olvido” (Jonathan Perel, 2013) convey an "affective mapping" that creates ways of "being together" in the aftermath of loss. While Patricio Guzmán, Enrique Ramírez and Jonathan Perel make reference to the so-called "death flights" –as both the Argentine and the Chilean dictatorship use oceans and rivers to "discard" dissidents and "drown" the truth— their works also transgress conventional geographical and historical demarcations. These films, videos and installations subvert stabilizing cartographies and use anachronism to reflect on the contradictory meanings of water as source of life, epicenter of cultures and cemetery not only for the victims of the dictatorships, but also indigenous groups or even contemporary migrants. Finally, these works insist on an "aesthetic of affect" that makes it possible to "touch" forgotten events, spaces or subjects and to connect different memories and geographies in the present.