On Friday, December 9th, MIRACLE organises a seminar/lecture on the French scholar Roger Odin and his semio-pragmatic approach to film and media. Odin’s work, including his latest book Les Espaces de communication, will be presented by Frank Kessler.

The seminar/lecture will address the general principles on which the Odin builds his semio-pragmatics, the central concepts he introduces, as well as the questions he has addressed over the past 25 years.

When: Friday, December 9th, 2011, 13.00-17.00.
Where: Utrecht, Muntstraat 2a, room 1.11.

The number of participants is limited. To register, please mail to Sarah Dellmann (S.Dellmann@uu.nl)

De Vereniging Geschiedenis, Beeld en Geluid organiseert, in samenwerking met Miracle:

Verrijkt Verleden
Nieuwe mogelijkheden in Audiovisueel Onderzoek
Utrecht, woensdag 7 december. Aanvang 20.00u

Historisch onderzoek heeft veel baat bij nieuwe technische ontwikkelingen. Steeds meer archieven worden gedigitaliseerd. Research and Development-afdelingen van erfgoedinstellingen ontwikkelen nieuwe manieren om dit erfgoed te ontsluiten. Materiaal dat eerder onvindbaar was wordt steeds beter ontsloten. Hoe werkt dit? En wat betekenen deze ontwikkelingen voor audiovisueel onderzoek?

Sprekers

• Jaap Blom, Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid,
over technologieën voor het ontsluiten en doorzoekbaar maken van audiovisueel materiaal.

• Arjan van Hessen, Human-Media-Interaction Groep, Universiteit Twente,
over taal- en spraaktechnologie voor het ontsluiten van audiovisuele documenten

• Martin Feijen, SURF foundation,
over de ontwikkelingen in en mogelijkheden van verrijkte publicaties

Zaal open: 19.30
Gratis Entree
Borrel na afloop.

Locatie: Universiteitstheater Studio T | Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht.

Thursday,  March 10th 2011, 5.00-6.30 pm.

Location: Muntstraat 2A, 1.11

abstract:

In this paper I propose to look at a specific instance of film reflecting on its own predicted demise. I look at experimental practices where direct intervention on the film strip becomes part of a process of remembering and mourning. I argue that these are exemplary not merely of a mise en abyme of, or of a nostalgic lament for, the disappearance of celluloid, but of a creative reworking of the “obsolescence” thesis that encourages us to re-consider the “death of film” controversy in material as well political terms.

Professor Martine Beugnet is convenor of Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Marginalité, sexualité, contrôle: cinéma français contemporain, l’Harmattan, 2000, Claire Denis, M.U.P. series on French Directors, Manchester University Press, 2004, Proust at the Movies, in collaboration with Marion Schmid, Ashgate, 2005, Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression, EUP, 2007. She has also written articles and essays on a wide range of contemporary cinema topics, including, in 2009/2010, contributions to the anniversary issues of the Australian Journal of French Studies, Studies in French Cinema and Screen.

This lecture is a special edition of MCW’s What’s Cooking?! research platform, organized by MIRACLE,  (http://miracleresearch.wordpress.com/)

Friday, March 18^th 2011, 3-5 pm.

Location: Stijlkamer van Ravensteyn (1.06), Kromme Nieuwegracht 80

The proliferation of electronic objects demands a reconceptualization of our notions of archive, library and bibliographic access. The digital environment offers unprecedented access to the past, altering our relation to history, presenting new opportunities for preservation and access, but also posing threats to historical memory and the cultural record. We are witnessing a growing interest in archival theory across many disciplines and a recognition that all scholarship is implicitly a negotiation with, an interpretation of, and a contribution to the archival record. Recently I’ve been exploring the tremendous archival power of the digital and the utility of archival metaphor in understanding new media. I’ve called this phenomenon the archival effects of the digital. Digitization provides greater access to the past, fuller access to the present, and a reshaping of historical consciousness. While cultural artifacts from earlier periods have been accessible through libraries, archives and museums throughout the modern period, the ease of access and the omnipresence of older artifacts now available in digital formats is a recent phenomenon. Nevertheless, the tremendous growth in digital projects should not blind us to the fact that the choice, design and funding for digitization projects continues to be shaped by social and political forces and continues to demand theoretical and critical scrutiny.

Marlene Manoff has a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis University and Masters Degrees in comparative literature (UCLA) and library and information science (Simmons). She is the Associate Head and Collection Manager for the MIT Humanities Library. She has published articles on the politics of building library collections and on the political and social implications of electronic text and the impact of electronic technology on scholarly research. Her essays include The Materiality of Digital Collections: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, Theories of the Archive from Across the Disciplines and The Symbolic Value of Libraries in a Digital Age. She is currently a visiting scholar at Max-Planck-Institute, Berlin.

This lecture is organized by Cultures & Identitites (Changing Literacies).

http://web.mit.edu/mmanoff/www/

For more information contact: Martina Roepke (M.M.Roepke@uu.nl)

On Thursday, November 18th MIRACLE will organise a workshop on the film historical and theoretical writings of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, a body of work that undoubtedly counts among the most important contributions to cinema studies over the last three decades. The workshop aims at assessing the …impact of Neoformalism and Historical Poetics on the study of film history as well as the interventions by Bordwell and Thompson to theoretical debates.

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We would, however, organize a preliminary meeting this Friday, on October 29, 15.00 at Muntstraat 2A (room 1.11) with the goal to sketch out the main lines of this year’s seminar.

After having discussed the concepts of “dispositif”, “performance”, and “liveness” over the last years, the 2010-11 Utrecht Media and Performance Seminar will be dedicated to “representation”.  On the one hand, this term is rather ubiquitous in a broad range of discourses on media and it is a widely debated issue in theatre and performance studies. On the other hand, “representation” is an extraordinarily polysemic word, referring to numerous and diverse phenomena in the visual and scenic arts, in semiotics, cognitive psychology, political sciences and so forth.

As part of MCW’s ongoing What’s Cooking?! research platform, the MIRACLE group (our research centre for film and moving-image media) is hosting a session on digital preservation with Sabine Lenk as our guest speaker next Friday, April 23rd.

Location  Kromme Nieuwegracht 80, 1.06 (Stijlkamer van Ravenstyn)
Time: 15.00-17.00

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIGITIZE?

The Dutch Institute for Sound and Image (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid) is busy digitizing about 17.500 hours of film material over a period of seven years as part of the Beelden voor de toekomst-project. A crucial question for users of such archival material then is: What exactly happens on a technical level when an analogue image “becomes digitized”? How does this affect the image? This presentation will look at current practices and in particular at the way in which film archives cooperate with labs and post-production companies.

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The Iconology Research Group – an initiative of the Universities of Leuven and Utrecht – advances iconology as a field and method within the context of visual studies and image sciences (Bildwissenschaften). The IRG reviews and rethinks original methodologies in the light of new approaches, asks how other disciplines have profited from iconology and how they in turn inspire and/or reinvent iconology. Beyond methodological reflection, the IRG singles out three central research themes: the production and technologies of pictures, the significance and agency of images, and the transfer and migration of motifs. The IRG is a platform for discussion, research, and collaboration in Belgium and the Netherlands and opens up ongoing projects to international developments and perspectives. For more information see: iconologyresearchgroup.org

Annually, the IRG organizes an “Iconology meets…”‐symposium that focusses on the relation between iconology and other relevant fields, featuring a methodological discourse, historical research into the interdisciplinary roots of iconology, as well as specific case studies. The first two editions, Iconology meets Anthropology and Iconology meets Visual Studies were held in Leuven and Louvain‐la‐Neuve. The third edition, Iconology meets Film Studies, takes place on March 5, 2010 from 9:30 to 18:00 (U Theatre Studio-T Kromme Nieuwegracht 20).

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Wat voor soort onderzoek verricht je tijdens je MA, RMA of stage? En wat daarna, wat voor carrière ga je mogelijk tegemoet? Deze en andere vragen worden beantwoord tijdens de FAQ Masteravond MCW op dinsdag 2 maart in Studio T aan de Kromme Nieuwegracht 20. Op de avond presenteren docenten en studenten van het Departement MCW vanuit uiteenlopende onderzoeksgebieden hun onderzoekspapers en stageprojecten. Tevens zullen twee alumni vertellen over hun carrière na de (Research) Master. De presentaties verlopen volgens het Pecha Kucha format: korte, creatieve powerpoints van 20 slides, ieder 20 seconden.

- Datum: dinsdag 2 maart
- Tijd: 19:00 tot 22:30 uur
- Locatie: Studio T (Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht)
- Plaatsen: 80
- Kosten voor deelname: geen

Om verzekerd te zijn van een plaats kan je je aanmelden via blik.tijdschrift[at]gmail.com.

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