Documentary Now!

Documentary Now!

A Conference on the Contemporary Contexts and Possibilities of the Documentary
Conference Location: Birkbeck College, London
Dates: Fri/Sat 15/16 January 2010

Documentary Now! is back. Now an annual fixture on the UK documentary scene, the conference brings together scholars, filmmakers, students, and interested members of the public to discuss current trends in documentary film, from the return of documentary as a theatrical box office phenomenon, to broadcast television, the web, and beyond. It explores questions of industry, audiences, aesthetics, political engagement, documentary’s relationship to the mainstream media and other many other issues. What’s new in documentary? Where is documentary headed?

Speakers include:
Florian Thahlhofer (creator of Korsakow System for Interactive Documentaries)

Possible themes for the conference include but are not limited to:

• Animated Documentary
• The Documentary Archive
• New Documentary Forms and Technologies
• Documentary Trends from around the World
• Incorporation of amateur video
• Fair use and intellectual property

More information about the conference venue and registration will be forthcoming. See Centre for Research in Film and Audiovisual Cultures (CRFAC) at Roehampton University

Digital Natives – The Internets Lost Tribe? A seminar on Young People and the Internet

POLIS in partnership with OFCOM panel discussion

Date: Tuesday 24 November 2009
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building – London School of Economics and Poltical Sciences
Speakers: Professor David Buckingham, Ranjana Das, Dr Chris Davies, Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr Rebecca Willet
Chair: Charlie Beckett

Enabling media literacy for ‘digital natives’ – a contradiction in terms?
Professor Sonia Livingstone, Department of Media and Communications, LSE

Talking about their generation: constructions of the digital learner
Professor David Buckingham, Institute of Education

Q & A

Teenagers using the internet: riders, drivers, dabblers and outsiders
Dr Chris Davies, University of Oxford

Power relations, play and boredom in teens’ online interactions
Dr Rebekah Willet, Institute of Education

Panel Reflections
Ranjana Das, POLIS Silverstone Scholar 2009

This event is free and open to all, but pre-registration is required.  RSVP polis@lse.ac.uk|.

BFI 53rd London Film Festival

From October 14th to 29th, the 53rd London Film Festival.

BFI London Film Festival. The website

Further informations and programme, HERE.

Transforming Audiences 2 Conference

Transforming Audiences 2 was a great success and received very positive feedback.

All informations about the conference, photos and videos from the event will be very soon available at http://www.transformingaudiences.org.uk

The CMCS (Centre for Media and Communication Studies “Massimo Baldini”) based at LUISS University, Rome, Italy, participated to the conference, with the appreciated paper “From Spectators to Participants? Political Engagement and Social Networking in Italy” presented by Emiliana De Blasio.

Some photos are available clicking the folder below.

Transforming Audiences 2

Transforming Audiences 2

The full, final programme, and book of abstracts, is now available online HERE

Transforming Audiences 2

3 – 4 September 2009
University of Westminster – London, UK

in association with the Audience and Reception Studies section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA) and the Audience Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)

The first Transforming Audiences conference, in September 2007, featured over 100 presentations by audience researchers from around the world. Transforming Audiences 2 signals its development as Europe’s major recurring international conference for audience/user studies.

There has never been a more exciting time for researchers interested in the place of media in people’s lives. The growth of diverse online offerings and easy-to-use creative tools, coupled with the global economic downturn, has made traditional media and conventional broadcasters increasingly uncomfortable. Some critics are concerned about the future of ‘quality’ media for audiences to enjoy, but others celebrate this flourishing of non-elite, grassroots media.

Transforming Audiences 2 – organised by the Audiences Group at the University of Westminster Communications and Media Research Institute, and run in association with ICA, IAMCR, and ECREA – will present a rich set of analyses of the current situation and raise important questions about the future. We have strongly encouraged papers from interesting new scholars as well as more established researchers.

Invited speakers include Liz Bird, Nick Couldry, Natalie Fenton, Christine Hine, Peter Lunt, and Shaun Moores.

Conference organised by David Gauntlett, Caroline Dover, Fatimah Awan, Anastasia Kavada and Annette Hill.

Transforming Audiences 2 will consider the following issues:

DIY media, ‘we media’, ‘user generated content’ and dispersed creativity, Audiences, identities and popular culture, Citizen media and new political communication, Transnational audiences and diasporas, Audiences and users around the world, The economics and business of contemporary media audiences, New methodologies in audience studies, Changing audience/producer relations, Media history and audiences, Philosophical and theoretical paradigms

Overall Schedule and Parallel Sessions Programme

Further informations HERE

Transforming Audiences 2

3 – 4 September 2009, University of Westminster, London, UK

All the informations HERE

Gaelic in medieval Scotland

SIR JOHN RHYS MEMORIAL LECTURE

Gaelic in medieval Scotland: advent and expansion

Professor Thomas Clancy, University of Glasgow

Wednesday, 4 March 2009 5.30pm – 6.30pm

followed by a drinks reception The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH

Free Admittance

Early 7th century records show that the Gaelic language and people were confined to the region of Argyll, yet, by the 12th century, most parts of what is now Scotland (and indeed parts of northern England) either had or had had communities of Gaelic speakers. This vast expansion of the language happened during one of the least well-evidenced times in Scotland’s history, and the timing and mechanisms of this expansion have been much theorised and debated. The primary evidence illuminating these processes is that of toponyms, and, as such, place-names form the bedrock of this lecture’s investigation. This lecture will review the evidence for Gaelic’s arrival and expansion in the various different regions of Scotland in the Middle Ages, examining in particular a number of different nodes of controversy, where paradigms have been shifting over recent years, including the advent of Gaelic in northern Britain; the dominance of Gaelic in the kingdom of Alba; and Gaelic in the south-west, the Western Isles, and the far north. What will emerge is a much more complex, nuanced series of interlocking episodes in Scotland’s linguistic history.

About the speaker

Professor Thomas Clancy is Chair of Celtic at the University of Glasgow. His research interests include the development of Christianity in early medieval Scotland, the poetry of early medieval Scotland, medieval Gaelic narrative, especially Christian literature, Scottish place-names and saints dedications, medieval Welsh narrative, and the northern Britons. He contributed to the preparation of Celtic Culture: An Encyclopedia (2006).

Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture

In 1924 a fund was given to the Academy for the promotion of Welsh and other studies to commemorate the services of the Rt Hon Sir John Rhys, Professor of Celtic, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Sir John himself was the subject of the inaugural lecture in this biennial series, given by J Morris-Jones in 1925.

Video Clips from Keynote Speakers of 2007 Cultural Studies Now Conference

Stuart Hall’s video clip and all the video clips of the keynote speakers from the 2007 conference are now available on the Cultural Studies Now website

FilMobile

Exhibition, Conference & Screenings

4 April – 4 May 08

FILMOBILE is a network project developed at the University of Westminster bringing together the mobile phone industry, filmmakers and artists working with mobile devices. In April and May 2008 FILMOBILE is organising a major international event consisting of a gallery exhibition, cinema screenings and an international conference. This event will explore the cultural and economic impact brought about by new mobile technologies and initiate debates between artists, the media and the new mobile industry.

The FILMOBILE EXHIBITION at London Gallery West will feature mobile art works by Mark Amerika, Camille Baker, Bebe Beard, Melissa Bliss, Elly Clarke, Romain Forquy, Steve Hawley, Brian House, Brooke A. Knight, Simon Longo, Anne Massoni, Kasia Molga, Sylvie Prasad, Michele Pred, Henry Reichhold, Max Schleser and Jo Thomas.

The FILMOBILE CONFERENCE at The Old Lumiere Cinema includes more than 22 speakers from the USA, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Italy and the UK addressing the global impact of mobile technologies in the domain of art, media and communication. A live web broadcast with the Mobilefest in Brazil is scheduled to take place during the conference. For detailed conference program see here

Friday 4 April

Conference opening (16:00)Dr. Joram ten Brink
Panel 1 (16:15 – 17:30) – New Media – New Opportunities

Chair Max Schleser

• Tony Fish / AMF VENTURES Dennis Morrison / Zizzl Films
• Emily Renshaw-Smith / Current TV
• Helen Keegan / BeepMarketingEmma Bewley / TV Producer Leo Burnett
  

Panel 2 (17:45 – 18:30) – New Media – Mobile Art

Chair Camille Baker

• Melissa Bliss / Artist / Instant films
• Jo Thomas / Sound artist / A Musical Gestalt – Composing Electronic Sound for Mobile Technology
• Kasia Molga / Artist / The expression of the interdependence in the visual arts experience via mobile phones

FILMOBILE Cinema Screening (18:30 – 20:30)

• 18:30 – 19:30 SMS Sugar Man (Aryan Kaganof)
• 19:30 – 20:30 Why didn’t anybody tell me it would become this bad in Afghanistan (Cyrus Frisch)

20:30 FILMOBILE wine reception

Saturday 5 April

FILMOBILE Conference 10:30 - 18:30

FILMOBILE Conference 10:30 (Max Schleser)

Panel 3 (11:00 – 12:00) – Mobile Micro Mass Media

Chair: Gabriel Moreno

• Larissa Hjorth / RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia) / WAITING FOR IMMEDIACY(exercises for documenting everyday life)
• Professor Michele Sorice / Crisc-Cmcs, University of Rome (Italy) and University of Lugano (Switzerland) and Dr. Emiliana De Blasio / Crisc-Cmcs and University of Molise (Italy) / Mobile Audiences between Access and Participation
• Elizabeth Evans / University of Nottingham (UK) / Bursting Bubbles: Private Television, Public Space

Panel 4 (12:15 – 13:15) – Mobile Content Production and Delivery

Chair: Professor Dave Taylor

• Daniel Florencio / Multimedia producer (Brazil/UK) Mobile Media
• Monica Horten – University of Westminster (UK) / The political battle for mobile online content
• Mark Brill / Ping Corporation Ltd, immedia24 (UK) / Delivering Mobile Content to the Consumer

13:15-15:00 LUNCH

Screening Max with a Kaitai (2008 Max Schleser)

Panel 5 (15:00 – 16:00) – Mobile Filmmaking

Chair: Dr. Joram ten Brink

• Professor Steve Hawley / Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) / Aesthetics of the mobile video
• Dr. Thomas Meyer / University of Siegen (Germany) / Mobile-Mentary: An Approach
• Max Schleser / University of Westminster (UK) / Max With a Kaitai – a mobile-mentary

Panel 6 (16:15 – 17:15) – Mobile Participation

Chair: Peter Dunn

• Chris Chadwick / ICDC, Liverpool (UK) / Mobile Movies
• Camille Baker / SMARTlab, University of East London (UK) / MindTouch: embodied transference/transcendence
• Bebe Beard / Suffolk University, Bosten (USA) / When You Hold It To Your Ear You Can Hear the Ocean, See?

Panel 7 (17:30 – 18:30) – Mobile Stories

Chair: Tom Corby

• Brian House / Knifeandfork – New York (USA) / Subversive (Mobile) Storytelling
• Professor (Dr) Lizbeth Goodman / SMARTlab (UK) / Performing Live and Online in the Mobile Metaverse
• Dr. Terry Wright / University of Ulster / Drogheda viaduct and Battle of the Boyne

Conference and screenings at The Old Lumière Cinema
309 Regent Street, London W1R 8AL (tube Oxford Circus)

Download here the conference/exhibition folder

FilMobile poster