A COURSE FOR ARTISTS, FILMMAKERS, SCHOLARS AND ANYONE INTERESTED IN HOW WE ENGAGE WITH ARCHIVES, CULTURAL MEMORY, AND HISTORY THROUGH FILM. IT LOOKS AT THE CREATIVE STRATEGIES THAT ARTISTS HAVE USED TO PRODUCE ETHICAL REWORKINGS OF IMAGES ASSOCIATED WITH OUR TROUBLED PASTS.

Course Description

WHAT: We consider the problem of images and archives that dehumanise their subjects, as well as the creative strategies used by artists and filmmakers to produce ethical reworkings of materials associated with our troubled pasts.

WHERE: Online distance learning, take part in this class from your home with a computer/tablet.

WHEN: Monday evenings, 7:00 – 9:00 PM (UK Time) 7 sessions.

WHO: Run by Miranda Pennell, an artist, filmmaker and teacher whose films often rework images from British colonial archives to reflect on contemporary situations.

HOW MUCH: General: £195.00 | Students/Concessions £185.00 | UCL Students: £175.00

COSTS & BURSARIES: Please see our Terms & Conditions for information on our rates & concessions.

Deadline to Apply: 9th October 2024.

PRICE: Please see our Terms & Conditions for information on our rates & concessions.

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Learning outcomes for each session:

You will gain an understanding of:

• Some contrasting attitudes to archival media, to audience reception, and to history.
• Key arguments around ethical conundrums and controversies surrounding image reuse.
• Creative approaches to re-using images associated with marginalised or repressed histories.
• How artists have used subjective or personal interventions to illuminate collective narratives.
• How accidental recordings and artefacts can energise historical questions.
• How revisiting fragments from the history of fiction cinema reveals larger social and political forces at work.
• Peer group explorations of found images

The practice of making new films from recycled fragments of old ones opens exciting opportunities for revisiting past events. Crucially, it also allows audiences to reflect critically on the histories of image-making. 

This course explores topics including the ethical questions that confront makers and audiences alike when recordings are ripped from their original context and re-appropriated to new ends. We consider the problem of images and archives that dehumanise their subjects, as well as the creative strategies used by artists and filmmakers to produce ethical reworkings of materials associated with our troubled pasts.

 

All sessions will be online and combine a lecture, screening, and group discussion. Optional further reading will be shared following each session.

 

1. Compilation, found-footage and other remix practices
   Taking a historical perspective, we’ll look at uses of archival material in film and video production to reveal divergent attitudes to audio-visual media, to audiences, and to history itself.

 

2. Towards an ethics of appropriation

We consider the radically shifting meanings of the recycled image fragment, from internet meme to archival film. What sort of ethical frameworks do we use when it comes to evaluating the creative use and misuse of film fragments? 

 

3. The perpetrator’s gaze: film as repair and resistance
   What creative strategies have filmmakers used to disrupt the way we see, when working with materials that dehumanise certain categories of person, while elevating and sanitising others? 

 

4. I am an actor in history
   How do our personal histories affect the stories we research? What happens when the archive marks us?  How do we, as artists, researchers or historians, negotiate our place within the archive and within history, while also approaching our work with rigour? 

 

5. Listening to images 

Unlike written documents, image and sound recordings sometimes contain unfiltered, uncensored information or ‘noise’ which exceeds the intention of the original filmmaker, and which resists full comprehension or interpretation. How have artists used the disruptive qualities of recordings to enrich perceptions of historical meaning?

 

6. Fiction’s unconscious 

Some artists and filmmakers have raided the history of fiction cinema, transforming fragments of fiction film into documents that speak to us of the social relations embedded in the experience of cinema. How does this work complicate our understanding of documentary and fiction? 

 

7. Questions of practice
   Students are invited (though not obliged) to present an image or image sequence for discussion. We will discuss the stories, opportunities and challenges that this material evokes.

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This course will be delivered via online distance learning, and students will require a computer or other internet connected device.

This course offers bursary places. Please check our Terms and conditions to see if you are eligible to apply.

 

Course Costs:

For each course, we offer three rates: General, Students/Concessions, and UCL Students. 

For a full breakdown of our costs/concessions, please reach our Terms and Conditions:

https://opencitylondon.com/school/terms-and-conditions/