videographic – medieninitiative

CFP Post-Cinema: Practices of Research and Creation

CFP Post-Cinema: Practices … by medieninitiative on Scribd

I am happy to share the CFP for a special issue of Images Secondes on the topic of “Post-Cinema: Practices of Research and Creation,” edited by Chloé Galibert-Lainé and Gala Hernández López.

The special issue, for which I am serving on the comité scientifique (which sounds a lot cooler than “review board”), will collect traditional scholarly articles as well as contributions in other media (such as videographic criticism and experimental digital forms). Proposals are due April 20, 2020, with final submissions due September 30.

Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested in contributing to what is sure to be an exciting publication!

The Algorithmic Nickelodeon featured in Sight & Sound’s Best Video Essays of 2019

The Algorithmic Nickelodeon from Shane Denson on Vimeo.

Several weeks ago, Sight & Sound Magazine’s “Best Video Essays of 2019” came out, featuring 134 videos nominated by 39 contributors — including my “Algorithmic Nickelodeon” piece, picked by Jiří Anger from Charles University in Prague. He writes:

Despite its formal shortcomings, this must be one of the most thought-provoking videographic works I have seen. Denson’s theoretical manifesto imagines a form of audiovisual criticism that would not be merely expressive but transformative, reinventing our notion of subject-object relations. For this to happen, deformations of the image/object and displacements of the analyst/subject must take place simultaneously. Creative thinking joins forces with EEG headsets and editing programmes to create a media-theoretical ‘perpetuum mobile’, designed for constant questioning of what cinema means in the age of algorithms.

I am honored to have my work featured alongside many fascinating videos, many of which were made by friends and colleagues of mine (including especially noteworthy pieces by Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Kathleen Loock, Jason Mittell, Tracy Cox-Stanton, as well as Allison de Fren’s piece “Mad Science/Mad Love and the Female Body in Pieces,” which I commissioned for the Videographic Frankenstein exhibition at Stanford and published last year in Hyperrhiz).

By the way, I agree completely with Anger’s assessments of my video’s “formal shortcomings,” which stand out all the more against the background of all the excellent and polished work featured in the poll. In fact, my video was conceived and produced as a very rough proof-of-concept for a symposium organized by Kathleen Loock in Berlin last year (where I had hoped to do a live demo of the setup but was unable to due to technical limitations in the venue). A more polished video for the project is currently being planned, but in the meantime I’m quite happy with Anger’s assessment of it as “one of the most thought-provoking videographic works”!

Amalgamate: An Exhibition of Video Works

I am happy to announce Amalgamate, an exhibition of videos made by students in my course on “The Video Essay” (Fall 2019). Works range from analytical to experimental, with activist impulses and cinephilic sensitivities sprinkled throughout. The show runs from January 10-31, 2020 in the Gunn Foyer, McMurtry Building, at Stanford.

The Algorithmic Nickelodeon at Besides the Screen Festival (Vitoria, Brazil, September 9-12, 2019)

BesidesTheScreen

I am happy to report that my deformative, EEG-driven interactive video project, The Algorithmic Nickelodeon, which was screened last month at the ACUD-Kino in Berlin, has been selected for screening at the Besides the Screen Festival taking place in Vitória and São Paulo, Brazil this September. My understanding is that it will be among the works shown in Vitória from September 9-12.

Videographic Criticism: Roundtable Videos

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Recently, I posted my my video, “The Algorithmic Nickelodeon,” which I presented on June 21 at the ACUD-Kino in Berlin, in the context of a symposium on “Videographic Criticism: Aesthetics and Methods of the Video Essay” organized by Kathleen Loock.

Now the videos of the two roundtable discussions with Allison de Fren, Kathleen Loock, Chloé Galibert-Laîné, and Kevin B. Lee (moderated by Julia Leyda), and with Liz Greene, David Verdeure, and myself (and moderated by Evelyn Kreutzer) are online, here.

Thanks again to Kathleen Loock for organizing and to the ACUD-Kino for hosting this event!

The Algorithmic Nickelodeon

Yesterday was the first event on my trip to Germany and Switzerland: the symposium Videographic Criticism: Aesthetics and Methods of the Video Essay, organized by Kathleen Loock, and with talks/screenings from her, Allison de Fren, Chloé Galibert-Laîné and Kevin B. Lee, Liz Greene, David Verdeure, and myself.

Above, you will find my video contribution, “The Algorithmic Nickelodeon,” which builds on work started at the Duke S-1: Speculative Sensation Lab during my time there as a postdoc. The video is offered as proof-of-concept for an experimental approach to videographic theory–using video not (only) as a vehicle for theoretical expression but as a more radically transductive medium of media-theoretical exploration and transformation.

“The Algorithmic Nickelodeon” at ACUD-Kino Berlin — Symposium on Videographic Criticism

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Next Friday, June 21, 2019, I am excited to present “The Algorithmic Nickelodeon,” a literally mind-bending EEG-powered videographic experiment, in the context of the symposium on “Videographic Criticism: Aesthetics and Methods of the Video Essay.”

The symposium, organized by Kathleen Loock, will take place at the ACUD-Kino in Berlin, and will bring together lots of leading practitioners of videographic scholarship to screen their work and discuss questions of aesthetics, methods, and theory.

The event is free and open to the public, so come by if you’re in the neighborhood!

Talks and Events in Norway, March 2019

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In the week of March 25 – 29, 2019, I will be giving several talks and workshops in Norway — first at the Deapartment of Art And Media Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and then at the Department of Nordic and Media Studies at the University of Agder in Kristiansand.

First, in Trondheim, on March 26 and 27, I will be participating on two workshops on videographic pedagogy and scholarship with Kathleen Loock.

Then, on March 28, also in Trondheim, I’ll be presenting work from my book project Discorrelated Images.

Finally, on March 29, in Kristiansand, I’ll be giving a talk on contemporary horror, also under the perspective of discorrelation.

Thanks to Julia Leyda for inviting me to Trondheim, and to Ahmet Gürata for the invitation to Kristiansand!

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Dreams and Terrors of Desktop Documentary — Kevin B. Lee at Digital Aesthetics Workshop

Lee Poster

On Wednesday, February 27 (5-7pm in the Board Room of the Stanford Humanities Center), the Digital Aesthetics Workshop will be hosting Kevin B. Lee for an event titled “Dreams and Terrors of Desktop Documentary”:

Desktop documentary is a form that both presents and critically reflects on the world as experienced through computer screens and online interfaces. Treating the desktop as a medium for non-fiction storytelling proposes a unique set of epistemological dilemmas, affective dimensions and aesthetic discoveries. These factors inform Bottled Songs, a collaborative investigation by Kevin B. Lee and Chloé Galibert-Laîné of online terrorist media. Screening excerpts from the project, Lee will elaborate on the desktop documentary approach and its applications in exploring the underlying networks — both human and technological — informing online terrorism.

Kevin B. Lee is a US-born filmmaker and critic. He has produced over 360 video essays exploring film and media. His award-winning film Transformers: The Premake played in several festivals and was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by Sight & Sound. He was Artist in Residence of the Harun Farocki Institut in Berlin. He is now Professor of Crossmedia Publishing at the Merz Akademie, Stuttgart. In 2018 he and Chloé Galibert-Laîné were grantees of the Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fund and artists-in-residence of the European Media Art Platform (EMAP).

Out Now: Videographic Frankenstein in Hyperrhiz 19

I am excited to announce that the Videographic Frankenstein exhibit, which ran September 26 – November 2, 2018 at Stanford, lives on in an online version — out now in Hyperrhiz 19! There you will find 10 video works on various facets of Frankenstein‘s moving-image legacy, from early film to television and digital animation, along with creators’ statements that reflect on this history and its relations to videographic scholarship, among other monstrosities.

Thanks again to the Stanford Medicine and the Muse Frankenstein@200 Initiative and the Stanford Department of Art & Art History and Program in Film & Media Studies for their generous support of the project.

Thanks also to Helen Burgess, editor at Hyperrhiz, for entertaining the notion of publishing an exhibition of creative and scholarly videos, and for working with me to find the right format.

And thanks, finally, to the contributors for all their hard work: Matthew Fishel, Jason Mittell, Allison de Fren, David Verdeure, Carlos Valladares, Lester Friedman, Kristine Vann, and Spencer Slovic!

Also, be sure to check out the full issue of Hyperrhiz, which is chock full of more excellent scholarly and creative work!