On women’s film festivals: histories, circuits, feminisms, futures

When they began to flourish in the 1970s, women’s film festivals offered pivotal opportunities for the exhibition of films by women filmmakers beyond the mainstream. Since then, these festivals have grown into significant platforms for the dissemination of and research into women’s films and are actively shaping the global film festival landscape. Yet, despite this proliferation and the advance of the burgeoning field of Film Festival Studies, little research has been undertaken into the organisation and development of women’s film festivals. This thesis presents the first lengthy study that explores women’s film festivals in depth. The key concern of this research project is to fill a conceptual gap in scholarship by mapping the field of Women’s Film Festival Studies. It is situated at the intersection of Film Festival Studies, feminist theory and feminist film theory and draws on a multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework. The enquiry is based on Patricia White’s understanding of cinefeminism, which is concerned with the exhibition and distribution of women’s films as an activist practice. Departing from this theoretical starting point, this thesis examines women’s film festivals from four perspectives: their history, their position on the film festival circuit, their relationship with feminist theories and their archiving practices. At the heart of this analysis are case studies of four festivals: a study of the Dortmund | Cologne International Women’s Film Festival, a comparative study of the London Feminist Film Festival and Underwire Festival in London, and a reconstructive study of the Women’s Event at the 1972 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Drawing on findings about these festivals, this thesis proposes a conceptual framework for the study of women’s film festivals that is informed by their history, impact, activism and documentation. The thesis also focusses on an underexplored aspect of the feminist film movement: exhibition. It lifts women’s film festivals out of the generic framework of niche film festivals, and draws connections between Film Festival Studies, history and archive studies. Thus, the conceptual originality of the work is found in its contribution of new knowledge to the fields of feminist film theory and Film Festival Studies. The research design is based on feminist research methodologies and is rooted in Standpoint Theory and a feminist epistemological understanding of knowledge production. As such, another key contribution of the thesis is a methodological intervention, which is not only valuable within the academic context of the field, but can also be applied by festival organisers and practitioners. This thesis attempts to reconstruct a comprehensive history of women’s film festivals and embeds their development in the context of the general history of film festivals and the political progress of women’s movements. Moreover, it draws parallels and highlights differences between the cultural and political contexts of individual festivals, and provides a survey of contemporary women’s film festivals. With regard to women’s film festivals on the global festival circuits, the thesis suggests how different purposes of these festivals inform how they are positioned in relation to one another. In terms of feminisms at women’s film festivals, it analyses the way different feminist theories become manifest at these festivals and proposes that contrasting theoretical perspectives can be present simultaneously at the same festival. Finally, considering the state of archiving women’s film festivals, it argues that renewed encounters with historical festivals through the archive can produce new knowledge about these events, which can inform contemporary and future practitioners. The thesis takes the view that the future of women’s film festivals lies in their past. Every aspect negotiated in this thesis draws a connection between contemporary and historical women’s film festivals and considers how the past informs the present and the future. As such, the research serves as a practical application of what Kate Eichorn describes as the archival turn. It proposes an open dialogue between the historical progress of women’s movements, which gave birth to the idea of women’s film festivals, and contemporary feminist activism at festivals and festival research, by looking backwards and forwards at the same time

Towards Creative Citizenship: Collaborative Cultural Production at CBC ArtSpots

This dissertation develops the concept of creative citizenship, which suggests that artists and creative workers who engage in collaborative media production and dissemination practices –particularly in public broadcasting and digital media – are also preoccupied with the dynamics of civic engagement. Their responsibility is to their artwork and to audiences through networked flows of social relations and production approaches. Revisiting literature on cultural citizenship (Hermes 2005, Murray 2005, Uricchio 2004) and the precarity of creative work in the broadcast business (Cunningham 2013, Mayer 2011, Spigel 2008), creative citizenship concerns itself with production practices linking narrowcast audiences, media workers and cultural facilitators to a range of participatory creative activities in mediated sites of engagement. A nuanced understanding of collaborative practices in the long-running television and Internet Canadian public broadcasting project, CBC ArtSpots (1997-2008), helps rethink recent cultural studies of production. The research involved attends to convergence culture concerns, grapples with gender issues, investigates the activation of policy, and animates artistic interventions. ArtSpots was an innovative, collaborative public broadcasting initiative that produced over 1,200 short videos, several long-form documentaries and a substantial array of virtual and media-based materials for exhibitions, online and mobile devices. It involved more than 1000 cultural leaders and creators in its production and dissemination and featured over 300 artists. The investigation of ArtSpots in this dissertation generates insights into the transition to a digital media production and multi-modal diffusion environment in the realm of the Canadian media industry at the turn of the 21st century. Contextualizing this work in relation to the cultural economy of creative labour and media production helps show how media and art is produced and shared in public broadcasting. The author’s own professional and reflexive work and networks as the founder of ArtSpots act as catalysts to crystallize the research, grounding analysis in a distinctive expertise about the relationship of Canadian art to the broadcasting industry, and pointing to exciting implications of creativity and collaboration as core commitments and practices in media production and distribution today. Keywords: creative citizenship, cultural production, media studies, public broadcasting, creative labour, innovation, collaboratio

Rethinking Change

UIDB/00417/2020 UIDP/00417/2020No seguimento da Conferência Internacional sobre Arte, Museus e Culturas Digitais (Abril 2021), este e-book pretende aprofundar a discussão sobre o conceito de mudança, geralmente associado à relação entre cultura e tecnologia. Através dos contributos de 32 autores, de 12 países, questiona-se não só a forma como o digital tem motivado novas práticas artísticas e curatoriais, mas também o inverso, observando como propostas críticas e criativas no campo da arte e dos museus têm aberto vias alternativas para o desenvolvimento tecnológico. Assumindo a diversidade de perspectivas sobre o tema, de leituras retrospectivas à análise de questões e projectos recentes, o livro estrutura-se em torno de sete capítulos e um ensaio visual, evidenciando os territórios de colaboração e cruzamento entre diferentes áreas de conhecimento científico. Disponível em acesso aberto, esta publicação resulta de um projecto colaborativo promovido pelo Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa e pelo maat – Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnologia. Instituição parceira: Instituto Superior Técnico. Mecenas: Fundação Millennium bcp. Media partner: revista Umbigo. Following the International Conference on Art, Museums and Digital Cultures (April 2021), this e-book seeks to extend the discussion on the concept of change that is usually associated with the relationship between culture and technology. Through the contributions of 32 authors from 12 countries, the book not only questions how digital media have inspired new artistic and curatorial practices, but also how, conversely, critical and creative proposals in the fields of art and museums have opened up alternative paths to technological development. Acknowledging the different approaches to the topic, ranging from retrospective readings to the analysis of recent issues and projects, the book is divided into seven sections and a visual essay, highlighting collaborative territories and the crossovers between different areas of scientific knowledge. Available in open access, this publication is the result of a collaborative project promoted by the Institute of Art History of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University of Lisbon and maat – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology. Partner institution: Instituto Superior Técnico. Sponsor: Millennium bcp Foundation. Media partner: Umbigo magazine.publishersversionpublishe

Music and Digital Media: A planetary anthropology

Anthropology has neglected the study of music. Music and Digital Media shows how and why this should be redressed. It does so by enabling music to expand the horizons of digital anthropology, demonstrating how the field can build interdisciplinary links to music and sound studies, digital/media studies, and science and technology studies. Music and Digital Media is the first comparative ethnographic study of the impact of digital media on music worldwide. It offers a radical and lucid new theoretical framework for understanding digital media through music, showing that music is today where the promises and problems of the digital assume clamouring audibility. The book contains ten chapters, eight of which present comprehensive original ethnographies; they are bookended by an authoritative introduction and a comparative postlude. Five chapters address popular, folk, art and crossover musics in the global South and North, including Kenya, Argentina, India, Canada and the UK. Three chapters bring the digital experimentally to the fore, presenting pioneering ethnographies of an extra-legal peer-to-peer site and the streaming platform Spotify, a series of prominent internet-mediated music genres, and the first ethnography of a global software package, the interactive music platform Max. The book is unique in bringing ethnographic research on popular, folk, art and crossover musics from the global North and South into a comparative framework on a large scale, and creates an innovative new paradigm for comparative anthropology. It shows how music enlarges anthropology while demanding to be understood with reference to classic themes of anthropological theory

Open Engagement 2011 catalog

2011 — Portland, Oregon — Art and Social Practice Open Engagement is an artist-led initiative directed and founded by Jen Delos Reyes committed to expanding the dialogue around and serving as a site of care for the field of socially engaged art. We highlight the work of transdisciplinary artists, activists, students, scholars, community members, and organizations working within the complex social issues and struggles of our time. Since 2007, OE has presented ten conferences in two countries and six cities, hosting over 1,800 presenters and over 7,000 attendees. In addition, OE managed a publishing arm, and assembled a national consortium of institutions, colleges, and funders all dedicated to supporting artists engaged in this necessary and critical work.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_engagement/1001/thumbnail.jp

Music and Digital Media

Anthropology has neglected the study of music. Music and Digital Media shows how and why this should be redressed. It does so by enabling music to expand the horizons of digital anthropology, demonstrating how the field can build interdisciplinary links to music and sound studies, digital/media studies, and science and technology studies. Music and Digital Media is the first comparative ethnographic study of the impact of digital media on music worldwide. It offers a radical and lucid new theoretical framework for understanding digital media through music, showing that music is today where the promises and problems of the digital assume clamouring audibility. The book contains ten chapters, eight of which present comprehensive original ethnographies; they are bookended by an authoritative introduction and a comparative postlude. Five chapters address popular, folk, art and crossover musics in the global South and North, including Kenya, Argentina, India, Canada and the UK. Three chapters bring the digital experimentally to the fore, presenting pioneering ethnographies of anextra-legal peer-to-peer site and the streaming platform Spotify, a series of prominent internet-mediated music genres, and the first ethnography of a global software package, the interactive music platform Max. The book is unique in bringing ethnographic research on popular, folk, art and crossover musics from the global North and South into a comparative framework on a large scale, and creates an innovative new paradigm for comparative anthropology. It shows how music enlarges anthropology while demanding to be understood with reference to classic themes of anthropological theory. Praise for Music and Digital Media ‘Music and Digital Media is a groundbreaking update to our understandings of sound, media, digitization, and music. Truly transdisciplinary and transnational in scope, it innovates methodologically through new models for collaboration, multi-sited ethnography, and comparative work. It also offers an important defense of—and advancement of—theories of mediation.’ Jonathan Sterne, Communication Studies and Art History, McGill University 'Music and Digital Media is a nuanced exploration of the burgeoning digital music scene across both the global North and the global South. Ethnographically rich and theoretically sophisticated, this collection will become the new standard for this field.' Anna Tsing, Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz 'The global drama of music's digitisation elicits extreme responses – from catastrophe to piratical opportunism – but between them lie more nuanced perspectives. This timely, absolutely necessary collection applies anthropological understanding to a deliriously immersive field, bringing welcome clarity to complex processes whose impact is felt far beyond what we call music.' David Toop, London College of Communication, musician and writer ‘Spanning continents and academic disciplines, the rich ethnographies contained in Music and Digital Media makes it obligatory reading for anyone wishing to understand the complex, contradictory, and momentous effects that digitization is having on musical cultures.’ Eric Drott, Music, University of Texas, Austin ‘This superb collection, with an authoritative overview as its introduction, represents the state of the art in studies of the digitalisation of music. It is also a testament to what anthropology at its reflexive best can offer the rest of the social sciences and humanities.’ David Hesmondhalgh, Media and Communication, University of Leeds ‘This exciting volume forges new ground in the study of local conditions, institutions, and sounds of digital music in the Global South and North. The book’s planetary scope and its commitment to the “messiness” of ethnographic sites and concepts amplifies emergent configurations and meanings of music, the digital, and the aesthetic.’ Marina Peterson, Anthropology, University of Texas, Austi

Archival Body/Archival Space: Queer Remains of the Chicano Art Movement, Los Angeles, 1969-2009

This dissertation proposes an interdisciplinary queer archive methodology I term "archival body/archival space," which recovers, interprets, and assesses the alternative archives and preservation practices of homosexual men in the Chicano Art Movement, the cultural arm of the Mexican American civil rights struggle in the U.S. Without access to systemic modes of preservation, these men generated other archival practices to resist their erasure, omission, and obscurity. The study conducts a series of archive excavations mining "archival bodies" of homosexual artists from buried and unseen "archival spaces," such as: domestic interiors, home furnishings, barrio neighborhoods, and museum installations. This allows us to reconstruct the artist archive and, thus, challenge how we see, know, and comprehend "Chicano art" as an aesthetic and cultural category. As such, I evidence the critical role of sexual difference within this visual vocabulary and illuminate networks of homosexual Chicano artists taking place in gay bars, alternative art spaces, salons, and barrios throughout East Los Angeles. My queer archive study model consists of five interpretative strategies: sexual agency of Chicano art, queer archival afterlife, containers of desire, archival chiaroscuro, and archive elicitation. I posit that by speaking through these artifact formations, the "archival body" performs the allegorical bones and flesh of the artist, an artifactual surrogacy articulated through things. My methodological innovation has direct bearing on how sexual difference shapes the material record and the places from which these "queer remains" are kept, sheltered, and displayed. These heritage purveyors questioned what constitutes an archive and a record, challenging the biased assumption that sexuality was insignificant to the Chicano Art Movement and leaving no material trace. The structure of my dissertation presents five archive recovery projects, including: Robert "Cyclona" Legorreta, Joey Terrill, Mundo Meza, Teddy Sandoval, and VIVA: Lesbian and Gay Latino Artists of Los Angeles. The restoration of these artists also reveals the profound symbiosis between this circle of artists, Chicano avant-gardism, and the burgeoning gay and lesbian liberation movement in Los Angeles. My findings rupture the persistent heterosexual vision of this period and reveals a parallel visual lineage, one which dared to picture sexual difference in the epicenter of Chicano art production

Social Role Transitions and Technology: Societal Change and Coping in Online Communities

Technological and societal changes unfold in relation to one another. Many events like becoming a parent, getting divorced, or getting a medical diagnosis dictate a change in one’s social role. Social role transition can have negative consequences including stress, stigmatization, and disempowerment. Social interactions, especially communicating with allies and those facing similar conditions, can alleviate the psychological burden of these challenges. The goal of this dissertation is to understand how people use technology to cope with social role change, and how the features of different online communities provide a range of ways to make sense of their social role transition, find support, and advocate for change. In the first study (Chapter 3), I qualitatively analyze interviews with fathers and a sam- ple of father blogs to show how fathers use do-it-yourself (DIY) language on blogs and in their online interactions as a means of redefining fatherhood. Fathers use the DIY concept to build their own father-centric online communities in order to manage some of the disad- vantages associated with the lack of parenting online communities that cater to them. This new framing of fatherhood allows fathers to make sense of their new role as parents, and at the same time, to redefine the social norms around fatherhood. In Chapter 4, I study how parents use social media sites at scale using natural language processing. The focus of the analysis is on Reddit, a social media site that allows users to comment under pseudonyms. I find that parents use pseudonymous social media sites to discuss topics that might otherwise be considered too sensitive to discuss on real-name social media sites such as Facebook (e.g., breastfeeding and sleep training). This study also outlines similarities and differences in discussion topics among mothers and father on Reddit (e.g., mothers discussing breastfeeding and fathers discussing divorce and custody). Finally, in Chapter 5, I use computational and qualitative methods to study how anony- mous accounts on Reddit (throwaway accounts) provide parents with varying levels of anonymity as they cope with social role changes by sharing potentially stigmatizing infor- mation (e.g., postpartum depression) or advocating for stigmatized identities (e.g., divorced fathers). Finally, based on my findings, I present design recommendations that could pro- mote better social support on platforms beyond Reddit.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162933/1/tawfiqam_1.pd