MULTIMEDIA HISTORIES:
>From the Magic Lantern to the Internet
An international conference organised by the AHRB Centre
for British Film and Television Studies, and the Bill
Douglas Centre, Exeter University. This conference is the
culmination of an AHRB project investigating the
continuities between nineteenth-century optical recreations
and subsequent screen technologies. It will take place at
the University of Exeter on 21-23 July 2003. Confirmed
keynotes--Professor Ian Christie (Birkbeck), Professor
Richard Grusin (Wayne State University), Dr Roberta Pearson
(University of Wales, Cardiff).
CALL FOR PAPERS
One of the most dominant critical concerns of recent years
has been the attemptto understand the impact of a
multimedia culture. The scope and limits of a multimedia
culture have become associated with issues of virtual
reality; interactivity; media convergence and hybridity;
body/technology couplings, etc.These familiar narratives,
however, have a much more extended history than is often
realised.
Multimedia Histories will examine the long genealogy of
multimedia usage and discourse. From the 19th C onwards,
the proliferation of screen technologies and optical
recreations has been an important element of popular
culture. Moreover, the exhibition and consumption of these
entertainments was often defined by their
interrelationship. The mid nineteenth-century drawing room,
for example, typically included stereoscopes and
praxinoscopes alongside the magic lantern.
The conference is keen to pursue a comparative approach by
focusing on specific historical moments of convergence and
hybridity. In so doing, it aims to locate the aesthetics of
the new media in relation to an intermedial tradition of
public and domestic forms of screen entertainment. The
principal question it hopes to address is this - to what
extent do recent multimedia technologies extend established
features of cinema, television, and the panoply 19th C and
20th C optical recreations?
Papers are particularly invited on the following key areas:
- Moments of media convergence and hybridity
- Immersion, interactivity and the embodied spectator
- Spaces of consumption and the organisation of audiences, virtual and/or actual.
- Modes of production and exhibition
- Screen technologies and the tropes conceptualising their usage
- Boundaries and linkages between domestic and public screen entertainment
It is planned to produce an edited collection of papers
from the conference. Please send abstracts of c.300 words
to mediahist@exeter.ac.uk, or by hardcopy to: Multimedia
Conference, School of English, Exeter University, EXETER,
EX4 4QH. Deadline for Abstracts: 25 January 2003.
Conference Organisers: Dr James Lyons and Dr John Plunkett.
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John Plunkett
University of Exeter
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Full Information at
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or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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