The Institute’s friends and colleagues in the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) at University of Westminster are organizing a three-day international conference this coming weekend on ‘exhibiting video’, please see below for full details:

Exhibiting Video – International Conference
Date: 23, 24 and 25 March, 2012
Venue: University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

To coincide with the new David Hall Ambika P3 commission ‘1001 TV Sets (End Piece)’ 1972-2012 the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) of the University of Westminster is convening Exhibiting Video, a three-day event considering issues central to the display of video art. Bringing together notable artists, curators and writers the event will provide a forum for a number of related questions:

· On what terms has the rise of video in contemporary arts taken place?
· How do notions of medium specificity and site specificity shape video art work made for exhibition?
· What is the legacy of analogue video technology in the digital age?
· How do our museums and galleries understand video art?

Confirmed participants include:
Mark Bartlett, Irit Batsry, Amanda Beech, Steven Ball, Steven Bode, Margarida Brito Alves, David Campany, Stuart Comer, Sean Cubitt, Shezad Dawood, Catherine Elwes, Solange Oliveira Farkas, Terry Flaxton, David Hall, Adam Kossof, Anya Lewin, Adam Lockhart, Chris Meigh-Andrews, Stuart Moore, Marquard Smith, Kayla Parker, Margherita Sprio, Minou Norouzi, Stephen Partridge, Ken Wilder and Lori Zippay

To register please go to:
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/cream/events/exhibiting-video-conference

Wednesday 21^st March, 1.15pm – 2.30pm
Room 257, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Aisling McKeown (University of Westminster)
‘Once Upon A Time In The West: the Rural Idyll in Contemporary Irish Fiction and Film’

Abstract: In 1952, John Wayne starred in John Ford’s film The Quiet Man, set in the west of Ireland. Playing a returned Irish-American emigrant, rather than his more customary role as that potent symbol of the American west, the cowboy, Wayne cut a swathe  through Ireland’s wild landscape. The film projected an image of Ireland as a rural idyll, populated by fiery yet charming natives. Contemporary film-makers and writers, unless being deliberately ironic, tend to avoid such clichéd treatment of rural Ireland. Combining discourses of tradition and modernity, their representations reflect the  socio-cultural evolution of this remote location, which inspired Yeats and Synge over a century ago. This paper will trace the development of these representations and discuss the blend of mythology and realism that underpins the work of today’s writers as they address such themes as immigration, identity and belonging.

China in Britain #1. Film
Thursday May 10th 2012, 10.00 am – 6.00 pm

UPDATE: An important message from the organisers: because of our support for UCU Strike Action on May 10th, the venue has been transferred from the University of Westminster to The Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh St., Russell Square, London WC1H OXG: http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/

You are invited to the first in a series of colloquia organised as part of China in Britain: Myths and Realities, an AHRC-funded research network project to investigate changing conceptions of China and Chineseness in Britain, and based at Westminster. The colloquia will connect up the important yet disparate work being done by cultural historians, literary critics, curators, archivists, contemporary artists, film makers and Sino-British organisations. In bringing these specialists together, the project aims to provide a high profile platform for the discursive elaboration of the changing terms of engagement between British and Chinese people and to widen the terms of debate from diaspora studies and simplistic reductions around identity to an inter-disciplinary network of research practice relevant to contemporary debate.

Participants include: Ross Forman (University of Warwick); Felicia Chan (University of Manchester) and Andy Willis (University of Salford); Jo Ho (filmmaker). The day will end with Guo Xiaolu introducing a screening of her film She, A Chinese, followed by a Q and A.

The Chinese presence in British cinema dates from James Williamson’s 1900 ‘documentary’ film, Attack on a China Mission, a recreation of that year’s ‘Boxer rebellion’ in which nationalist militants attempted to expel Christian missionaries and other foreigners from China. It was actually filmed in Brighton and Williamson had never visited China. A ‘yellow-face’ tradition followed, most popularly the Fu Manchu movies stretching through to the 1970s craze for kung fu – not until the early 1980s did Asian-British filmmakers finally make some inroads into the British film industry. In 1986 the first truly Chinese-British feature, Ping Pong (1986), reached the screen. Directed by the British-born director Po-Chi Leong, who had directed several features in Hong Kong, the film was set in London’s Chinatown, with a largely unknown cast – except for David Yip, best known as TV’s The Chinese Detective (BBC, 1981-82). Though critically lauded, however, the film failed to find the success it deserved, and neither it nor Mike Newell’s Soursweet (1988) adapted from Timothy Mo’s novel and scripted by Ian McEwan, has so far heralded the arrival of a healthy British-Chinese cinema. While China, Taiwan and Hong Kong-based directors like Zhang Yimou, Ang Lee and Wong Kar-Wai achieved arthouse and now mainstream success in Britain, other British-Chinese features such as BBC Film Peggy Su! (dir. Frances-Anne Solomon, 1998), failed to receive a proper release, despite favourable reviews. More recently Guo Xiaolu’s award winning film, She, A Chinese (2009), a British film in terms of its financing and much of its location, also failed to achieve due recognition from the film trade press and distributors. However a new generation of British-born or British-based Chinese are at the vanguard of positive change, amongst them University of Westminster alumna, Jo Ho, who created the hit BBC television show, Spirit Warriors (the first British series to star a predominantly East Asian cast) and who is now working on several feature films, and award winning director, Belfast born Lab Ky Mo.

RSVP – Places are free but strictly limited so it is essential to register with the project’s Principal Investigator, Anne Witchard, at: anne@translatingchina.info

WEBSITE:  http://www.translatingchina.info

Wednesday 22^nd February, 1.15pm – 2.30pm
Room 359, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street

Anthony Paraskeva (University of Dundee)
‘Wyndham Lewis, Cinema Hypnotism and the Frankfurt School’

TheBeautifulGame_E-Invite_RSVPTOWESTMINSTER

Thursday 1st March 2012
Reception: 6-7; Screening: 7-9

The Old Cinema, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street
RSVP to: Katrina Fender (k.fender@westminster.ac.uk)

Our friends in The Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture at the School of Law, University of Westminster in association with Africa10 are delighted to invite you to a special preview screening of The Beautiful Game, a new documentary from director Victor Buhler. The film celebrates the work of The Right to Dream Academy, and is generously supported by Alisa Swidler and Leke Adebayo.

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/cream/events/exhibiting-video-conference

CALL FOR PAPERS – EXTENDED CALL
DEADLINE 15 February 2012

Exhibiting Video – International Conference
Date: 23 – 25 March, 2012
University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

In March and April 2012 Ambika P3, the flagship exhibition space at the University of Westminster, will present a major solo exhibition of the influential pioneer of video art, David Hall in association with REWIND. To mark the occasion the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) of the University of Westminster is convening Exhibiting Video, a three-day event considering issues central to the display of video art.

We welcome proposals for papers of a maximum of 30 minutes. Send abstracts of no more than 250 words. They must include the presenter’s name, affiliation, email and postal address, together with the title of the paper and a 150-word biographical note on the presenter. Abstracts should be sent to Helen Cohen at photography@westminster.ac.uk and arrive no later than Wednesday 15 February 2012.

Our friends in the Africa Media Centre at University of Westminster, in conjunction with London African Film Festival, are organizing a conference entitled: ‘Women and Film in Africa Conference: Overcoming Social Barriers’

Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 November 2011
University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Jihan El-Tahri is an Egyptian-French writer, Director and Producer of Documentary films. Her award-winning films include documentaries filmed in the Congo, Angola, Zambia, Tunisia and other parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia. Her latest film Behind the Rainbow deals with the transition of the ANC from a liberation organization into South Africa’s ruling party.

Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary maker, journalist and novelist; she is a visiting scholar at the University of Ghana. Her directing and producing credits include the award-winning documentary The Witches of Gambaga the story of a community of women condemned to live as witches in Northern Ghana.

“Women and film in Africa: Overcoming Social Barriers” is the exciting topic of the University of Westminster’s Africa Media Centre’s next event to be held at 35 Marylebone Road, London from 19-20 November 2011. It will deal with the contemporary and historical role played by women in the film, television and video industries in Africa. From Arab North Africa, West Africa, Central and East Africa, through to Southern Africa, women have emerged from the double oppression of patriarchy and colonialism to become the unsung heroines of the moving image as producers, directors, actresses, script writers, financiers, promoters, marketers and distributors of film, television and video in postcolonial Africa. Sadly, such immense contributions by women are underrepresented, both in industry debates and academic research. There are now many cases in which African women in front of and behind the camera have overcome social barriers, yet this is often sidelined. This conference delegates will include students, practitioners, academics and researchers to debate how women have contributed to film, television and video markets in Africa from the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial eras. It is expected that the event will help focus existing industry and academic work on the ways female audiences in Africa have engaged with film, television and video texts. The conference will include a session with leading female filmmakers.

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN

Full conference: Standard rate £135. One day rate £95
Full conference: Student rate £55. One day rate £40.
Fees cover: conference pack, lunch, coffee/tea, a wine reception and administration fees.

Please follow the link: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2011/women-and-film-in-africa-conference-overcoming-social-barriers

Our friends in the India Media Centre at University of Westminster are organizing a series of fascinating events, please see details below:

Thursday 13th October, 6.30pm

BHOPALI, a film
Bhopali, (dir. Max Carlson, 2011, 89 mins) is a multi-award-winning documentary about the survivors of the world’s worst industrial disaster, the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India. After the screening Mick Brown (journalist, writer and broadcaster) will chair a panel discussion with filmmaker Pawas Bisht (University of Loughborough), author, Meaghan Delahunt, (University of St Andrews) and Tim Edwards (International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal).
Venue: The Old Cinema, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Friday 14th October, 6.30pm

FORGOTTEN ERA: PARSI THEATRE AND EARLY INDIAN CINEMA
Kathryn Hansen, (University of Texas at Austin), a cultural historian with a special interest in Indian theatre, will present material from her new book Stages of Life: Indian Theatre Autobiographies (Anthem Press). This will be followed by a round-table discussion with Francesca Orsini, Reader in the Literatures of North India, SOAS; Rosie Thomas, Reader in Film and Director of CREAM and Co-director of India Media Centre at the University of Westminster; and Ravi Vasudevan, Professor of Film, Director of the Sarai Centre, Delhi, and Smuts Fellow at University of Cambridge.
Venue: Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Monday 17th October, 6.30pm

THE MAKING OF A MODERN INDIAN ARTIST-CRAFTSMAN: DEVI PRASAD
Devi Prasad was India’s pioneering artist-potter, visionary educationist and pacifist. This event looks at how his story exemplifies the importance of the Arts and Crafts Movement in shaping the nature of Modernism in India, and the role of pottery and the community of potters that Prasad set up. Naman P. Ahuja, (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), will speak about the themes of his new book, The Making of a Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad, followed by a conversation with architect Sunand Prasad, Devi Prasad’s son, and with potter and writer, Julian Stair, Visiting Lecturer in Ceramics at the University of Westminster.
Venue: The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Friday 2nd November, 5pm – 9pm

INDIAN ARTS ON FILM: Charles Correa, Bhupen Kakar, Nalini Malani and Vivan Sundaram
What makes a successful documentary about art? What specific issues arise when translating the visual arts onto film? How far do different cultural contexts require different approaches? Award-winning arts filmmakers and scholars, Arun Khopkar and John Wyver (Iluuminations and University of Westminster), together with art historian Partha Mitter (University of Sussex), discuss these questions, followed by a screening of two of Khopkar’s films: Figures of Thought (1990, 33 mins), on Bhupen Kakar, Nalini Malani and Vivan Sundaram, and Volume Zero: The Work of Charles Correa (2008, 59 mins) on India’s most eminent architect.
Venue: P3 Gallery (5pm) and Cayley Lecture Theatre (7pm), University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

These events have been organised in association with our partners, DSC-South Asia Literature Festival and Magic Lantern Persistence Resistance Festival. As spaces are limited, BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL (follow web-links for each event). For full details visit http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/media/cream

‘What’s New? The Changing Face of Indian Cinema: Contemporary and Historical Contexts’
Friday 8th and Saturday 9th July 2011
Marylebone Campus, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Invited speakers include: Filmmakers, Anurag Kashyap and Rituparno Ghosh, Rachel Dwyer (SOAS, London), Shohini Ghosh, (Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi), Lalitha Gopalan, (University of Texas at Austin).

Is mainstream Indian cinema moving into a ‘post-Bollywood’ era?  In recent years a growing number of popular (and not so popular) films made for commercial release have been challenging the conventions of the mainstream multi-genre, song and dance extravaganzas. These films are being made – both within and outside the prevailing studio system – in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and elsewhere. From ‘Dev D’ to ‘Just Another Love Story, Udaan’ or ‘Peepli Live,’ cinematic language is being explored, songs are disappearing or being used in different ways, and strong alternative storylines are presenting a new face of modern Indian society.  These films’ hybrid sensibilities are increasingly appealing to the global aspirations of India’s urban ‘multiplex’ generation.

The London Indian Film Festival was set up in July 2010 to showcase this trend, bringing cutting edge Indian films and filmmakers to London audiences. Alongside this summer’s festival, the India Media Centre at the University of Westminster, in association with the London Indian Film Festival, is hosting a conference that will bring together filmmakers, industry professionals and academics to explore this new phenomenon within both a contemporary and an historical context.

Full conference: Standard rate £150. One day rate £100
Full conference: Student rate £65.  One day rate £45.
There is an early bird discount if you pay by Thursday 30 June:
Full conference: Standard rate £125. Student rate £50

This covers all conference documentation, refreshments, lunches, a reception, reduced cinema ticket prices to LIFF events, free entry to the final night party, and administration costs.

To register please download the registration form from: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/whats-new_080711

General enquiries: please contact Helen Cohen at: H.cohen02@westminster.ac.uk
Academic enquires: please contact Daisy Hasan at: D.Hasan@westminster.ac.uk
Conference team: Rosie Thomas, Daisy Hasan, Radha Dayal, Helen Cohen.

Professor Allan Stoekl, ‘The Noir Auteur and De-Facement’
Friday 11^th February 2011, 2-4pm
The Westminster Forum, University of Westminster, 5^th Floor, 32-38 Wells Street, London W1T

Allan Stoekl is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. His many publications include the books Politics, Writing, Mutilation: The Cases of Bataille, Blanchot, Roussel, Leiris and Ponge (University of Minnesota Press, 1985); Agonies of the Intellectual: Commitment, Subjectivity, and the Performative in the Twentieth-Century French Tradition (University of Nebraska Press, 1992); and Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). He was editor of a seminal special issue of Yale French Studies, ‘On Bataille’ (1990), and is translator of several texts by Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, as well as Paul Fournel’s Need for the Bike (2003). He is currently completing a book entitled Externalities, Retrofitting, Gleaning.

In this paper, Allan will provide a reading of the films Pépé le Moko (Duvivier, 1936) and Journal d’un curé de campagne (Bresson, 1950) from the perspective of film noir, reading the noir problematic via Paul de Man’s take on prosopopeia and offering a close reading of several scenes from the movies.

Thomson and Craighead’s A short film about War has been nominated for the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 2011 at the Rotterdam Film Festival.  Screenings take place on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th January, with the award ceremony happening at 10pm on Monday 31st at the VPRO Late Night Talk Show. More info on the festival here

In other news: Thomson and Craighead will be showing their recent work, The Time Machine in alphabetical order, from 2nd – 13th February as part of Several Interruptions, a sequence of exhibitions celebrating 15 Years of the Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art to be held at the North Lodge, Gower Street. They’ll also be contributing to Cloud Sounds at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, where they will be re-staging their installation, Unprepared Piano, 19th February – 29th April 2011.

Thomson and Craighead have  uploaded a short video extract from their fabulous installation The Time Machine in alphabetical order to their website, along with a few other juicy additions to their archive.

Check it out here.

Not strictly a tour around the Institute, but we thought we should flag up the fact that Westminster is taking part in Open House London, the capital’s largest architectural showcase, on September 18. Visitors can take a tour of the site of the original Polytechnic opened in 1838, visit the Sports Hall and the site of one of the first public swimming pools in London, and learn the importance in cinematic history of the Old Cinema.

Times: Tours at 10am, 11.30am, 2pm and 3.30pm. Pre-book only, maximum 25 per tour.
Admission: Free.

More information here.

Old Media / New Work: Obsolete Technologies & Contemporary Art
Saturday 1st May 2010, 9am-6pm
Portland  Hall, University of Westminster, 4-16 Little Titchfield St, London W1W 7UW

Contemporary art shows renewed interest in ‘lost’, ‘obsolete’, and ‘archaic’ visual media forms and the illusion-producing processes of the past—for example: the camera obscura, the magic lantern, stereoscopy, Victorian stage illusion, shadowgraphy, optical toys, the panorama and stylised period representations such as the imagery of spiritualism, automatic writing and early photographic techniques. A platform for engagement with such ‘old media’ has been provided by the Magic Lantern Society’s popular public lecture series, Professor Pepper’s Ghost, at the University of Westminster this year. As a further development, the conference ‘Old Media / New Work’ will concentrate on art and artists working with or around such ‘lost’ practices, in order to show, discuss, and explore such work in context of contemporary relevance and future possibilities.

Speakers:
Madi Boyd (Independent): ‘Pepper’s Ghost for the 21^st Century’
Ignaz Cassar (Leeds / Nottingham Trent): ‘The Image of, or in, Sublation’
Mark Ferelli (Independent): ‘Michael Reeves Directs’
Mark Jackson (IMT Gallery): ‘Audiobooks of the Dead: William Burroughs & Konstantīns Raudive’
Ben Judd (Independent): ‘Magic, Belief, and Immersion’
Naomi Kashiwagi (Independent): ‘Reinventing the Reel: Reclaiming the Everyday’
Wiebke Leister (LCC): ‘Towards an Iconography of the White Face’
Olivia Plender (Independent): ‘A Stellar Key to the Summerland’
Peter Ride (Westminster): ‘When Everything Old is New Again’
Aura Satz (London Consortium): ‘Sound Seam: Gramophone Grooves & Primal Sound’
Dan Smith (Chelsea): ‘October Outmoded: Utopian Failure & Technological Possibility’
Simon Warner (Independent): ‘Isolating V5: Towards a Human Zoetrope’

Entrance is free but, as places are numbered, please contact the organisers, Sas Mays (IMCC) and Mervyn Heard (Magic Lantern Society), for a place: oldmedianewwork@live.com

Thomson & Craighead will be showing ‘A Short Film about War’ as an installation for the first time at the MyWar exhibition at the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, running from March 12 – May 30 2010. It will appear alongside works by Phil Collins, Renzo Martens, Milica Tomic, Knowbotic Research, Harun Farocki, Sarah Vanagt, Joseph Delappe, Oliver Laric, Dunne & Raby, Harrell Fletcher and SWAMP.

Animate Projects have also commissioned Lisa LeFeuvre to write a contextual essay about the piece, which is available on their website to read and download as a diffusion book alongside a streaming version of the work. Read Lisa’s essay here.

Old Media / New Work: Obsolete Technologies & Contemporary Art
Saturday 1st May 2010, University of Westminster, London

Contemporary art shows renewed interest in ‘lost’, ‘obsolete’, and ‘archaic’ visual media forms and the illusion-producing processes of the past—for example: the camera obscura, the magic lantern, stereoscopy, Victorian stage illusion, shadowgraphy, optical toys, the panorama and stylised period representations such as the imagery of spiritualism, automatic writing, audio-technologies and early photographic techniques.

Co-organised by the Magic Lantern Society and the IMCC—in the wake of 2009-10’s popular public lecture series, Professor Pepper’s Ghost, at the University of Westminster—Old Media / New Work will provide a forum at which artists working with or around such ‘lost’ concepts and technologies can come together to show, discuss, and explore their own work in context of these past techniques, their contemporary relevance, and their future possibilities. The conference will also be documented and continued by a new WordPress website that will allow participants to upload images, texts and comments.

Confirmed participants include: Jonathan Allen; Geoff Coupland; Mark Ferelli; Mark Jackson; Juliette Kristensen; Susan MacWilliam; Olivia Plender; Joseph Ramirez; Aura Satz; Dan Smith; Simon Warner; Isabel White

The organisers, Mervyn Heard and Sas Mays, welcome participation from established practitioners, as well as up-and-coming artists and researchers and specialists in the field. Interested parties should send a short (250-word) description of their topic and their CV, by 14^th March 2010, to: OldMediaNewWork@live.com

The second part in a short selection of transcriptions of talks from the recent series on ‘The Future’ at the David Roberts Art Foundation. Here’s Garin Dowd’s paper from the final night, seamlessly drifiting from Beckett to Ballard, Deleuze to Daney.

3. ‘Replay: conducts of time x 4 (interstitial pedagogies)’
Garin Dowd

I borrow the idea of conducts of time from Eric Alliez. Conducts would refer to behaviours – and suggest an ethology – but also to channels. Conducts of time are also ‘gaits’ of time, postures of time in movement; equally they might inhere in the pas au-delà, the step which is also a pas – a not, in Jacques Derrida’s formulation (via Blanchot). Conducts of time may give rise to systole or diastole, to condensations and saturations, as in running on the spot, and to disseminations. It may produce reifications and consolidations, or it may liberate blocs of becoming.

The action of Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape is famously set, according to the stage directions, on ‘a late evening in the future’. While it is anecdotally recorded that the motivation behind this direction was Beckett’s concern that, without such a prompt, what would be required of the audience is the performance of the retrospective science fiction to permit tape recorders to exist prior to their invention (the aged Krapp listens to a recording of himself aged 39, while the play was first staged in 1958), there seems to be much more at play than simply a peculiar concession to verisimilitude. Nonetheless the precession, at once announced and elided by Krapp’s Last Tape, of this particular archival technology, reminds one also that it is the cataloguer of the famous precession of simulacra, Jean Baudrillard, who tells us much, inadvertently, about Beckett’s concerns in this play. In La Gauche Divine we read that ‘le rêve d’une conductibilité absolue [de l’information] ne peut etre qu’excrémentiel’: the dream of an absolute conductibility [of information] can only be excremental. The dream of an absolute conductibility of information is also the predicament or the opportunity of the protagonist in Krapp’s Last Tape. How to phrase; how to gather; how to memorialise ‘eschatologically’ (his last tape) and/or scatalogically (his ‘unattainable laxation’): these issues trouble Krapp, and trouble him in a way which is, in Derrida’s sense, archival. In this respect the play reminds us of what Derrida identifies as the archive’s relationship to the future: ‘the technical structure of the archiving archive also determines the structure of the archivable content even in its very coming into existence and in its relationship to the future’. So on our particular late evening in the future, the future now or round about now, I want to introduce 4 conducts of time.

Continue reading The Future Papers, Part Two: Garin Dowd