Robert Frank: Experimentation Across Film and Photography in Post-War America. A study of Frank's career will establish critical models that can be applied to the work of Australian artists and filmmakers – especially those whose personal histories are linked to the waves of immigration that occurred during the '50s and '60s. The publication of a monograph, journal articles, interviews, a DVD and the staging of a retrospective will increase public awareness not only of Frank's work but also the ....Robert Frank: Experimentation Across Film and Photography in Post-War America. A study of Frank's career will establish critical models that can be applied to the work of Australian artists and filmmakers – especially those whose personal histories are linked to the waves of immigration that occurred during the '50s and '60s. The publication of a monograph, journal articles, interviews, a DVD and the staging of a retrospective will increase public awareness not only of Frank's work but also the work of those he has influenced. By including an overseas classroom element, this project also provides the opportunity to showcase the quality of Australian film research to high-calibre US students. This is vital to maintaining Australia's international reputation as a provider of film and media research.Read moreRead less
Only at the movies: mapping the contemporary Australian cinema market. Only at the movies? is a three-year project that asks: What is the enduring appeal of cinemagoing and how is it changing? It will provide detailed analyses of formal film exhibition and distribution in Australia by combining economic, cultural and geospatial research with industry expertise.
Reinterpreting Milgram's obedience studies via documentary film. One of the hardest dilemmas we can face is responding to directions which go against our conscience. Stanley Milgram's 'obedience to authority' paradigm appears to show that most of us will comply. Fifty years after his landmark film 'Obedience', this multidisciplinary project will re-examine his hugely influential but often misunderstood work.
Superheroes: Creative Force, Cultural Zeitgeist and Transmedia Phenomenon. Since their emergence in 1938 comic book heroes have become imbedded in our popular culture, becoming part of our modern mythology. In each form and every generation these characters serve as cultural signposts, articulating our loftiest ideals and deep-seated anxieties. The project aims to explore the historic, creative and artistic development of the genre across multiple media and its political and social significance. ....Superheroes: Creative Force, Cultural Zeitgeist and Transmedia Phenomenon. Since their emergence in 1938 comic book heroes have become imbedded in our popular culture, becoming part of our modern mythology. In each form and every generation these characters serve as cultural signposts, articulating our loftiest ideals and deep-seated anxieties. The project aims to explore the historic, creative and artistic development of the genre across multiple media and its political and social significance. The genre has been enormously successful in film, with the top 100 films accounting for approximately $13 billion in profit for the companies that produced them. The project will explore how the successful transmedia crossover further offers insight into the strategies that drive creative industries such as film, television, video games and comics. The project will work with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to develop a Melbourne Winter Masterpiece exhibition and a series of research projects, public events and an international conference to engage both the general public and academics.Read moreRead less
The global impact of Chinese martial arts films and their potential to use Australian technology. A study of martial arts film is of national benefit in several ways. First, it makes a scholarly contribution to film studies in our Asia Pacific region. Second, it enhances our understanding of issues arising from Chinese popular culture, such as soft power, cultural nationalism, regional rivalries, combat, and justice. Finally, Australian companies have been involved in the high-technology end of ....The global impact of Chinese martial arts films and their potential to use Australian technology. A study of martial arts film is of national benefit in several ways. First, it makes a scholarly contribution to film studies in our Asia Pacific region. Second, it enhances our understanding of issues arising from Chinese popular culture, such as soft power, cultural nationalism, regional rivalries, combat, and justice. Finally, Australian companies have been involved in the high-technology end of landmark Chinese martial arts films, which provides Australians with opportunities for developing business relationships, producing new creative content, and expanding innovative technologies with an important market in the global environment.Read moreRead less
Between Film and Art: An International Study of Intermedial Cinema. This study of new forms of digital, intermedial art will lead to a greater understanding of the position of film in the 21st Century. It will make a major contribution to the history of aesthetics and our understanding of the role of art in contemporary societies. It will raise the international profile of Australia's contribution to theory, criticism and creative practice in the fields of cinema and art, with its investigative ....Between Film and Art: An International Study of Intermedial Cinema. This study of new forms of digital, intermedial art will lead to a greater understanding of the position of film in the 21st Century. It will make a major contribution to the history of aesthetics and our understanding of the role of art in contemporary societies. It will raise the international profile of Australia's contribution to theory, criticism and creative practice in the fields of cinema and art, with its investigative team bringing inputs from Australia, Hong Kong and France. Within Australia, it will nurture an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to understanding, making and exhibiting the newest audiovisual art forms.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160101138
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$333,000.00
Summary
Cinema and the brain: Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria’s collaboration. This project aims to investigate an important collaboration between a leading filmmaker, a neuroscientist and a psychologist: the revolutionary Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, the founder of contemporary neuroscience Alexander Luria, and the cultural psychologist Lev Vygotsky. These three pioneers conducted a research program from the 1920s to the 1940s that addressed the neural basis and semiotics of screen aesthetics. This ....Cinema and the brain: Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria’s collaboration. This project aims to investigate an important collaboration between a leading filmmaker, a neuroscientist and a psychologist: the revolutionary Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, the founder of contemporary neuroscience Alexander Luria, and the cultural psychologist Lev Vygotsky. These three pioneers conducted a research program from the 1920s to the 1940s that addressed the neural basis and semiotics of screen aesthetics. This project intends to use this collaboration as a paradigmatic case study, identifying principles underlying the relationship between the brain sciences, cinema theory and psychology. It is expected that the project findings will be applicable in the educational sector, the film industry and in digital media policy and development.Read moreRead less
The Darwinian Screen: Race in Pacific and Australian Film 1900-1970. This project examines the influence of Darwinism in filmic narratives which deal with race that are set in Australia and the Pacific from 1900-1970. Science Fiction, Travel, South Seas Island Romance, Colonial Adventure and Jungle films made in Australia, New Zealand, America, the UK and France will be considered in order to determine the design and construction of race. The search for primitive man, the construction of 'types' ....The Darwinian Screen: Race in Pacific and Australian Film 1900-1970. This project examines the influence of Darwinism in filmic narratives which deal with race that are set in Australia and the Pacific from 1900-1970. Science Fiction, Travel, South Seas Island Romance, Colonial Adventure and Jungle films made in Australia, New Zealand, America, the UK and France will be considered in order to determine the design and construction of race. The search for primitive man, the construction of 'types', the creation of utopian spaces for white subjects, the representation of evolution and devolution, the making of the Pacific as site for scientific endeavour and the production of narratives of survival are among the areas to be considered.Read moreRead less
Cinema and the Senses: Temporality of the films of Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Kumar Shahani. The resulting monograph, articles and seminars will provide new methodologies for Australian cinema studies which has tended to depend on Euro-American models. The project offers three distinct ways of thinking about an ecology of the human senses in and through cinema. The ideas on cine-synaesthesia would link up with current research on this topic in other disciplines such as neurophysiology, ....Cinema and the Senses: Temporality of the films of Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Kumar Shahani. The resulting monograph, articles and seminars will provide new methodologies for Australian cinema studies which has tended to depend on Euro-American models. The project offers three distinct ways of thinking about an ecology of the human senses in and through cinema. The ideas on cine-synaesthesia would link up with current research on this topic in other disciplines such as neurophysiology, painting and music. The interdisciplinarity of the project offers, to the public sphere of Australian cinema, cross-cultural and cross-media perspectives on film aesthetics. Read moreRead less
William Faulkner Between Cinema and Literature. Literature continues to react and adapt to an ever-more complex media environment, but there is still little in the way of detailed critical study to specify the strategies and tactics of literary survival in an audio-visual era. By attending to the unique and indicative case of William Faulkner, who wrote simultaneously for the films and the serious literary market, this project will develop a new critical model for understanding literature's ada ....William Faulkner Between Cinema and Literature. Literature continues to react and adapt to an ever-more complex media environment, but there is still little in the way of detailed critical study to specify the strategies and tactics of literary survival in an audio-visual era. By attending to the unique and indicative case of William Faulkner, who wrote simultaneously for the films and the serious literary market, this project will develop a new critical model for understanding literature's adaptation to a complex media environment. It will shed significant intellectual light on the present and future states of literary survival in advanced industrial nations like Australia. Read moreRead less