Symposium: Audio-visual Media and the Global Dream Space

*** PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF VENUE ON DAY 1.
On Thursday 4 June, the symposium will now take place at University College London, Roberts Building (Faculty of Engineering), Room 309. Enter from Malet Place ***

ABOUT THE EVENT
From the mid-twentieth century, audio-visual media constituted a key site for creating, circulating and debating ideas about an emerging and increasingly interconnected world space. Liberation movements, civil society actors and international organisations such as the United Nations appealed to contested signifiers such as “peace” and “freedom” as they pursued contradictory modernising agendas, ranging from anticolonial worldmaking to liberal-capitalist internationalism and imperial domination. Drawing on and expanding Anna Tsing’s concept, this symposium seeks to chart the audio-visual production and mediation of the “global dream space” that emerged from this historical process.

In the present day, the sizeable archive of this contested “global dream space” is little-known and institutionally and geographically dispersed, but it is also attracting increasing interest in the academic, archival and creative communities. In the face of planetary permacrisis and a collective urgency to imagine new forms of worldmaking, this event seeks to take stock of and analyse the audio-visual project of this global space from multiple perspectives. Through a variety of formats (papers, workshops and screening sessions), participants will place a particular emphasis on presenting diverse audio-visual materials including films, videos, filmstrips, photographs, and television and radio programmes.

Register for both days or just for one by following these links:
DAY 1 REGISTRATION: https://my.bbk.ac.uk/ords/f?p=832:100:0:::100:P100_EV_ID:62677
DAY 2 REGISTRATION: https://my.bbk.ac.uk/ords/f?p=832:100:0:::100:P100_EV_ID:62672

The symposium is organised by David Wood (University College London/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and Miguel Errazu (Goldsmiths, University of London) with the support of the UK Research & Innovation “Horizon Europe Guarantee” programme (EP/Z001919/1 and EP/Y015088/1), Centre for Visual Anthropology of Goldsmiths, University of London and SELCS-CMII/Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London.

*** There will be a special pre-event film screening related to the symposium
at The Cinema Museum on Wednesday 3 June at 6.30pm.
Free entry! Find further information here. ***

Programme Day 1
Thursday 4 June, Room 309, Roberts Building, University College London

9:30h - 10:00h — Arrival and registration

10:00h - 10:15h — Opening remarks and thanks

10:15h- 11:45h — Session 1: Peace, Human Rights and Post-colonial Consciousness (panel)
The Filmstrips of UN and UNESCO on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Suzanne Langlois (York University, Toronto)

A Paradigm of Possibilities: the Filmstrip in Post-War Education
Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal (University of St. Andrews)

Post-Revolutionary Palestinian Film and Selective Institutional Memory in the Global Dream Space. Afterlives in the Post-Oslo “Peace Process” Framework
Carlos Navarro González (Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale)

11:45h - 12:15h — Coffee Break

12:15h - 13:45h — Session 2: Interrogating Archives of Development and Technical Assistance (panel)
Seeing and Unseeing like a State: Configuring Indian Women in Official Films
Ritika Kaushik (University of Warwick)

Photography at the International Labour Organization, 1950-1970
Darren Newbury (University of Brighton)

New Approaches to Media, Gender, and Development
Dalila Missero (Lancaster University), Masha Salazkina (Concordia University)

13:45h - 15:00h — Lunch Break

15:00h - 16:00h — Session 3: Development as Dream and Genre: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (workshop)
With: Myka Tucker-Abramson (University of Warwick), Peter Sutoris (University of Leeds), Christine Okoth (KCL), Molly Geidel (Dartmouth College)

16:00h - 16:30h — Coffee Break

16:30h - 18:30h — Session 4: Audio-Visual Imaginaries of Liberal World-Making (screening session)
Broadcasting Developmentalism: UNESCO and Educational Television in 1960s West Africa
Jennifer Blaylock (Rowan University)

Constructing the Modern World: The World Bank and Infrastructure Cinema
Zoë Druick (Simon Fraser University)

Open Press Policy and Diplomacy: Media Coverage During the Secretary-Generalship of Dag Hammarskjöld
Marina Dahlquist (Stockholm University)

REGISTER FOR DAY 1 HERE: https://my.bbk.ac.uk/ords/f?p=832:100:0:::100:P100_EV_ID:62677

Programme Day 2
Friday 5 June, Birkbeck Cinema, Birkbeck University of London

13:00h - 14:30h Session 5: Spaces and Ecologies: from Utopia to Revolution (panel)
And the Art Work Dissolves: John McHale and the Dissolution of Art in a Globalist Utopia
Alex Bickley Trott (Oxford Brookes University)

Screening the SAAL Housing Process at the First UN Habitat Conference (1976): Local Images, Institutional Framings, Global Spaces
Sofia Sampaio (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon)

Tricontinental Ecologies: Anti-Imperialist Media in the Struggle for a Sovereign Social Metabolism
Alejandro Pedregal (Aalto University, Finland)

14:30h - 14:45h — Break

14:45h - 15:45h — Session 6: Religion and the Global Dream Space (panel)
Catholic Transnationalism on the Airwaves: Extracts from the Radio Series of SERPAL (Radiophonic Service for Latin America)
Anna Cant (LSE)

AFSC Documentary Shorts: How Did Quaker Humanitarianism Look, circa 1948?
Karl Schoonover (University of Warwick)

15:45h - 16:45h — Coffee & Tea Break

16:45h - 17:45h — Session 7: Restitution as a Transnational Collaborative Practice (workshop)
With: Samar Abdelrahman (University of Liverpool), Erica Carter (KCL), Dan Hodgkinson (Oxford Department of International Development), Eiman Hussein (KCL), Nikolaus Perneczky (QMUL)

17:45h - 18:00h — Break

18:00h - 20:00h — Session 8: How to Screen the Remains? (screening session)
Moctezuma’s Revenge: Notes for a Creative-Critical Screening Project on UNESCO and Mexican Cultural Diplomacy in the 1950s
David Wood (UCL/UNAM) and Rodrigo Carrillo Tripp (Astilla Teatro, Mexico City)

The Uncle of Bolivia: Friction, Loss and Celebration of the Miners’ Film Workshop
Miguel Errazu (Goldsmiths, University of London/Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola)

20:00h - 20:45h — Wine reception

REGISTER FOR DAY 2 HERE: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event/62672/symposium-audio-visual-media-and-the-global-dream-space