Between Image and Architecture: Contesting Urban Space - Toronto Film & Media Seminar

"Getting Out and Other Improprieties" - Dr. Lauren Cramer, University of Toronto
The prominence of the city in Black cinema is about clearing and making space for Black movements. Part of the vitality of these cinematic maps, and the aesthetics of Black visual culture more broadly, is a critique of property that is expressed in the scale and density of Black images. This presentation explores space and architecture in Black images as expression of inappropriate, unpropertied Blackness.

Secret Cities: "Amazement, bafflement, fear, and anxiety" - Dr. Greg Elmer, Ryerson University
“In this presentation I review recent photographic and documentary representations of life in Soviet secret cities. In so doing I foreground Google’s emergent role in the history of zoned economies or ‘smart cities.’”

"Immersion and Leisure in the Theme Park: Media Landscapes at Ontario Place" - Dr. Robin Curtis, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
This research examines the connection between leisure (specifically German: Muße/Latin: otium) and immersion at Ontario Place during its initial phase (1971-1983). The project considers how experiences of real landscapes on reclaimed land in Lake Ontario were combined or contrasted with experiences in augmented or virtual spaces in order to make those (real, augmented, or virtual) landscapes available to the urban population as spaces for leisure and self-reflection

Panel Convener: Carolyn L. Kane, Ryerson University

Steering Committee for 2019-2020
Co-chairs: James Leo Cahill (UofT) and Claudia Sicondolfo (York) • Faculty members: Michael
Baker (Sheridan); Liz Clarke (Brock); Natalie Coulter (York); Brian Jacobson (UofT); Carolyn Kane
(Ryerson); Selmin Kara (OCAD); Mark Lipton (Guelph); Susan Lord (Queen’s); Katherine Spring
(WLU); Janine Marchessault (York) • Grad student members: Lani Akande (York); Anjo-marí
Guows (UofT); Tricia Herman (OCAD); Heather Lambert (WLU); Katie Russell (UofT); Cyrus
Sundar Singh (Ryerson); Émilie von Garan (UofT) • Member at Large: Jesse Cumming
(Independent Scholar/Curator); TIFF: Theresa Scandiffio, Jessica Lam, Keith Bennie.

The goals of the Toronto Film & Media Seminar are:
• Encouraging intellectual and collegial discussion among the Cinema and Media Studies
scholars in the region.
• Encouraging in-depth scholarly discussion and critical debate.
• Showcasing diverse research methodologies and research fields that address a wide range of
cinematic technologies (film, television, video, new media, and other forms of moving image
and sound screens).
• Aiming to model collegial and professional academic discourse for graduate students entering
the field.