2014 Summer Institute in Film features MIT Professor William Uricchio

Visiting scholar William Uricchio, professor of Comparative Media Studies and principal investigator of the MIT Open Documentary Lab and the MIT Game Lab,  is the featured guest of York University’s 2014 Summer Institute in Film.

William Uricchio

This year’s Summer Institute focuses on thinking about archival cultures in relation to what has been called “the data base imaginary” (Vesna, Dietz, 2007). This intensive course investigates the epistemological and phenomenological boundaries of post-representational and database cultures, from traditional information management platforms developed for museums to the complex interfaces in popular games like GTA 5, to big data analytics and the promises of Web 3.0.

As part of his participation in the Summer Institute, Uricchio delivers three public lectures:

Monday, May 12, 2:30 to 4pm
Nat Taylor Cinems, N102 Ross Building, York University, 4700 Keele St. Toronto

Towards A New Cultural Order: Putting the Algorithmic Era in Perspective
The algorithmic departs from the object-subject relationship that defined the long Modern Era, and with it, notions of point-of-view, authorship and textual stability. So what does it enable? How did we get here? And what are the implications as we look ahead to new ways of ordering experience?

Tuesday, May 13, 2:30 to 4pm
Nat Taylor Cinems, N102 Ross Building, York University, 4700 Keele St. Toronto

Algorithmic Culture
Our stories, musical tastes, geo-orientation systems, finances and social relationships are but a few of the sites where algorithms harness massive data sets and facilitate large-scale participation. What can we learn from these practices and what are their implications for our archives and memory institutions?

Wednesday, May 14, 11am to 12:30pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. West. Toronto

Stories That Algorithms Tell…. 
Programs – not people – author an increasing number of stories in our newspapers and documentaries, and the results offer some real surprises. Given that stories provide the building blocks of our memory, what might this mean for the future of culture history and its institutions?

Admission to Uricchio’s talks is free. All welcome.

The 2014 Summer Institute in Film is co-presented by the Graduate Program in Cinema and Media Studies and Norman Jewison  Series, Department of Film, and Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology in the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University.

Now in its sixth year, the annual Summer Institute in Film offers York University graduate students and the wider community the opportunity to engage with prominent international scholars through seminars, courses and free public lectures.