New Media Workshop

The Department of Cinema and Media studies presents its 8th annual graduate student conference, “Cinematic Diasporas: New Media Cultures and Experiences.”  This conference centers on the question, or rather metaphor, of whether various new media experiences and cultures can be understood as diasporas of cinema. In this manner, we wish to push the boundaries of the term ‘diaspora’ further, so that it may not only be used to describe dispersed populations, but also to describe dispersed forms of cinema.

Complete details available at the conference blog.

Anna Everett, Professor of Film, Television and New Media Studies and former Chair of the department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, author of Digital Diaspora: A Race for Cyberspace (2009, SUNY Press) and co-editor with John T. Caldwell of New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality (2003, Routledge) will be delivering the keynote presentation for this conference, “‘If You Can Type, You Can Make Movies’: Ontologies of Cinematic Diasporas.”

Additionally, as part of her visit, Anna Everett will also be presenting a paper entitled “The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games” on Friday, April 13th at the Mass Culture Workshop (10:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Cobb 307).  For more information, and to download pre-circulated materials, visit here.

Film Studies Center: 5811 South Ellis Ave, Cobb Hall 306, Chicago, IL

Wednesday, March 7th, the New Media Workshop, in collaboration with the American Literatures and Cultures Workshop, welcomes Richard Jean So, Assistant Professor in the department of English Language and Literature, presenting his paper “Litearary Information Warfare: Eileen Chang, the U.S. State Department, Cold War Media Aesthetics.”  Hadji Bakara (PhD student, English) will respond.

This paper is no longer available for download.

This meeting will take place in Rosenwald 405, at 4:30 PM.

On Friday, February 24, the New Media, Mass Culture, Theater and Performance Studies, and Contemporary Arts workshops join together to host a conversation with the artist Anthony McCall.

Occupying a space between sculpture, cinema and drawing, the historical importance of Anthony McCall’s work has been internationally recognized in such exhibitions as “Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art 1964-77” at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2001-2), “The Expanded Screen: Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies” at Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna (2003-4), “The Expanded Eye” at Kunsthaus Zurich (2006), “Beyond Cinema: the Art of Projection” at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2006-7), “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Projected Image” at Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC (2008), “The Geometry of Motion 1920s/1970s”, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008), and “On Line”, Museum of Modern Art (2010-11).  McCall’s work has also been exhibited at, amongst others, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2004, Tate Britain, London, 2004, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France (2006), Musée de Rochechouart, France (2007), SFMoMA (2007), Serpentine Gallery, London (2007-8), Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2009), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2009), Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2010), Sprueth Magers/Ambika P3, London (2011), and Serralves, Porto (2011). A solo exhibition will open in April 2012 at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin.

McCall is currently working on an Arts Council England sculpture commission, which will be part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, to realize his Column in North-West England: a spinning column of cloud that rises vertically from the surface of the water into the sky.

The format of this workshop is intended to provide an opportunity for interested students and faculty to take part in a Q&A with McCall.  Recommended texts to read in preparation for the discussion are no longer available for download.

As a part of the cluster of events surrounding the symposium Phenomenologies of Projection, Aesthetics of Transition: Anthony McCall 1970-1979, 2001–, the workshop joins two other events:

On Friday, February 24 through Saturday, February 25, Experimental Station (6100 S. Blackstone Ave.) will be exhibiting McCall’s pieces You and I, Horizontal (2005), Line Describing a Cone (1973), and Line Describing a Cone 2.0 (2010).

On Saturday, February 25, from 1:00 PM to 5:30 PM, the Film Studies Center will be hosting a symposium featuring an artist talk with McCall followed by a roundtable discussion.

Please note the change in time and place from the standard New Media workshop schedule:  This workshop will take place at 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM (rather than the usual 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM) in Cobb 307 (rather than the usual Cobb 310).

On Friday, October 7th, Michelle Menzies, PhD candidate in the department of English Language and Literature, will present “An Aesthetics of Movement: Digital Cinema and Enlargement,” a portion of a chapter from her dissertation, Archives of Experience: Toward a Digital Aesthetics.

This paper is no longer available for download.

The New Media Workshop meets from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Cobb 310.

Co-sponsored by the Mass Culture Workshop.

On Monday, May 2nd, at 6 PM, Lisa Zaher, PhD Candidate in Art History, will present “Photography and the History of the Eye” at the Contemporary Art and Its Histories Workshop.  (Pre-circulated paper can be downloaded through link.  Password required.)

Contact Leslie Wilson (lmwilson [at] uchicao [dot] edu) or Emily Jones (ejtristan [at] uchicago [dot] edu) if you need assistance.

Cochrane-Woods Art Center:  5540 S Greenwood Ave, Rm 156

On Friday, January 21st, Michelle Menzies, PhD candidate in the department of English Language and Literature, will present “Digital Aesthetics in the Lumière Cinema,” a chapter from her dissertation, Archives of Experience: Toward a Digital Aesthetics.  Christian Quendler, Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of Innsbruck and visiting scholar in the Radio/TV/Film Department of Northwestern University, will respond.

This paper is no longer available for download.

The New Media Workshop meets from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Cobb 310.

Co-sponsored by the Mass Culture Workshop.

The New Media workshop welcomes D. N. Rodowick, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and chair of Visual and Environmental Studies, director of Graduate Studies for Film and Visual Studies, and interim director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, and author of Reading the Figural, or, Philosophy after the New Media (Duke University Press, 2001) and The Virtual Life of Film (Harvard University Press, 2007) for a discussion of recent work by video artists Victor Burgin and Ken Jacobs.

Recommended reading related to Burgin’s work is no longer available for download.

The New Media Workshop meets from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Cobb 310.  The workshop will be followed by a lunch.

Co-sponsored by the Mass Culture Workshop.