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Second International Colloquium of the Permanent Seminar on the History of Film Theory
The Impact of Technological Innovations on the Theory and Historiography of Cinema, November 01, 2011
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It is time to question ourselves about the emergence and development
of these discourses by placing them within their historical
context and by trying to understand their origin and scope.
Several major issues are at the heart of the problem tackled by this
colloquium. Such fundamental concepts as realism, authenticity
or representation, for example, are irretrievably placed under the
banner of the technology which constantly affects their intrinsic
modalities. Also, should we ask how the emergence of a new
technology, such as CinemaScope, non-linear editing tables or
ultra-portable digital cameras for example, manages to cast a
new critical eye over the film object? Or how does it significantly
affect the positions of a particular theorist? Of a particular school
of thought? What about technologies that support a media space
related to cinema’s, such as radio or television? Have they led to a
redefinition of movies based on the singularity of the medium or,
conversely, do they tend to blur the borders? Also, have technologies
from outside the immediate process of film production also
contributed to a more complex theoretical discourse? Indeed, some
technical features which, at first glance, might seem foreign to our
field (microscopy, the locomotive, the typewriter, the telephone,
etc.) can often provide a fuller epistemological portrait within
which to inscribe cinema.
It should not be overlooked, moreover, how the very concept of
technology has been redefined to improve our understanding
of new historical and aesthetic phenomena. Long perceived as
apposite to institutions of power (industrial, political, colonial,
patriarchal), technology has been reinvested in many works and
discourses, allowing the creation of new forms of subjectivity and
representation. Film scholars in film must also confront technology
when they teach : analytical projectors, VHS, DVD video discs
and other technology are all ways to access the film and, in the
classroom, are “diverted” from their commercial intent towards
academic purposes. Moreover, there are now tools for computeraided
analysis developed specifically for academic purposes
(“Cinemetrics”, “Ligne de temps”, etc.). How does technology fit
into the teaching practice of cinema? How does it determine film
education? It is the same for archiving and film restoration: how
does technology transform our conception of these practices? The
second colloquium of the Permanent Seminar on the History of
Film Theory hopes to bring to these questions if not answers, then at least food for thought to illuminate this unifying theme. |
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Events
Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories Conference 2014 in Frankfurt, August 20-24 2014
Critical Thoery, Media and Film: Exploring the Frankfurt Legacy, August 20, 2014
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An international conference organized by the Institute for Theater, Film and Media at Goethe-Universität and the Institut für Sozialforschung, Frankfurt, in cooperation with the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories, August 20-24, 2014.
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Hollywood and the World
A Diversity and Recognition Project - Second Global Conference, November 10, 2013
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The popularity in Western culture of all things Hollywood reflects the eternal fascination with the world of Hollywood cinema. This inter-disciplinary research conference seeks to explore issues of Hollywood films and their international influence across historical periods and within cultural, political and social contexts both in the US and abroad. We are also interested in exploring this cinema in personal experience and interpersonal relationships and across a range of critical perspectives.
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FILM AND MEDIA 2013: The Pleasures of the Spectacle
The Third Annual London Film and Media Confenrence 27-29/06/2013, June 27, 2013
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The Conference theme for 2013 is The Pleasures of the Spectacle. This major international conference will again seek to explore, celebrate and critique the screen-based traditions of film, TV and digital media in all their manifold dimensions. This pioneering annual conference is likely to be of considerable interest to established scholars, early career Faculty, young researchers, and anyone with a commitment to learning about global film and media in a dynamic and friendly academic context.
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World Film 2013
International Conference on Film and Media
International Conference on Film and Media
International COnference on Film and Media, May 18, 2013
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The conference WORLD FILM 2013 is an interdisciplinary conference dedicated to film and media studies. The theme of the conference is Between Dreams and Reality. The conference is interdisciplinary and might be interesting for philosophers, film theorists and practitioners, psychologists, architects, artists, critics, journalists and all people interested in cinematography.
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Second International Colloquium of the Permanent Seminar on the History of Film Theory
The Impact of Technological Innovations on the Theory and Historiography of Cinema, November 01, 2011
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It is often repeated that before being an art, before being an
industry, cinema was initially a technology. At the beginning,
moreover, the camera was as intriguing as the illusion that
it managed to recreate. And if the initial fascination with the
cinematographic mechanism waned quickly, it resurfaces at regular
intervals following the emergence of each new technology that
changes the way films are produced, distributed or exhibited, and
even, more fundamentally, the way we think about cinema. Over
the past thirty years, several studies have traced the development
and socioeconomic consequences of new technologies which, year
after year, shape and redefine what cinema is. But what exactly is
the significance of all these kinds of machines and devices for the
theory and historiography of cinema? Have they helped open new
avenues of thinking and new methodologies or break down some
misconceptions at the heart of Film Studies? This colloquium seeks
to question the impact of technological innovations on the development
of the critical discourse and historiography of cinema.
The pervasiveness of the “technological” in the history and
theory of cinema demands its further investigation. The aim of
this colloquium is to evaluate the importance of technological
innovation in the articulation of a critical discourse in film studies.
More specifically, it seeks to comment on the impact caused by the
introduction of new technologies on the theory and historiography
of cinema, that is to say, to investigate how these technologies have
altered the way we think about cinema, its fundamental properties,
and its potential uses. Film scholars all know of the “four legendary
moments” of the technological history of film evoked by Peter
Wollen – the invention of the Lumière Cinematograph, the arrival
of sound, that of color, and finally the introduction of “widescreen”
formats – but how exactly have these shaped the discourse of
theorists, historians and other film critics? And what about other,
lesser known or forgotten innovations that have emerged at
various times in film history? We could not, moreover, neglect the
advent of digital technologies and CGI (computer generated images),
whose countless cinematographic applications caused major
upheavals in the course of reflection on cinema, upheavals whose
full extent has not yet been measured. The history of film theory is
punctuated with reflections that, occasioned by these technological
upheavals, manage to escape the extreme positions that are often
used to summarize the debate (technology as a “panacea” or as
a “scourge” of the modern world) and instead propose a more
nuanced and stimulating perspective on the fundamental properties of cinema.
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XVIII International Film Studies Conference
The Archive
Memory, cinema, video and the image of the present, April 05, 2011
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It was Jacques Derrida who reminded us that the word archive (Archè) combines the idea of beginning and that of command: the place where things get started, and where the sources reside, but at the same time the place where the Law arises and where it finds its dwelling.
In the regime of the image the archive is – in a single concept – the storage of recorded and transmitted images, but also what Jacques Rancière defines as «the organization of the sensible» (le partage du sensible); that instance which regulates, institutes and organizes the places and positions of access to the experience of the visual. Nevertheless the archive is not a one-dimensional concept: it is not only made by objects and concreteness, but also by void spaces, missing elements, silences, which preserve not only the transmittable history but also the trace of what could have been but was not and nevertheless continues to persist in the present times.
While a widespread tradition always understood history as a vertical narrative that emerges from an origin and is written like a book by a constituent subject; the archive appears as a radical dishomogeneity, irreducibly paratactic and organized through a vast multiplicity of elements.
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Sergei Eisenstein’s Unpublished “Notes for a General History of Cinema”. World Premiere
September 30 – October 2, 2010, Columbia University, New York, NY
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A Conference staging the critical reception by scholars in the field.
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Women and the Silent Screen VI
University of Bologna, Italy, June 24, 2010 – June 26, 2010
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The Sixth International Women and the Silent Screen Conference will celebrate the diversity of women’s engagement with silent cinemas across the globe through a series of scholarly panels, keynote addresses, and archival film screenings.
Continuing the dynamic spirit that characterized previous conferences in Utrecht (1999), Santa Cruz (2001), Montréal (2004), Guadalajara (2006), and Stockholm (2008) the conference will provide an open and friendly atmosphere for the exchange of research and insight into women’s involvement in the first four decades of film history.
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The Arthemis International Conference. "Moving Images Studies: History(ies), Method(s), Discipline(s)"
Concordia University, Montreal, June 4-7 2010, ,
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The ARTHEMIS conference wishes to offer an international forum for scholars to reflect on the theory and practice of film and moving image studies from historical and epistemological perspectives.
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XVII International Film Studies Conference
March 16-18, 2010, January 12, 2010
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The Film Canon
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XVI Udine International Film Studies Conference
Permanent Seminar on History of Film Theories
Udine, March 23, 2009
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Call for papers
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Geographies of Film Theory
London, June 26 (evening) – June 28, 2008, ,
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The conference has been designed to engage specifically with intellectual fields that concern both the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies and the Screen Studies Group through an examination of the development and diffusion of film theory.
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Permanent Seminar on the History of Film Theories
XV Udine International Conference, March 03-04, 2009
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An international network gave life to a Permanent Seminar on the History of Film Theories. The XV Udine Conference will host on March 3 and 4 the first meeting organized by the seminar.
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XV Udine Conference
Cinema and Comics. Affinities, differences and new forms of interference, March 03-06, 2008
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Interest in comparing cinema and comics is not new. At first glance, there are any number of apparent affinities and similarities between them.
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