In the last two decades, in the wake of what is often vaunted as the shift toward ‘immateriality’ heralded by the digital, a striking – ostensibly opposite – tendency has emerged. In the context of the moving image in particular, artists and scholars have turned their attention to the physical qualities of cinema, and started to consider cinema’s ‘objectness’ in both its digital and pre-digital forms.

While developments in the production, distribution and consumption of films – from computer editing to internet streaming – flaunt cinema’s increasing dematerialization, art seems to have become a privileged place for testing contrary or alternative claims. On the one hand, an expanding cluster of contemporary artists have developed a historically-minded – or, to some, nostalgic – practice that focuses on the complex and composite ‘object-like’ nature of cinema in its now ‘old’ filmic incarnation. And, on the other hand, an equally growing group are extending the exploration of cinema’s objectness to include the newer digital manifestations of the medium. The exhibition and study day Cinema as Object aimed to bring into relief this recent interest in the ‘objectness’ of cinema in art practice and scholarship, and to explore why such focus and interest has emerged at this moment in time.

Study Day: 21st March 2013, 9.30-18.30
Participants: Judith Goddard, Graham Gussin, Cadence Kinsey, Paolo Magagnoli, Tom Morgan-Evans, Sharon Morris, Lucy Reynolds, Guy Sherwin, Anne Tallentire, Jon Thomson.
Exhibition: 21st March (all day) 22nd March (am only).

This event was supported by the Slade School of Fine Art and the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art, History of Art Department, UCL, and was organized by Jayne Parker and Matilde Nardelli.

Programme of events

9.30 Welcome. Exhibition open.
10.30-11.45 Guy Sherwin, 'Cinema as Event, Cinema as Object: on Live Cinema and Film Installation'.
11.45-11.55 Rachel Haines
11.55-12.05 Milou van der Maaden
12.05-12.15 Shen Xin
12.15-13.00 Roundtable on exhibition and morning presentations with Guy Sherwin and Anne Tallentire.
13.00 – 14.30 Lunch break (lunch not provided) and time for viewing exhibition. Walking Cinema, a performance by Malin Ståhl (2.00-2.20 pm).
14.30-14.50 Malin Ståhl, ‘A Costume for Transformation’ – presentation and questions.
14.50-15.05 Thomas Morgan Evans, ‘The carnival space of Andy Warhol's “filmic” Plexiglas sculptures’.
15.05-15.20 Cadence Kinsey, ‘Digital Materialities and “Picturing” Objects’.
15.20-15.35 Paolo Magagnoli, ‘ “Let meaning disintegrate”: Digital Compression as Revelation in the Art of Sean Snyder’.
15.35-16.00 Questions - chaired by Lucy Reynolds.
16.00-16.30 Tea/Coffee break. Walking Cinema, a performance by Malin Ståhl.
16.30-16.45 Judith Goddard
16.45-17.00 Jon Thomson
17.00-17.15 Graham Gussin
17.15-17.30 Questions - chaired by Anne Tallentire.
17.30-18.15 Closing roundtable with Anne Tallentire, Jayne Parker, Lucy Reynolds and Matilde Nardelli.

In the exhibition:

Dana Ariel, Sophie Rose Asquith, Emilie Atkinson, Jenna Bliss, Seán Boylan, Sonia Bridge, Joe Chalmers, Matthew Copson, Melanie Counsell, Amy Feneck, Eva Gisler, Judith Goddard, Rachel Haines, Yva Jung, Irena Kalođera, Lara Kamhi, Vera Karlsson, Benedikte Laursen, David Lytzhøft, Jane Madsen, Sharon Morris, Teo Ormond-Skeaping, Maria Teresa Ortoleva, Jayne Parker, Holly Parmley, Imran Perretta, Charlie Richardson, Sam Risley-Billingham, Ruaidhri Ryan, Malin Ståhl, Tara Tate, Milou van der Maaden, Shen Xin, Bernke Klein Zandvoort.