ADM Research Lecture Series - 2012/2013

ADM Research Lecture Series

© 2 012 Mark Chavez

C Assistant Professor

Mark Joseph Chavez An animation industry expert and part of the founding animation faculty at ADM, Mark Joseph Chavez has contributed to the development of computer animation in video games, feature animation and live action visual effects.

Wednesday, 14 March 2012, 12.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

the viewer with various meaning depending on how it is presented.

As a final case study I will present an animated short movie whose

aural aspects of the movie is based on retrieved feedback detected from an audience.

The goal is to explore the film-maker's ability in a director driven system that allows for

Nanyang Technological University

School of Art, Design and Media

Art, Design and Media Library (ART-1-03) 81 Nanyang Drive Singapore 637458 Tel: +65 6513 7631 Email: adml@ntu.edu.sg

ADM Research Lecture Series

Now and Then Pictures from the Portugese Landscape Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 4pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

Professor Paul Kohl Paul Kohl earned a BFA from the San Francisco Institute in Photography and his Master Degree from Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. He exhibits his work internationally with recent shows in Japan, Canada, the USA, Malaysia, and Singapore. He has just published a monograph of work done in Japan titled “Two Fish, Out of Water.”

He is now teaching photography at NTU’s School of Art, Design and Media, where his current research is concerned with high-end inkjet printing and digital photography.

More of his work can be seen on his web site at http://www2.gol.com/users/pkohl

(photo credit: Shannon Castleman)

“These images are the result of my wandering through both the urban and rural landscape of Portugal. It was a wonderful experience for me, which I continued last summer.

The prints were made using special inks from Jon Cone’s Cone Edition Studios in the USA. There are seven shades of black ink that allow me to print with a sensitivity that goes beyond what I could have done in the wet darkroom.

My camera, a Leica M9, is also a tool unsurpassed.

The prints were made on Canson Rag Photographique paper. I love the quality of this paper in combination with Jon’s inks.

Lastly, to the Portuguese people, muito obrigado for allowing me to work in your beautiful country and Boa Sorte!

The entire exhibition of this work was added to the permanent collection of the Municipal Museum of Estremoz in Portugal where the work was exhibited last May and June.”

ADM Research Lecture Series

Strangers in Singapore: Saint Jack and Beyond

Wednesday, 24 October 2012, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

Benjamin Alexander Slater Ben Slater is a lecturer, film critic, script editor and screenwriter. He has script-edited several produced feature films including Helen, HERE, Endless Day and Mister John. He has co-written the forthcoming sci-fi thriller Camera and wrote the short film The Legend of the Impacts. His articles on cinema have been published internationally, including Cahiers du Cinema and Screen International.

He lectures on narrative, screenwriting and criticism at NTU's School of Art, Design and Media, and continues to research and write about foreign film productions in Singapore on his blog, http://www.sporeana.blogspot.sg

In 1978, Hollywood director Peter Bogdanovich came to Singapore for six months and made a film called Saint Jack, an adaptation of a novel by Paul Theroux about Jack Flowers (Ben Gazzara), a freelance pimp hustling for his future on the streets of a rapidly changing city-state. Ben Slater wrote the definitive account of the 'making of' the film in his 2006 book Kinda Hot: The Making of Saint Jack in Singapore.

In this presentation, Ben will explore Saint Jack in context and present rare (and entertaining) clips from other 'foreign' and 'outsider' films made in Singapore that depict an alternative, imaginative moving-image history of the island.

Kinda Hot and Saint Jack (book and film) are available in NTU Libraries.

Call no.: PN1995.9.P7S631

Call no.: PS3570.H4S143 2004

To register for this talk, simply scan this QR code or go to this link: http://goo.gl/DrQqE

Call no.: PS3570.H4S143

ADM Research Lecture Series

When art matters:

Health, well-being & human flourishing Wednesday, 21 November 2012, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

Assistant Professor Michael Tan Koon Boon Michael’s research interest explores the roles and significance of the arts and design in context of health, well-being and human flourishing. As an advocate for arts and health development in Singapore, Michael is involved in mapping the local arts and health and priming the field with key stakeholders from the art, health and social care sector.

Michael has designed and ran Art and Health projects in hospitals such as Singapore General Hospital and National University Hospital, and with organization such as the Parkinson’s Disease Society Singapore. He is currently collaborating with staff from the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) to implement a pilot project to study the impact of visual art program on the quality of life of residents in nursing homes.

Art and Health is an interdisciplinary field that has gained salience internationally in recent times. Over the course of its development, the field has attracted practitioners from a wide range of disciplines such as medicine, humanities, the arts and social science to investigate the significance of arts on issues related to health, well-being and human flourishing.

This talk offers its audience a global view of development in the field, by highlighting key concerns and showcasing organizations that are championing work. The lens will also turn towards our local landscape to provide a sense of art and health development in Singapore, where Michael will share his work and visions for the field of Art and Health in Singapore.

To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/RIzPe4

ADM Research Lecture Series

MARSHA KINDER Since 1997 she has directed The Labyrinth Project, a research initiative on interactive narrative, producing database documentaries and new models of digital scholarship in collaboration with media artists, independent filmmakers, scholars, scientists, students and cultural institutions.

Marsha Kinder began her career as a scholar of eighteenth century English Literature before moving to the study of transmedia relations among narrative art forms.

She currently is an Emerita Professor of Critical Studies in USC’s School of Cinematic Arts where she has been teaching since 1980, and where her specialities include Spanish cinema, narrative theory, children’s media culture, and digital culture.

She has published over one hundred essays and ten books, including Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National identity in Spain and Playing with Power in Movies, Television and Video Games.

These works have been featured at museums, film and new media festivals, and conferences worldwide and have won prestigious awards.

They have been supported by grants from the AHRQ, Annenberg, Casden, Ford, Getty, Haas, Irvine, NEH, Righteous Persons, Rockefeller, and Skirball Foundations.

In 1995 Kinder received the USC Associates Award for Creativity in Scholarship, and in 2001 was named a University Professor for her innovative interdisciplinary research.

In collaboration with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Mark Jonathan Harris, she is currently working on an on-line project titled Interacting with Autism and is writing a book titled The Discreet Charms of Database Narrative.

She was the founding editor of Dreamworks (1980-87) and The Spectator (1982-present), and since 1977 has served on the editorial board of Film Quarterly.

To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/remixing-dna

Remixing DNA: Database, Narrative and Archives Wednesday, 20 February 2013, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

In the digital age, we have all experienced the increasing importance of archives and databases as means of knowledge production—whether in history, documentary, or fiction.

While some claim they are alternative structures replacing narrative, by now we can see how they are increasingly working together—as archival cultural histories and database narratives, two signature genres of The Labyrinth Project, a research initiative founded

by Marsha Kinder at the University of Southern California in 1997.

After presenting some basic definitions, Kinder will explore how these three modes of knowledge production have been interwoven in classic movies from the past and how they are being remixed in the present, in radical database films like The Mist in the Palm Trees (2006) and in multimedia projects produced

by Labyrinth.

Nanyang Technological University

School of Art, Design and Media

Art, Design and Media Library (ART-1-03) 81 Nanyang Drive Singapore 637458 Tel: +65 6513 7631 Email: adml@ntu.edu.sg

ADM Research Lecture Series

Art, Heritage and Cultural Politics: The Acropolis of Athens as a universal case study Wednesday, 20 March 2013, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level Andrea Nanetti (Ph.D. Bologna University 2000) started his scholarly career at the Department of History and Methods for Cultural Heritage Conservation at the University of Bologna (Ravenna) where he enriched his academic education in the humanities developing prototypal electronic features to "engineer historical memory", started his university teaching and participated in national and international research projects, reaching Assistant Director positions.

Between 1996 and 2013 his research ďŹ ndings have been presented in more than 130 academic papers in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. He has received widespread recognition for his work, winning funding, receiving international prizes and awards, and being published in a number of dierent languages including Italian, English, Greek, and Chinese.

To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/Yrffkd

"The Acropolis of Athens and its monuments are universal symbols of the [Western] classical spirit and civilization and form the greatest architectural and artistic complex bequeathed by Greek Antiquity to the world" (UNESCO world heritage list #404).

Using archival materials, paintings, engravings and photographs, the lecture will present how Greece switched from Karl Friedrich Schinkel's project (1834) of making the Acropolis the Palace of the new Bavarian King of Greece to the decision of creating the archaeological site that today is visited by tourists from all over the world.

During the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, 2,000 years of architectural heritage were deleted in order to musealize the skeleton of the 5th century BCE Acropolis and even the newly established Acropolis Museum funded by the European Union puts on stage only the 5th century BCE Acropolis.

Why? This lecture will put Heritage and Politics on stage as a contribution to "Art History" global discussions.

Nanyang Technological University

School of Art, Design and Media

Art, Design and Media Library (ART-1-03) 81 Nanyang Drive Singapore 637458 Tel: +65 6513 7631 Email: adml@ntu.edu.sg

From the end to the miracle: Italy 1943-1954 Wednesday, 10 April 2013, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level Giannalberto Bendazzi’s

Giannalberto Bendazzi is

academic career started rather

currently a Visiting Professor at

late in life after decades spent

the Nanyang Technological

as an independent scholar,

University in Singapore, School

with the 2001 appointment at the Griffith University of Brisbane (Australia) as an adjunct professor. From 2002 – 2009 he taught the first course on animation history in Italy.

The huge book Cartoons 2, a completely remade version of his world history of animation, encompassing three centuries, is due to be published in the second half of the current year.

of Art, Design and Media. He is a film critic and historian, and since 1971 has extensively published in various languages about comedy films, American films and − especially − animation.

His best known work is Cartoons, 100 Years of Cinema Animation, a world history of the medium that has been published in Italian, French, English, Spanish and Farsi.

A good book is also Alexeieff – Itinerary of a Master (in English and French, 2001), which is devoted to the famous auteur of experimental short films.

On 8 September 1943 King Vittorio Emanuele and all the government cowardly fled the German Wehrmacht, leaving the army, the administration and the country beheaded. It was a shock called Finis Italiae (Latin for “The End of Italy”). The Italian citizens were ashamed by their ruling class, and were looking for a breakthrough.

There were various breakthroughs.

1) The Resistance. It was a rather strong movement.

2) The Communist dream. Italian Communists hoped in a rebirth of the nation under a new order.

3) The Neorealism. After so many Fascist fables, a strict observation of the actual conditions of people.

4) The myth of the Mediocre Italian, unable to do anything, ready to compromise on everything. (Such a sloppy figure couldn’t but lose the war...)

Eventually, the momentum given by the war, enhanced by the spirit of payback, brought Italian citizens, still disconnected from their ruling class, to create the Economic Miracle – the same way Germans and Japanese did. The Italian economy experienced an average rate of growth of GDP of 5.0% - 5.8% per year between 1951 to 73.

In 1954 the Trieste Free Territory, which still kept the city of Trieste separated from the rest of the country, was split in two parts. Zone A, with Trieste, was given to Italy and so the territorial fabric was reconstructed. The general optimism was sealed with the inauguration of TV airing and the building of the first Italian skyscraper, the same year.

To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/XRmW

The Open Source Studio project: Re-envisioning the 3rd Space

Randall Packer, Visiting Artist Since the 1980s, multimedia artist and composer Randall Packer has worked at the intersection of interactive media and live performance.

He has received international acclaim for his social and politically infused works, and has performed and exhibited at museums, theaters, and festivals throughout the world.

In 2001, Packer created the US Department of Art & Technology as a virtual government agency, becoming its first Secretary. He was commissioned by the 2010 ZER01/SJ Biennial to premiere his performance work, A Season in Hell at San Jose Stage Theater. The Post Reality Show: TALK MEDIA! was performed via the Internet as part of the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC.

Packer is also an educator, writer and scholar in new media, most notably the co-editor of Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality.

Since 2012, he has developed Open Source Studio (OSS), an international project exploring collaboration and distance learning in the media arts. He has taught OSS at the California Institute of the Arts and the School of Art, Design, and Media at NTU in Singapore. Packer works and teaches remotely from his studio in Washington, DC.

Monday, 15 April 2013, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level Today we find ourselves dissolving the boundaries between what is public and what is private, between what is local and what is remote, what is real and what is virtual: we have, it seems, entered into what I would call the post reality. As connectivity becomes more and more ubiquitous and as we are increasingly tethered to our computers and mobile devices, we often find ourselves neither in the physical nor in the digital worlds, but in the 3rd space: a simultaneous merging of the proximate and the distant.

In an effort to find new ways to engage the Net to position the artist’s relationship to issues of media culture, I began work on an educational initiative and 3rd space environment for teaching, research and artistic production: Open Source Studio (OSS). The project was first developed as a graduate course in the fall of 2012 at the California Institute of the Arts, Center for Integrated Media, and is currently being taught - remotely from my studio in Washington, DC - to undergraduate art students at ADM. This presentation explores how Open Source Studio, as a 3rd space laboratory, uses web-conferencing, an open source course management system, and social media tools to immerse students in a visceral experience of the virtual in the study of media culture. OSS re-envisions the 3rd space, so as artists, curators, media thinkers, and educators, we can instigate new ways of thinking about and challenging our relationship to networked media.

To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:

http://bit.ly/randallpacker

The Role of Technology in Museum Studies Wednesday, 17 April 2013, 12.30pm - 1.30pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level

Phyllis Hecht Phyllis Hecht is director of online graduate program in Museum Studies at John Hopkins University. She helped found and develop the program, which enrolled its first students in 2008.

Ms. Hecht has more than 25 years of museum work experience, and prior to coming to Hopkins was manager and art director of the website at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Ms. Hecht co-edited “The Digital Museum: A Think Guide,” an anthology on museums and technology.

Ms. Hecht currently serves as chair of the American Alliance of Museum’s Committee on Museum Professional Training (COMPT) and was previously on the board of AAM’s Media and Technology Committee as well as the advisory board of the Horizon Report: Museum Edition (2010, 2012).

In 2011 Ms. Hecht was the recipient of a research grant from The Benjamin and Rhea Yeung Center for Collaborative China Studies to initiate partnerships of mutual learning between U.S. and Chinese museum professionals, educators, and students.

Museums of the 21st century are in the midst of a tremendous period of growth and change. To keep up with this change, it is critical for museum studies programs to provide a perspective on the theory and practice of museums in a changing technological, social and political environment to their students.

The John Hopkins University (JHU) online graduate program in Museum Studies examines these changes and emphasizes the role of technology as a pervasive aspect in today’s museum and employ’s web-based tools to create learning and social communities within the program.

This talk will introduce how technology is an integral part of the JHU program – its concepts and curriculum – and examine how it builds community and collaboration among an international faculty and student body in a dynamic online learning environment.