14:30 DAY 1 (26/9) CORNERHOUSE THEATRE, LB01, OXFORD STREET
Po Po
Film
Ken Fero, University of Coventry, Residency Guest
16:00 DAY 1 (26/9) CORNERHOUSE THEATRE, LB01, OXFORD STREET
Surya
Film
Dr Laurent Van Lancker, INSAS/SIC/Freie University Berlin, Conference Keynote Speaker
Once upon a journey, ten contemporary storytellers of different cultures create an imaginary epic story. They each draw on their own style and own language to prolong the life of a nameless hero. The aromas of cultures, the taste of words and the perfume of travelling carry us from one storyteller to the next.
Like an epic story, this film oscillates between imagination and reality, the inner world and the outside world, documentary and fiction.
An ode to orality.
This impressionistic film is the outcome of an overland odyssey by public transport from dusk to dawn, through Europe and Asia (Belgium, Slovakia, Turkey, Syria, Kurdistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Vietnam). An audio-visual performance where imagination and creativity travel across borders.
Like an epic story, this film oscillates between imagination and reality, the inner world and the outside world, documentary and fiction.
An ode to orality.
This impressionistic film is the outcome of an overland odyssey by public transport from dusk to dawn, through Europe and Asia (Belgium, Slovakia, Turkey, Syria, Kurdistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Vietnam). An audio-visual performance where imagination and creativity travel across borders.
14:30 DAY 1 (26/9) CORNERHOUSE THEATRE, LB01, OXFORD STREET
Zawawa – the Sound of Sugar Cane in the Wind
Film
Rupert Cox, University of Manchester
Sound is migratory. It resides in place as the vibratory movements of air, through resonance, reverberation and reflection. It may be both settling and unsettling, and this film, ‘Zawawa’, an Okinawan word meaning the sound of sugar cane rustling in the wind, is about both of these capacities of sounds, heard by inhabitants of the island of Okinawa as a felt memory of the Pacific war and its post-war aftermath.
The film ‘Zawawa’ is the result of a ten year long collaboration between an anthropologist, Rupert Cox, an acoustic scientist Kozo Hiramatsu and a sound artist, Angus Carlyle and supported by a grant from the Toyota Foundation. Our work has been about understanding the long standing problems of ill health, environmental damage and social suffering caused by exposure to the noise pollution of US military jets on the island of Okinawa. This is because military sound cannot be contained by the borders of the military bases and flight paths it originates from, but like all sound moves and settles in the bodies of listeners as the sense of a place over time. As a memory of the senses, such military sounds, along with those of the environments within which they occur may persist as an affect of place even when they are not literally present as the movements of air. In our film we have tried to show how the relationships of sounds to the places where they occur and to the individuals who hear them is obscured by the categories of scientific analysis of aircraft noise but can be reinvigorated by the categories that people themselves recognize and use when talking about the broader ‘soundscape’ and the ways that sounds existing and heard today are related to the war time events that had occurred and were remembered in place.
The film ‘Zawawa’ is the result of a ten year long collaboration between an anthropologist, Rupert Cox, an acoustic scientist Kozo Hiramatsu and a sound artist, Angus Carlyle and supported by a grant from the Toyota Foundation. Our work has been about understanding the long standing problems of ill health, environmental damage and social suffering caused by exposure to the noise pollution of US military jets on the island of Okinawa. This is because military sound cannot be contained by the borders of the military bases and flight paths it originates from, but like all sound moves and settles in the bodies of listeners as the sense of a place over time. As a memory of the senses, such military sounds, along with those of the environments within which they occur may persist as an affect of place even when they are not literally present as the movements of air. In our film we have tried to show how the relationships of sounds to the places where they occur and to the individuals who hear them is obscured by the categories of scientific analysis of aircraft noise but can be reinvigorated by the categories that people themselves recognize and use when talking about the broader ‘soundscape’ and the ways that sounds existing and heard today are related to the war time events that had occurred and were remembered in place.
16:00 DAY 2 (27/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Living the Weather
Film
Lorenzo Ferrarini, University of Manchester
Living the Weather is an experimental documentary film on people’s everyday experiences of the weather and seasons in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. I filmed it as part of a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Professor Jennifer Mason at the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester.
The documentary presents five different ways of living different atmospheric conditions, repeating five times a structure made of two fundamental components. This is the reason I used a musical analogy in the subtitle Five Variations on Weather and Seasons in the Calder Valley. Each section is first made of static shots, accompanied by a voiceover that was prepared by the protagonists of that chapter during the research phase, creating an evocative narration lasting about 2.5 minutes. The remainder of the section is constituted by a sequence shot, with synchronous sound only, of the duration of 5 minutes. This 7.5 minutes structure is repeated five times for different subjects and different weather conditions, with just a single-shot intertitle between them.
The documentary presents five different ways of living different atmospheric conditions, repeating five times a structure made of two fundamental components. This is the reason I used a musical analogy in the subtitle Five Variations on Weather and Seasons in the Calder Valley. Each section is first made of static shots, accompanied by a voiceover that was prepared by the protagonists of that chapter during the research phase, creating an evocative narration lasting about 2.5 minutes. The remainder of the section is constituted by a sequence shot, with synchronous sound only, of the duration of 5 minutes. This 7.5 minutes structure is repeated five times for different subjects and different weather conditions, with just a single-shot intertitle between them.
16:00 DAY 2 (27/9) ROOM ALB G.020/021, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Swamp Dialogues
Film
Ildikó Plájás, University of Amsterdam
The Danube Delta in Romania - the 'Last European Sanctuary’ - is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While major efforts are made to protect biodiversity, the plight of local communities is largely overlooked. Social scientists claim that the traumatic nature of the swamp bears heavy on the villagers' lives. But is Nature really to blame? Swamp dialogues is based on extensive field-research about the discoursive creation of wilderness in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. Through a careful ‘argument montage’ built entirely on cinematic language the film entails an anthropological reflection on knowledge production in social sciences.
13:30 DAY 1 (26/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
10:00-18:00 BOTH DAYS (26-27/9) THE RIGHTON BUILDING COMMON AREA, MMU
10:00-18:00 BOTH DAYS (26-27/9) THE RIGHTON BUILDING COMMON AREA, MMU
Affective Cinema
Film/Video Installation
Pavel Prokopic, University of Salford
Affective Cinema is a series of experimental films that investigate the beauty of images and unpredictability of reality. The project combines captivating moments of chance with alternative approaches to performance and elements of cinematic style, such as cinematography. The work stems from practice-based research, which focuses on the potential of film to disclose an intimate view of the world, and create a sense of ‘affective meaning’ – a meaning that is felt before it can be thought. Affective Cinema does not aim to tell a story; instead, it reveals the world and the human body anew, through the infinite palette of cinema. For more information, please visit pavelprokopic.com
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
DeafCam South Africa
Photography
Prof. Andrew Irving, University of Manchester
DeafCam South Africa is a selection of photographs taken by deaf school children in Soweto and Durban. Deaf young people often face social and linguistic exclusion and discrimination. Drawing on workshops as part of a collaboration between the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, Social Research with Deaf People and the Centre of Deaf Studies, the accompanying images emerge from something deaf children are excellent at – understanding the world visually. By developing new skills in photography and filmmaking, deaf children are representing their lives and influencing how others see and understand them. Funded as part of theMRC/AHRC Global Challenge project Enhancing Resilient Deaf Youth.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
City of Love and Ashes
Art Installation
Mostafa Elbana, faculty of fine arts, Egypt
My work style is abstract, contemporary, comprehensive and realistic. My work could be seen as cultural signs in the contemporary art; it’s a mixture of the cultural history and modernism.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
Disappearing into Night
Audio visual artwork
David Kendall, Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths, University of London
‘Disappearing into Night’ explores how infrastructural transformation, energy generation and consumption in Doha (Qatar) effects spatial and social change in the built environment. As a result, transforming ocular and sonic boundaries, and the fluid threshold between the past and the present, in spaces where economic migrants rest, worship and trade amid 24-hour construction sites: locales that appear to be silent yet in reality never sleep in the sky glow enveloping the biosphere.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
Let's Wear Pixels
Film
Yoonha Kim
This short film sheds light on how and why three fashion designers based in Amsterdam use mixed-reality technology alongside traditional ways of designing. This seemingly futuristic idea sounds more possible when we realise that the pixels of Instagram filters and AR apps are surrounding us, affecting how we see the world and visually expressing ourselves.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
Anime Music Videos: Electric Culture and Participatory Media
Film
Katelin Garner, William Vasquez, California State University of Long Beach
By tracing the history of anime and the development of “fandom” over the past several decades, this video essay examines the cultural significance of Anime Music Videos as a product of a growing participatory culture in a digital environment. The medium has rapidly expanded a cross-cultural dialogue on aesthetics, themes, and ideologies, revealing animation’s potential to generate discursive practices.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) THE RIGHTON BUILDING COMMON AREA, MMU
Visioning Lab
Film
Jessica Symons, University of Manchester
Visioning Lab explores techniques for stimulating imaginative thinking and a current focus considers how to develop futures thinking with a minimum of props and interventions. In this exhibition, you will have the opportunity to undertake a 'future visioning session' of your own by listening to a Youtube broadcast and drawing what you see.
14:00 DAY 2 (27/9) ROOM ALB G.030/031, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
We Are In It
Film
Dr Yehuda Sharim, University of California, Merced
We are in it chronicles the stories and journeys of five Houston residents and their attempt to find refuge in this American metropolis. By combining tales of deportation with everyday defeats and resilience, it identifies what lies beneath the surface of migrant and refugee realities and the unsettling need to move towards political and economic security. The film documents their personal archives – poetry and paintings of Baghdad, film clips of the Burmese diaspora, songs in Swahili – and their efforts to re-envisage a home amidst experiences of trivialized war, hardship, and alienation.
Filmed over a period of two years, this feature-length documentary combines intimate portraiture with epic narrative. This piece traces their daily experiences, and reveals the subtleties of despair, hope, and irony, in an intensified political climate regarding global migration and the militarization of borders.The film comprises a grand panorama of American life in a time where the movement across borders in search of safety is part of an ongoing experience that does not end with the arrival to USA. We are in it, finally, tells the paradoxical story of placement and displacement, an ever-morphing tale that does not consist of clear points of entry or departure.
Filmed over a period of two years, this feature-length documentary combines intimate portraiture with epic narrative. This piece traces their daily experiences, and reveals the subtleties of despair, hope, and irony, in an intensified political climate regarding global migration and the militarization of borders.The film comprises a grand panorama of American life in a time where the movement across borders in search of safety is part of an ongoing experience that does not end with the arrival to USA. We are in it, finally, tells the paradoxical story of placement and displacement, an ever-morphing tale that does not consist of clear points of entry or departure.
10:00 DAY 2 (27/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Dreaming The Memories of Now
Essay Film/Art Film
Robert Brečević and Geska Brečević, Performing Pictures – Independent artistic platform
Journeying into the mythical space of the outlands of southern Mexico, visual artists Geska and Robert Brečević and their five-year old daughter Katja unearth complex stories in which time, memory and nostalgia are continually reenacted. Dreaming The Memories of Now leads us through a stunning and profound exploration of the artistic process of creation and an ethereal declaration of love for a place. Stretching the genre of documentary, this film poem is a composition of far-ranging thoughts, sun-drenched images and scenes of mystery, guided by the voice of the narrator and a gripping, visceral soundscape. http://dreamingthememoriesofnow.com/
10:00 DAY 2 (27/9) ROOM ALB G.020/021, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Chicken Blood
Art Installation
Alberto Gerosa, Chinese University of Hong Kong
The execution of the ancient Chicken Blood ritual as performed daily by millions of migrant workers across China. The work re-interprets this practice, identifying it as the most important contemporary Chinese performing-art style.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) COMMON PLACE BUS
“,”
Audio-Visual Work
Ezekiel Morgan, Freie Universität
"," re-imagines and hacks digital 360 camera technologies as well as algorithm based image interpolation technologies in exploring invisible relations.
13:30 DAY 1 (26/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Specere I: Appareil
Film
Alexandra Murphy, University of Northampton
As my photographic practice is predominantly based in the museum space, this project explores the theatricality of the modern museum in a quest to find remnants of the earlier archetypal Wunderkammer within. The title Specere etymologically links with other key research terms such as ‘spectacle’ and ‘specimen’ and Appareil alludes to both the camera and the museum space as physical embodiments of visuality.
10:00-18:00 BOTH DAYS (26-27/9) THE RIGHTON BUILDING COMMON AREA, MMU
Object-oriented Filmmaking Research Practice: Being in the world with a film camera.
Film/Photo Installation
Laura Harris, University of Liverpool
My research uses filmmaking as a way undertake visual analysis of embodied knowledge, particularly related to objects and skill. Currently, I am exploring this topic at a contemporary art centre, Bluecoat Liverpool, where I have produced a film featuring gallery technicians and artists.
13:30 DAY 1 (26/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
The Realm of Forgotten Existence
Documentary Film/Experimental Film
Piotr Piasta
While the images in the film reveal a landscape that often seems unchanged, the narrative reveals fragments of forgotten stories and traditions, skills and working lives no longer of value in today’s society.
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
I Like Mongolia and Mongolia Likes Me
Art Installation
Hermione Spriggs, University College London
The Anthropology of Other Animals (“AoOA”) explores the possibility of making art for humans and other species of animal through the creation of multisensory lures, decoys and traps. "AoOA” is also a sound produced by both humans and animals at moments of capture and release.“AoOA” is more broadly engaged in topographic translations between species, perspectives and scales, and has recently been instrumental in defining the curatorial strategy for an exchange between anthropologists at University College London and artists in Mongolia.
10:00 DAY 2 (27/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Celluloid Corridors
Film
Dalia Neis, Andreas Reihse, Mohamed A. Gawad, University of Salford
A reel unwinds into a stream of celluloid consciousness. An audio-play about cinema: part film-manifesto, part audio-essay, part cinematic-séance. Voices summoned from the lucid realms of the technologically-spirited, more-than- human archive.
11:00 DAY 1 (26/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Diaspora
Video Essay
Dr Benjamin Spatz, University of Huddersfield
My current research explores the relationship between embodiment and audiovisuality. I have worked for many years in song and movement theatre and performance and have recently started to create video essays as research outputs of experimental embodied practice.
First published in in Global Performances Studies 2.1
First published in in Global Performances Studies 2.1
10:00-18:00 DAY 2 (27/9) DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POP-UP VENUE
'Future City' the Montage of Virtualities and Realities through Video Art
Film
Tess Baxter, Lancaster University
The video work ‘Future City’ brings virtual world material, archive film and creative commons music into juxtaposition. The comparative and emergent positioning of the material both informed the editing and creative process, and generates a multiple range of possible meanings and understandings for the viewer.
14:00 DAY 2 (27/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Rehearsing Memory
Film
Dr Belen Cerezo, Nottingham Trent University
'Rehearsing Memory, Belton 2015' explores what might mean to commemorate, in the sense of bringing to memory, the broad and complex histories and stories of the Machine Gun Corps (MGC) training camp, established in Belton Park for the WW1, here in the present. The video, which adopts a form between a documentary and an essay, juxtaposes different materials reflects on the stories of the Machine Gun Corps in the Park along with broader ideas regarding memory, and also the very realization of the film. This video tackles –among other issues- the scale of the camp, the complexity of training for war, the role of memory in imagining the future. This way, it exceeds historical accounts and proposes that memory is an ongoing and active process.
The video 'Rehearsing Memory, Belton 2015' is part of a bigger collaboration with the artist Rebecca Lee, commissioned for Belton House, Grantham, UK.
The video 'Rehearsing Memory, Belton 2015' is part of a bigger collaboration with the artist Rebecca Lee, commissioned for Belton House, Grantham, UK.
14:00 DAY 2 (27/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Vale Longo, Racism is Aesthetic
Film
Gabriela Monteiro
Vale Longo, is a necessary exercise for me and the rest of the 51% of the Brazilian population who define themselves as black, so we can take ownership of what belongs to us. As the African proverb says, "Until the lions have their own historians the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter"
I see aesthetics as a platform to encourage self-discovery and strengthen people’s potential to become the protagonists of their own story, independently of the nullification they might be subjected to. As a fashion designer, I want my work to give people freedom so that they can simply be themselves.
I see aesthetics as a platform to encourage self-discovery and strengthen people’s potential to become the protagonists of their own story, independently of the nullification they might be subjected to. As a fashion designer, I want my work to give people freedom so that they can simply be themselves.
14:00 DAY 2 (27/9) GCVA SCREENING ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
The Storehouses of the World
Film
Timothy Cooper, University College London
An audiocassette recorded decades ago deep among the crowd at a ritual mourning procession continues to circulate in the neighbourhood in which was first made. The Storehouses of the World attempts to outline a social history of recording – of both religious and secular media-, showing how such precious keepsakes expand beyond their platforms and preserve far more than their creators intended.
