Conference Opportunity

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies has a new undergraduate conference!  The first one will be this April at the University of Notre Dame, and if you are interested in submitting, please check out the link below.  This is a great opportunity for those of you who are interested in scholarship and theory.

http://ftt.nd.edu/ftt-events/society-for-cinema-and-media-studies-undergraduate-conference/

Melrose Place and Public Art

Here is the site with the info for Mel Chin's IN THE NAME OF PLACE, complete with cheesy 90s TV clips.

http://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/mpart/index.html

Free Indie Film Screening on Friday

Hi all!

Just a reminder that there is a free and rare screening of Shirley Clarke's film Ornette: Made in America is this Friday, 7pm at Kellen Auditorium on the ground floor of 66 5th Avenue hosted by Kinoscope an indie film organization at The New School [which I am a part of and is also part of my thesis, so any support via social media would be greatly appreciated].
Everyone is welcome to come!

More information about the event, the filmmaker and Kinoscope here:

https://www.facebook.com/Kinoscope
https://twitter.com/Kinoscope 

© Kinoscope 2012 All Rights Reserved

Make-Up Week

In our off week, you will get together in groups of five outside the classroom to watch two films.  We will then address certain issues related to both those films and the readings for "Cinematic Public Art - Interventions."

The films are Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (available to rent from Amazon video for 2.99) and segments of an Art: 21 episode on Wodiczko (available via Netflix instant, episode 3, season 3).  It's important that you watch together so that you can have a discussion right afterwards.  You can either make arrangements to meet up at each other's homes or reserve a smart room at school.

Following your screening, come up with a collaborative response to your group's question.  You can write a 3-paragraph description of your response or, if appropriate, submit a drawing or rendering of your proposed solution in addition to some explanatory text.  Work on this together and post with all your names signed.  If you discuss together right after the films, you should be able to come up with your response inside of an hour.  The group is embedded below.

You need to watch the films and post in Google Groups by Tuesday, November 20.  The rest if us will then respond to the posts of other groups and collaborate in an online discussion in the time between then and Monday, November 26th.  This online discussion will take the place of the usual discussion board postings for class, and it is important that we remain in dialog with each other more than posting individual responses.

OWS Bat Signal

Check out these online readings for next week's look at interventions in public art.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/17/interview-with-the-occupy-wall.html
http://theilluminator.org/
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679431/the-illuminator-the-occupy-wall-street-bat-signal-returns-with-a-batmobile

Wodiczko Projection in Union Square

Krzysztof Wodiczko's new project opens on Monday and we'll be taking a walk over to Union Square from class to see it at 6 on Tuesday. Be sure to bring a hat and gloves if it's chilly/rain gear if it's wet.

More info here:
http://www.moreart.org/artists/krzysztof-wodiczko/ 

Stan Vanderbeek and Early Computer Animation

The artist works with programmers at MIT to create drawings using a 1970s version of an iPad...

Independent Film Screenings at The New School

FROM MELISA:

A friend of mine is the founder and producer of a recently launched indie film organization called Kinoscope at The New School. Kinoscope will have monthly screenings, at times with a Q&A with the filmmaker. 

The upcoming screening on November 30th, everyone is welcome to come! 
For more information look at the Facebook page 

http://www.facebook.com/Kinoscope/

Election Night Screens

The multimedia facade of ABC News at Times Square will be ablaze with election results and related programming.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/abc-news-to-transform-the-crossroads-of-the-world-in-times-square-into-abc-news-election-headquarters/

Also, Natalie Bookchin will be discussing her recent multi-channel video work "He's Out in Public and Everyone Can See" at Kellen Auditorium on campus.

http://www.veralistcenter.org/currentprograms/?p=3967

Computer-programmed LED light sculpture at Madison Sq Park

Check out Leo Villareal's piece Buckyball on preview now opening this week.

More info here:
http://www.madisonsquarepark.org/things-to-do/calendar/mad-sq-art-leo-villareals-buckyball

Interactive window display near school

Just ran into this on 5th Ave and 15th St. It's is an interactive video placed within a storefront/diorama at TD Bank dealing with their green initiatives. Touch the hand prints, and different animals pop out of the woods.

What would Dan Graham say about this? I think it looks and feels an awful lot like Big Buck Hunter, which is probably not what they were going for...

Public Art Fund Talk TOMORROW (Wednesday) at Tishman Auditorium

We are about to move into the public art portion of our class in a few weeks, so it might be a wonderful time to go check out an artist speaking about her upcoming public exhibition!

http://www.publicartfund.org/view/5391_public_programs/5919_talk_monika_sosnowska 

Addiction to Screens (Parks and Rec)

One of the story lines of this week's Parks and Recreation has a character dealing with an over-addiction to screens.  I think this resonates (rather comically) with some of the issues we've come across in discussion in terms of self-presentation via social media, over-reliance on mobile screens, and a modified sense of existence.

Expanded Cinema at the Tate

Video on the re-installation of major works and the legacy of expanded cinema.

Oscar Fischinger, Space Light Art

<
<br />
I just saw this multi-screen film installation today at the Whitney, and it's an amazing 1920s precursor to the Expanded Cinema practices we will be examining tomorrow. &nbsp;I highly recommend checking it out.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/OskarFischinger">http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/OskarFischinger</a>

Hitchcock in 3D

The great American auteur saw much potential in 3D film technologies.  Now at Film Forum you can see a restored version of his 3D classic Dial M for Murder.

Starts tomorrow, goes to Oct 4. Info here: http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/dial_m_for_murder

Simulacral Democracy

One theorist that keeps coming up in our readings is Baudrillaud.  His readings of the "simulacra" of postmodern experience are digested and put into crash course form here: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/baudrillardsimulation.html

A recent story of democracy advocates in Burma watching episodes of the West Wing to learn about democracy seems a rather interesting point of discussion in this light.  Can real lessons be gleaned from an entertainment commodity?  There are also issues of access to information and materials in repressive regimes.  More on this here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/09/20/previously-on-the-west-wing-democracy-101-for-myanmar/

For those of you who are too young to have watched the show, it's the reason for the endless walk-and-talk scenes in shows like House.

TED Talk on Memory and Video Art

Very interesting piece shared by Alexis.  Check it out here:

Architects rethink urban movie theaters

Here's an interesting article I came across from Architect Magazine.

http://www.architectmagazine.com/design/coming-attractions.aspx

Contemporary Art's play with cinematic time: Christian Marclay's The Clock and Douglas Gordon's 24 Hr Psycho

This piece (which played in New York over the summer) is a really interesting investigation of both new disjointed forms of cinematic spectatorship (re-cuts, mash-ups, supercuts) and the kinds of temporal issues that come up in Friedberg.  The whole film is 24 hours long and is projected in real time (i.e. if you go at midnight, all the scenes take place then, if you go at 8:10, all the clips mention 8:10, etc.).

More on the piece here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/apr/07/christian-marclay-the-clock




Douglas Gordon's piece is much harder (well, impossible) to sit and watch!  It has been in many galleries (I've seen it twice), but I've come across one screening that's particularly interesting to our class here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/tiff2010/2010/09/douglas-gordons-stunning-24-hour-psycho-update-screens-at-tiffs-lightbox.html

Major films to help us understand film theory

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Major Soviet Avant-Garde film that re-imagines the city film (a common silent documentary film in the 1920s).  This film, following the lead of Russian Constructivism and Productivism, continually reminds the viewer of the process of its making and exhibition - precisely what Baudry and Mulvey see as the concealment that's so problematic in narrative film.  Baudry explicitly mentions one clip that pull us out of the diegesis and to the materiality of the film.  It starts around 22 minutes (and goes for around 5 minutes after that).  I recommend this entire film, though!




There are also some great parts of Grindhouse, the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-feature of Planet Terror and Deathproof that do this in order to re-create the lost exhibition venues their films harken back to.

Peeping Tom (1960)

One of the first real slasher flicks of postwar British film, this movie follows a psychopathic serial killer/photographer/filmmaker who is in search for the ultimate face of fear.  The opening credits are a great parallel to the scopophilic and voyeuristic drives Mulvey discusses in her feminist analysis.  The opening scene is below, but I recommend watching the entire film - it keeps you on the edge of your seat and does some fantastic things with sound later on (in addition to a very climactic ending).




I also recommend Hitchcock's Rear Window for its play on voyeurism and immobility.

Lacan 101

Excellent breakdown of some of the main concepts of Lacan's psychoanalysis, which I will be introducing to you in class.  Good resource if you choose Baudry or Mulvey for your critical response essay.

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/lacandevelop.html

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/lacanstructure.html

Underground Advertising/Restaurant Surveillance

Multiscreen advertising for a new show about using screens,  Restaurant Stakeout, at the Herald Square subway station.  The whole walkway was plastered with print ads, making this more dynamic display (which seems to address the passersby directly) a culmination of the entire adscape.

Video here:

Posting now available!

Everyone registered for the class has now been invited to be an author on the blog, so let's start sharing info!

Alternative screening venues

Nice list of some alternative screening sites from Monica.

http://beersandbeans.com/2012/07/04/world-cinema-must-see-screens-around-the-globe/

Eclipse: Jonah Bokaer and Anthony McCall at BAM

Anthony McCall, who we will be looking at a lot during our studies of Expanded Cinema and Installation Art, will be at Brooklyn Academy of Music starting tomorrow night for a collaborative piece with choreographer Jonah Bokaer.  Tickets are $20.



http://www.bam.org/eclipse

Screens while you wait for chicken

These buzzers at Kyochon chicken on 5th Ave and 32nd St come equipped with video ad space. (mine just had the ad company, but someone else's was working).
Will upload video later



UPDATE:  Video below

Welcome New Students!

This is our class blog where we will share information, links, and relevant sources pertinent to the class.  This is a free space where everyone will be able to post.  You are expected to follow the blog regularly and be ready to comment online and discuss in class the material on here.

Submissions relevant to each week's topic are welcome, as are casual encounters with ambient and spectacular screens in your daily life!  Each student will be granted posting permissions after the first class.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Movie Theater, Canton Palace, Ohio, 1980