Tuesday 29 November 2011

Trauma Film Screenings in December

Trauma Film Screenings present: Capitalism in Cinema: A Brief History

Presented by Gözde Naiboğlu

This season will see the screening of three thrillers framing three different periods of capitalism experienced in three different settings: 1950’s in a South American vil...lage, 1920’s oil boom in California, and Hanover of former West Germany, present. What unites these three films is not their exploration of the savage virulence of capitalism according to the thriller genre conventions, but the questions that they provide us with: what sort of subjects does capital require and produce? What are the desires and beliefs that mobilize the (non)characters on screen and what symptoms of the capital-logic do these processes of desire production demonstrate? The season aims to delineate these symptoms by following the transformation of subjectivities throughout the transformation of labour. From the naturalist settings of the early to mid 20th century industrial capitalism to the eeriness of the post-industrial world of contemporary finance capitalism, the three films attempt to expose the in-human quality of capitalism’s operational logic.

Monday 5th December
Le Salaire de la Peur (1953)
Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
France
We (along with a long list of filmmakers) shall forever be thankful to the author of the novel “Le Salaire de la Peur”, Georges Arnaud for his arguably bigoted decision to give the rights to the film to a French filmmaker instead of Hitchcock. Set in an abject town in Venezuela, the film opens with an American oil firm boss’s offer to pay a big amount of money to whoever accepts to transport two trucks filled with highly explosive nitro-glycerine which will be used to extinguish a nearby oil-well fire. The slow paced, nightmarish journey is one of the most intense trips in the film history that is, in Karel Reisz’s words, “unselectively and impartially anti-everything”.

Monday 12th December
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
USA
Set in early 1900’s California and loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil!”, There Will Be Blood is a dark dialectical account of capital and religion which touched a nerve for its relevance today. The main character of the film, the greedy oil pioneer Daniel Plainview, which won the actor Daniel Day Lewis an Academy Award for Best Actor in 2007 is one of the most fascinating characterizations of the archetypal “homo economicus” ever performed. Day-Lewis’s affect-free performance of Daniel Plainview is the focus of the introduction to the film - with its pure beastly quality it is a perfect exhibition of the pre-subjective and inhuman quality of capitalism.

Monday 19th December
Yella (2007)
Dir. Christian Petzold
Germany
The “Berlin School” director Christian Petzold’s Yella tells the story of a recently divorced young woman leaving her hometown in former East Germany to find a job and start anew in the World Expo 2000 host city Hanover in former West Germany. The whole film is about money, as the director explains in an interview there is not a single scene without money’s presence in it. Yet the strictly materialistic and mundane non-spaces of the post-industrial German town paradoxically exude an atmosphere of otherworldliness. The non-characters pass through these spaces and barely leave footprints behind, and are constantly chased by the ghosts of the past. Yella presents an almost clinical exploration of the operations of today’s finance capitalism.

All screenings are FREE and start at 6pm in Manchester Lecture Theatre, All Saints Building, Oxford Rd.


Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TraumaFilm
 

Monday 28 November 2011

Salford Art and Design PGR session, 7/12

2.00 – 5.00 Wednesday 7 December 2011 in Room HT210, Centenary Building.

The topic is "Intellectual Property Rights and Research Ethics in Art and Design"

The session will be led by Professor Alex Williams and Dr Rob Partington.

Friday 25 November 2011

Scottish Clarinet Quartet concernt

Sunday 27th November 2011 // 3:00pm // Admission: Free

Venue: University of Salford,

Digital Media and Performance

Lab, MediaCityUK,

With Matt Hulse

‘Songs of the Earth’ & The Parlour

Guide to Exo-Politics

In a rare trip ‘south of the border’ the Scottish Clarinet Quartet (SCQ) presents

‘Songs of the Earth’, in which composers including Stephen Davismoon, David

Fennessy, Sadie Harrison and Anna Meredith collaborated closely with

photographer Terry Williams to create an audiovisual synthesis: sound and image

together evoking the wild natural world of Skye.

The concert will also include SCQ’s latest commission, ‘The Parlour Guide to

Exo-Politics’, work produced by ‘Gameshow Outpatient’ and featuring

visuals from film maker and video artist Matt Hulse. This work has been made

possible through the support of Creative Scotland. www.scq.org.uk

Thursday 24 November 2011

30/11 talks postponed

In anticipation of industrial action this coming Weds, the two talks scheduled for the Graduate Programme will be postponed until the new year.

The next talks will be on 14 December (followed by a Christmas social):

Internal session: Dr Yu-Wei Lin, "Technofeminism and Media Technologies"
External speaker: Dr Andrew Burke (University of Winnipeg), "The Sound of Straight-to-Video: VHS Head’s Trademark Ribbons of Gold"

I'll send out email reminders prior.

Thursday 17 November 2011

MMP Grad Programme talks

Our many thanks to Dr Eithne Quinn for her fantastic talk on grime lyrics as legal evidence

(Salford's Prof David Sanjek introduces Dr Quinn)

Here's a link to Eithne's book on gangster rap.

Our next session (30/11) potentially clashes with industrial action across the public sector, in which case I'll reschedule our talks. Information to follow.

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Grad Prog talks, 16/Nov

Internal session: Dr Benjamin Halligan
(3.10 - 4pm; second floor lecture theatre, Adelphi House)

Questions of Anti-Establishment Art

How is the history and ontology of the “English establishment” preserved and maintained in postmodern times? This presentation of current research examines Jarman’s 1992 painting “Queer”, the 2002 track “Time for Heroes” by The Libertines, and Mario Testino’s official wedding photograph of Kate Middleton and William Wales from 2011. To what extent do these three texts from the last two decades seek to subvert and/or renew notions of the establishment - its aesthetics, ideology, rituals and prejudices? In what ways is this establishment both called into creation, and called to account, in these three documents? And how does the radical or bohemian tradition of English modernist art fare in this context? The discussion will take as its starting point Stephen Frears’ gelding for the 2006 film The Queen.




External Speaker: Dr Eithne Quinn
(4.15 - 5.15; second floor lecture theatre, Adelphi House)

Dr Eithne Quinn of the University of Manchester is author of Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (Columbia University Press, 2005). She is currently completing a book entitled A Piece of the Action: Race and Labour in Post-Civil Rights Hollywood.


Taking the Rap: The Use of Violent Grime Lyrics in Criminal Cases
In three recent murder cases in London, prosecution counsels presented violent ‘grime’ rap lyrics written by defendants as evidence of guilt. As author of a scholarly book on gangsta rap, Eithne Quinn acted as an expert witness for the defence in the three trials. This paper gives an account of the legal use of violent rap and argues that, in these cases, lyrics should not be admissible as evidence.

The Future of Television Talk by Alex Connock

What kind of TV are you going to be working in for the next 40 years ? It's going to be global, interactive and online - and very different from the one we all grew up with. Visiting Professor Alex Connock, who co-founded the large factual TV production company Ten Alps, and has now founded Salford-based digital content company Pretend, tries to find some answers. Social media content, big-hitting interactive TV formats, more than ever from the North, and a TV business geared to sell programmes around the world will all feature, with loads of examples, and questions for the audience. Alex is also Chairman of the Royal Television Society in the North West, and a visiting fellow in journalism at Oxford University.


Monday 14 Nov, 5.15pm, Digital Performance Lab, MediaCityUK
Free to attend but please email d.hughes1@salford.ac.uk to let them know.

Thursday 3 November 2011

Seven Sites project


Link to the Seven Sites project, which consists of 7 separate but inter-related performance events at various sites around Manchester, below. The project is being supported by the University and we have students involved gaining work experience. The next event is taking place on November 23rd.




Innovation through Heritage event

Innovation through Heritage: How do we maximise the use of heritage assets in businesses, the cultural sector and higher education?

Date: - Friday 11th November 2011; Time: - 12.00 noon until 4 p.m.

Location: University of Salford, The Old Fire Station, Acton Square, The Crescent, M5 4WT

Join us at this FREE seminar organised by University of Salford's Leisure, Heritage & Recreation Research Group, in conjunction with the International MNEMOS project – www.enterpriseculturalheritage.org, ISOS research group and UKAIS.

Cultural Heritage – How can it open new opportunities?

Kath Doran MD for Spectrum Plastics, a business which has been around since 1922. Kath will talk about learning through experience and the wealth of knowledge that has been passed down the generations. This heritage has helped the organisation to diversify, increase and widen marketopportunities and develop new products whilst maintaining the core values the business was originally built on. www.spectrumplastics.co.uk


Tools and Technology – Satisfying local needs online

Sarah Hartley Sarah will talk about the community engagement project, www.n0tice.com, which re-examines the idea of local news and information in the context of a SoLoMo (social-local-mobile) context to create a digital community noticeboard. She blogs about journalism, social media, local news and online communities and is also a regular writer at The Guardian's Northerner blog www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner


Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Steven Flower will talk about how Salford Lads' Club utilises a chance connection with the 1980's band The Smiths to help preserve and continue it's 100 year legacy of providing services to young people and to continue to "Brighten Young Lives and Make Good Citizens" (its moto) using Social Media Surgeries, Digital library of fans on Flickr and much more…


Struggling To Get Your Voice Heard?

Maintaining quality in an age of quantity Lynette Cawthra was appointed Manager at the Working Class Movement Library in 2006 with a remit to 'explore, develop, and implement methods of presenting the resources of the Library in new, more exciting and accessible ways'. At a time of public expectation of ever-present access to digital information and yet also of severe funding cuts, how can this be achieved?


Programme:

12:00 Light lunch and informal networking

13:00 ”Pecha Kucha“ from researchers and practitioners in the Heritage area

14:00 Keynote speakers

15:50 Closing remarks


How to book?

If you would like to attend this free event, please complete an online booking form by visiting: http://ech.eventbrite.com
Places are limited please book early - before 7th November http://ech.eventbrite.com
Guests are invited to participate in this event by submitting a Pecha Kucha. See tips for presenters (www.isos.salford.ac.uk/pechakucha.php) and submit your slides by 1st November by emailing l.walker@salford.ac.uk and e.vasilieva@salford.ac.uk

Help us to promote this event by sharing the event leaflet with those who might be interested - download the Innovation Through Heritage event leaflet here.

For more information please contact us:

Liz Walker on 0161 295 2888 l.walker@salford.ac.uk
Elena Vasilieva on 0161 295 3510 e.vasilieva@salford.ac.uk

Colman / Deleuze talk

Our many thanks to Manchester Metropolitan University's Dr Felicity Colman (left) for her fantastic talk on Deleuze and cinema yesterday.

Here's a link to her recent book on the same.

New series of Invisible Histories talks

Talks at the Working Class Movement Library:

Wednesday 9 November 2pm Alison Gill and Helen Ostell 'Safety in numbers: life in Prestwich Asylum in 1900'.

Wednesday 16 November 2pm Tim Gee ‘Counterpower'.

Wednesday 30 November 2pm George McKay - ‘Radical Gardening'.