One-day symposium looks at Future Cinema Lab research and projects today

New Stories for New Screens, a one-day symposium exploring research and projects from the Future Cinema Lab including a screening of York film Professor John Greyson’s award-winning opera-documentary Fig Trees, will be held today.

The event will take place from 10:30am to 6pm in Room T-1009 at the TEL Building, Keele campus. Admission is free.

Right: Image from the John Greyson film Fig Trees

The symposium will start with "Research/Creation", a look at knowledge production through experimental art practices. New research by students in the Graduate Program in Communication & Culture – Anna Friz and Jason Rovito, Julie Nagam, Vicky McArthur, Andrei Rotenstein – will be presented, moderated by York film and Canada Research Chair Professor Janine Marchessault.

The Future Cinema Lab is a joint research project between Marchessault, York film Professor and Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture Caitlin Fisher, and Greyson.

Left: John Greyson

At 12:15pm, Andrew Roth (BA ’07, Cert-Digital Media ‘07) will present the “Gremlin-Infested Positioning System” looking at locative media at the Banff Centre, moderated by Fisher. Roth is the Future Cinema Lab’s technology manager and an instructor in interactive arts and sciences at Brock University in St. Catharines.

A Future Cinema Lab round table, “New Stories, New Screens, New Struggles”, will follow at 1pm with presentations by Coordinator of Fine Arts Cultural Studies Don Sinclair, film Professor Ali Kazimi, Marchessault, Fisher and Greyson. York Professor Brenda Longfellow, chair of York’s Department of Film in the Faculty of Fine Arts, will moderate. A light buffet lunch will be served to all participants.

Right: Caitlin Fisher

Fig Trees, an opera-documentary about AIDS, pills and Gertrude Stein made with assistance from the Future Cinema Lab, will screen at 3pm in the Price Family Cinema, Accolade East Building. Greyson won a Best Documentary/Essay Teddy Award at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival for Fig Trees. He previously won a Teddy Award for Urinal (1989, Best Documentary); The Making of Monsters (1991, Jury Award); and Uncut (1998, Special Award).

Left: Janine Marchessault

“Augmented Reality Fog Bar” will open at 5pm in the Augmented Reality Lab, 303 Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts where there will be a wine and cheese reception, with presentations of Fisher’s award-winning digital poem “Andromeda” and Sinclair’s fog screen installation. Fisher is the co-winner of the City of Vinaròs 4th International Digital Literature Award 2008 prize in poetry, for “Andromeda” – a first for a Canadian (see YFile, Feb. 27).

The Future Cinema Lab at York investigates how new digital storytelling techniques can critically transform a diverse array of state-of-the-art screens. It is the first dedicated facility of its type in Canada, enabling researchers to design new forms of storytelling, develop prototypes for urban research and create innovative, subversive projects within networked and hybrid media environments.

For more information, visit the Future Cinema Lab Web site.