Following calls to decenter structures of cultural and political power, collective practices have gained renewed relevance in a hyper-competitive landscape exacerbated by the effects of neoliberal strategies in the creative industries. From May 20-26, the Research Forum at Images Festival will explore the theme of ‘Decentralization as the Practice of Freedom’ through audio conversations, social […]
In the early years of the digital turn and the post-medium age, Edward S. Small developed his direct-theory argument and his presentation of experimental film/video as a separate major genre in his 1995 book. He defined the function of experimental film/video as ’neither to entertain nor persuade but rather to examine the quite omnipresent yet […]
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of desktop documentaries is their affordance of making and presenting a video at the same time: i.e., collapsing boundaries between revealing their thinking and tinkering research process (as unfolding, step-by-step, in front of our eyes) and the presentation of the outcomes of such ‘t(h)inkering’ (arriving at results and, thereby, justifying the presented research methods). They are ‘exploratory’ and ‘explanatorily argumentative’ in one. There is a particular effect that emerges from such transparent, credible, and effortless performativity – a relaxed and seemingly spontaneous presentation of an unfolding argument in an environment (software on desktop) and through methods (typing, dragging, opening files) that is familiar and rather natural to all viewers. In this paper, I aim to take a closer look at these fundamental qualities – ‘transparency’, ‘credibility’, ‘effortlessness’, and ‘performativity’ – respectively, and reveal their distinct as well as joint effects, ultimately resulting in what I will call, ‘artist(ic) emotions’.
In Autumn 2020, the artist and media researcher Paula Albuquerque presented a major exhibition of her work at Nieuw Dakota in Amsterdam, titled Enter the Ghost: Haunted Media Ecologies. Concerned with topics of surveillance, colonial trauma, and media hauntology, the artworks in the show provide a poetic engagement with the violence of contemporary technologies. The […]
I am watching a man eating a tortoise. Shirtless, sitting at a table against a plain wall, he is eating it with his hands, and staring right back at me. This is Zina Saro-Wiwa’s video artwork Table Manners: Bush Tales #1, part of her exploration of indigenous cosmologies, particularly in her native Nigeria. Her practice […]
In recent years, two monographs have been published about queer film festivals, consolidating the wide range of articles, book chapters, and other work by scholars such as Skadi Loist and Ragan Rhyne. Stuart James Richards’ The Queer Film Festival: Popcorn and Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Antoine Damiens’ LGBTQ Film Festivals: Curating Queerness […]
by Temenuga Trifonova Numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of the city and the moving image to the modern urban imaginary: one need only recall Anne Friedberg’s illuminating account, in Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (1994), of the ways in which 19th century visual experiences like photography, urban strolling, panoramas, and dioramas anticipated cinema, […]
As reality television has shifted steadily in the direction of scandal, drama, and high-stakes emotionality, the Japanese reality series Terrace House is notable precisely because of the ordinariness of its content; hinging on the observation of young working individuals as they live together and get to know one another. This article aims to explore the significance of this series, particularly in terms of the growing precarity of younger generations in Japan, demonstrating how Terrace House cultivates a neoliberal subjecthood whose aim is to master the art of precarious living – both for the sake of the individual and the nation.
As part of the Besides the Screen 10th Anniversary programme of events, the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, King’s College, London and Queen’s University will be co-hosting the hybrid conference ‘Geographies, Spaces, and Places Outside the Screen’ from 10-12 June 2021. With an interest in how space and place intersect with sites of production, circulation […]
From 16-17 September 2021, the Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy, will be hosting the international conference ‘Postcolonial Italian Cinema’. Aimed towards a reconsideration of postcolonial Italian Cinema in film and history, the conference – organized by Damiano Garofalo (Sapienza, Rome) and Luca Peretti (Warwick, United Kingdom) – will synthesise multiple points of view into a […]
Taking place from 30 September – 1 October 2021 in a hybrid format, the conference ‘Television Histories in Development’ will explore the histories of television from a broad cultural and societal perspective. Coinciding with 70 years of television in the Netherlands, the event (organized by Prof. Huub Wijfjes, University of Groningen, and Dr. Josette Wolthuis, […]
On 28 May 2021, Studies in Eastern European Cinema will be hosting an online conference on the topic of ‘Eastern European Film and Screen Media’ at the University of Central Lancashire. Organized by Ewa Mazierska, Eva Naripea and Laszlo Strausz, the conference is envisioned as a platform to discuss current research and exchange ideas in […]
From 15-18 December 2021, the Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies (TFM) at Goethe University Frankfurt will be hosting the ‘Visible Evidence XXVII’ conference. Taking place in a hybrid format, the conference will bring together scholars and practitioners to explore how documentary responds to the current crisis of democracy. Special themes – under the […]
On 26 March 2021, Maud Ceuterick will be hosting the third and final panel discussion in the ‘Affirmative Feminism Seminar Series’ via Zoom. Bringing together researchers and professionals of the film and screen industry, the series explores possible futures through affirmative statements and initiatives to go beyond lamenting the status quo within contemporary screen culture. […]
guest edited by Nicholas Baer (University of Groningen) and Maggie Hennefeld (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) Did you hear? Rumor has it that the Spring 2022 issue of NECSUS will be devoted to the topic of gossip as a prolific yet contested form of media discourse. Spread the word! As Mladen Dolar has recently argued, […]