Experimentation in moving-image media has been the focus of my research from the very beginning. Lately I am learning that small-file media—movies under 5MB, such as we screen at the Small File Media Festival—introduce a new set of aesthetics, involving artful pre-production and compression.
I’m interested in artists’ rights in exhibition and distribution, issues I have learned much about over years of programming experimental media and paying artists (see Programming page). At the Small File Media Festival we pay rental fees for every work, whether it's 15 minutes long or 15 seconds.
Experimental media are the thought-companions of my The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos (forthcoming, Duke University Press)
Some recent publications:
“NSFT Art: Sustainable, Equitable, and Fun!,” August 2022.
“Small-File Movies: Saving the planet, one pixel at a time.” Millennium Film Journal 71/72 (Spring/Fall 2021): 94-101. On Selected Writings page
“A World Where Flowers Reign,” essay for Jawa El Khash’s virtual-reality work The Upper Side of the Sky. Western Front, Vancouver (2021)
“Living well is the best revenge,” gallery text for Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2020)
“Ardele Lister's Divine Irony.” Millennium Film Journal 70 (Fall 2019): 14-23.
“Soul Cages,” in Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker, ed. Mike Hoolboom (Toronto: Pleasure Dome, 2018)
“Everyday Gods.” Catalogue essay for “Transience,” generative public artwork Flicker Art Media (Aleksandra Dulic and Kenneth Newby), Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC (2018)
“Azadeh Emadi takes pixels for a spin.” Catalogue essay, Azadeh Emadi, “Motion within Motion,” grunt gallery, Vancouver (2018)
“Poor Images, Ad Hoc Archives, Artists’ Rights: The Scrappy Beauties of Handmade Digital Culture,” International Journal of Communication, 11 (2017). 3899–3916. On Selected Writings page
“Experiments at Beirut Cinema Days,” Millennium Film Journal 66 (Fall 2017): 12-15.
“The muteness of the gods,” in More than Meets the Eye: The Videos of Tran T. Kim-Trang, ed. Jesse Lerner, Tran T. Kim-Trang, and Holly Willis http://scalar.usc.edu/works/more-than-meets-the-eye-the-videos-of-tran-t-kim-trang/the-muteness-of-the-gods
“Workshopping for Ideas: Jacques Rivette’s Out 1: Noli Me Tangere,” in “Dossier on Affect,” special issue of CineFiles, ed. Anne Rutherford (2016) On Selected Writings page
“Monad, Database, Remix: Manners of Unfolding in John Akomfrah’s The Last Angel of History,” in special issue of Black Camera on Black Audio Film Collective, ed. Matthias De Groof (2015) On Selected Writings page
"What Can a Body Do? Answers from Trablus, Cairo, Beirut, and Algiers," Paragraph, special issue, “Screening Embodiment,” ed. Nicholas Chare and Liz Watkins (2015) On Selected Writings page
“Immersed in the single channel: Experimental media from theater to gallery.” I argue that economics, more than aesthetics, rule the shift of experimental media from single-channel screenings to art galleries. Millennium Film Journal 55 (Spring 2012): 14-23. On Selected Writings page
“Arab Glitch,” in Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Visual Practice in the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Anthony Downey (I.B. Tauris/Ibraaz Publishing, 2014) On Selected Writings page
“Imaginal Materials,” catalogue essay, Spectral Imprints, Abraaj Capital Art Prize, ed. Nat Muller (2012) On Selected Writings page
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