Contact:
pitt...@gmail.com
412.973.8373
412.624.6564

How does a given art form function, flourish, or fail within an industrial context? How is art affected by industrial stasis or change—is it compromised, fostered or stifled? What is the role of the artist in an industrial setting, and what happens to a work of art once it is mass-produced, or distributed in a foreign territory, or exhibited through a new medium? As we move further into an era of economic and environmental crises, the relationship between art and industry acquires particular urgency, since the very idea of progress fuels the history of how these two fields of human activity meet. It is this relationship which our conference will attempt to define, historicize, and question.

Keynote Address by Ted Hope

Producer/Partner/Founder, This is that corporation

When, in the late ‘80’s, American Independent Film burst on the media scene with the promise of new visions, new stories, and new approaches, Ted Hope was among the first producers to emerge from the pack, and today remains one of the few consistently delivering vital and exciting new work. As times, platforms, and tastes change, Ted’s work continues to break new ground, reach new audiences, and define the term “Independent.”

With partner Anne Carey, Hope founded and runs the New York production company This is that; Hope and Carey have worked together since they met on their first day at NYU Film School. In its seven years, This is that has produced seventeen features, receiving numerous awards, including four Academy Award Best Screenplay nominations. A survey of Hope’s work, numbering close to sixty films, includes many highlights and breakthroughs of the last two decades. Ted previously co-founded and ran Good Machine, which he and his partners sold to Universal in 2002. Good Machine was honored by a retrospective at the Museum Of Modern Art in 2001. [Read on]

plus: Prajna Parasher

with a Saturday night screening & discussion

Associate Professor and Director of the Film and Digital Technology program at Chatham University

Prajna Paramita Parasher is a filmmaker/scholar and multi-disciplinary artist practicing at the shifting intersection of classical thought and new technologies. Born in the foothills of the Himalayas, she began her education as a filmmaker in Paris and went on to earn a Ph.D. at Northwestern University. Currently she is an Associate Professor and Director of the Film and Digital Technology program at Chatham University. Her personal focus on postcolonial studies comes to realization in several forms. Her films Unbidden Voices (1989), Exile and Displacement? (1992), Yeh hi hai – Hieroglyphics of Commodity (1998-02); and installations, Image becomes Thought (2000), The Perfect Cleavage (2001), A Door Without Walls (2001), A Ripple Effect (2002), Nazrah: No Space is Empty (2002), Zero at the Bone (2003), Another Homecoming (2004), FlickerFusion: What The Dark Leaves Behind (2005), Pierced by the Prism of Shadow (2006-2007) and A Beholding (2007) turn to concrete form the political, economic and philosophical concerns addressed in her first book Retrospective Hallucination: Echo in Bollywood Modernities (2002). She has also co-edited two books – Kalaa: Fieldnotes from the Interior and Time Space Light Consciousness (2004). Her creative work is experimental and has been shown across the United States of America in venues from small towns to the Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Nehru Center – London, The Tagore Center -- Berlin and the San Francisco Cinematheque. Already part of the canon at major American Universities, her films are used in Ethnic, Diaspora, Cultural and Women’s Studies. Her most recent work (on canvas and linen paper) is sourced in painting, film, photography and Sufi poetry. She has received recognition via multiple fellowships, awards and grants.

Program

Credits & Contact

This conference is generously sponsored by the Film Studies Program, the Department of English, the Office of the Dean of the Arts & Sciences, the Graduate and Professional Students Association, the Humanities Center, the Cultural Studies Program, the Department of French and Italian Languages and Literatures, the Department of History of Art and Architecture, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Website design by Javier O'Neil-Ortiz, with template by Code-Sucks.com. Web graphics created using artworks by John Taylor of Film the Blanks, "an ongoing experiment in deconstructing and abstracting film posters"; with contributions from Colleen Jankovich. The header, icon, and footer graphics are derived from Taylor's abstractions of the movie posters for Shaft, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Lousy Bicycles, respectively. Much thanks to John Taylor for permission to use his works.

* For questions, concerns, or media inquiries, please contact us by email at the gmail address pitt...@gmail.com. If you need to reach us by phone, please contact Usha Iyer at 412.973.8373 or the Film Studies Office at 412.624.6564.