Blog posting written by Kimberly Capehart, Documentary Studies and Production ’16, FLEFF Intern, Cherry Hill, NJ

The FLEFF Mobilities concert, featuring a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, will be held in the Whalen Center for Music TOMORROW.

The performance will be held in the Hockett Recital Hall at 8:15 pm on Tuesday, April 2^nd.  Carl Orff’s legendary cantata will be accompanied by a series of “original imagery” in the form of projections: making the performance quite a complete sensory experience.

I recently spoke to concert organizer Ann Michel about the visual aspect of the performance.

Michel, along with the help of a few dozen interns, is responsible for producing the images that will be projected during the concert. These images, in addition to providing a unique visual aspect to the performance, will serve to reflect on the origins of Carmina Burana.

Carl Orff composed this “interesting and powerful,” musical piece in the 20^th century, based on a manuscript of 200+ poems from the 13^th century of the same name. These poems were written by European Goliards – students who were critical of the contradictions in the Catholic Church. Ranging from topics such as love to fate to protest, these poems are relatable across centuries. This multi-century, “very dense, historical,” work will receive a more modern element in its 21^st century production on Tuesday.

What went into designing original imagery for such a massive piece?

“For me, it was a lot of immersion and imagination,” says Michel.

She, along with the interns working on the project, listened to the piece many times. In addition to listening to the aural experience, Michel looked at the lyrics of the cantata and looked more closely at some of the poems that inspired the piece.

“It’s been an interesting, creative challenge,” she explains. “It’s all about creating a spectacle for the audience without taking away from the performance.”

Make sure you come early tomorrow night to get your seat at the Hockett Recital Hall. Don’t miss an incredibly unique performance of a historical and famous work!

Come back here tomorrow night after the performance to let me know what you think of Michel’s projections and how they impacted the performance. 

Blog post by Chloe Wilson, Television-Radio '14, FLEFF Blogger, Ashland, Massachusetts

Hey FLEFFers!

There have been tons of FLEFF events throughout the day but our first day of FLEFF is capping off with Dr. Phil McMichael's lecture "Food Sovereignty and the Global Hunger Games"!  Can't make it? No worries!  I'll be liveblogging the whole event for you!  Read on for more about the event.

6:59 PM - HUGE crowd for "Global Hunger Games!" There's a great mix of people here from all different sorts of backgrounds.

7:05 PM - People are still filing.  It's becoming a struggle to find seats!

7:06 PM - Dr. Phil McMichael is being introduced by a member of the Ithaca College faculty!  Dr. McMichael's lecture is sponsored both by FLEFF and Ithaca College's Department of Promotion and Physical Education.

7:07 PM - Ithaca College Provost Marisa Kelly is officially welcoming us to the 16th FLEFF! She's discussing the theme of mobilities and how mobilities (and FLEFF!) is an interdisciplinary event.

7:09 PM - Marisa Kelly on FLEFF: "By engaging guests from our region and through the world... FLEFF promotes the exploration of interdisciplinary and internationalism."

7:13 PM - Dr. Phil McMichael is finally starting his lecture! I'm so excited.

7:15 PM - Dr. McMichael is using political cartoons to explain the problems of food sovereignty. Dr. McMichael: "The people who have purchaisng power are the people who can command the types of crops to be produced."  

7:18 PM - Food fact: Livestock uses 1/3 of the world's land surface and 1/3 or arable land. Animal protein diet uses 16 times more farmland than plant protein diet. (I didn't expect those stats to be so high!)  

7:20 PM - The large amount of livestock also reduces forests - especially the Amazon Rainforest. Mangrove Forest was destroyed so companies could harvest aquaculture.

7:22 PM - This problem extends to the global fuel economy as well - especially since corn demand from U.S. ethanol distilleries doubled from 2006 to 2007. The use of politcal cartoons is really helpful!

7:26 PM - Dr. McMichael: "Half of all Guatemala's children under five are malnourished - one of the highest rates of nutrition in the world."

7:28 PM - Dr. McMichael: "What's being left out of the equation is that these lands are used for growing crops when they could be used for growing food to feed the world."

7:32 PM - There's a "new land grab" process that shows that 37% of land is grabbed for food, while 35% is for biofuels.

7:34 PM - States and corporations reclassify peasant/common land as "unproductive," "unused," or "idle" so it's available for purchase. 

7:36 PM - Consequences of land-grabbing: displacement of food crops, disposession of producers, a threat to the natural ecosystems, and many, many more.

7:39 PM - Much of this stems from the neoliberal agrarian crisis.

7:41 PM - Food sovereignty (idea that countries should have the right to determine their own food policy) is a product of the agrarian crisis. Quote from U.S. representative: "The idea that developing countries should feed themselves in an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on US agriculture."

7:45 PM - "The massive movement of food around the world is forcing the increased movement of people." 

7:46 PM - Food sovereignty represents a paradigm change in how food can and should be provisioned. It redefines food security from a trade and rights-based concept and practice.

7:50 PM - BOTTOM LINE: The question "for whose benefit?" is at least as important as the question "how to produce more?"

7:52 PM - And that's the end of the lecture! Dr. McMichael will now take audience questions.

7:54 PM - Great questions about subsidies from the front row!

7:55 PM - Dr. McMichael: "We need to change the way we view subsidies in America. Hopefully we see them shift in the future."

7:58 PM - Another great question about the development of third world countries' agriculture and their economic structures. How can we help?

8:00 PM - This is turning into a really interesting (and educational debate).

8:03 PM - A question about movements against land that can't be used for food.  Very interesting!  It's great that so many students who are familiar with the topic came to the lecture tonight! 

8:09 PM - Dr. McMichael: "There's something to be said for communities bringing local products into their economy, but it's a complicated issue - I'm sorry to be so gloomy!"

8:11 PM - An audience member asks Dr. McMichael about the connections between local food crises (like in Upstate New York), food banks, and how to understand it.

8:12 PM - Dr. McMichael: "I think beginning to connect the dots becomes a very powerful way to learn about how the system is organized. Recognizing how the food system is organized - even on a local level - is incredibly important... my task within that is to organize with several people at Cornell."

8:15 PM - The lecture officially ends!  Definitely a great lesson and discussion afterwards - everything that FLEFF is about!

Did you have a favorite moment of the lecture? Tell us about it in the comments!

Blog post written by Amber Thibault, Cinema and Photography ’15, FLEFF Intern, Lewiston, Maine.

Mansoor Behnam is a thinker. We spent the first half of our conversation on the sunny saturday afternoon talking about how his literature and theater background have been influential to his filmmaking. He's working on his Ph.D at Queens University with a major in Cultural Studies, letting his studies inform his filmmaking.

Last year, Behnam came to FLEFF as a graduate fellow and had a great time talking to people and engaging intellectually with other scholars. Coming this year, he is excited to continue to meet people and share ideas. 

Behnam "When you produce something, you really want to share it with people. I love the Q&A sessions afterwards."

When I ask him why he came back to FLEFF, Behnam said, "When you find wonderful people to be around, you just want to be around them more and more."

Behnam is initiating discussion this year, sharing three films with FLEFF.

In the first, "Organon", Behnam wanted to explore the idea of thinking while moving and how it relates to the human condition. He talked about when he moved to Canada he started taking evening walks again. Behnam used these walks to explore his place in time and space to really think about, "who I am and how can I build myself now?" 

Behnam is also sharing two films he co-produced: "Tango Flaneur" and "Cup of Coffee with Kafka" 

"Tango Flaneur" was produced by Behnam with his classmate at Queens University Lisa Elin Figge. Together they decided to take a look at people in urban space and urban culture. Within this space they present how it is more difficult for people with a disability to get around than for able-body people.

Behnam felt they "have to share that with other people so they can be awakened, so they can change reality."

"Cup of Coffee with Kafka" was produced by Behnam with his colleague Felipe Quetzalcoatl. They wanted to create space for a diverse voices about movement and transit. Behnam said "ideas move quickly, people move quickly" so they interviewed different people on this idea in order to create an objective presentation.

"Organon" and "Tango Flaneur" will be screened Thursday April 4th at Ithaca College in Roy Park School of Communications Rm. 273 at 2:35pm

"Cup of Coffee with Kafka" will be screened Thursday April 4th at Ithaca College in Williams Hall Rm. 202 at 5:25pm

Blog posting written by Shawn Steiner, Film, Photography, and Visual Arts '13, FLEFF Blogger, Elkridge, MD

Welcome to FLEFF's opening day and the first of many live blogs of the week. 

We have concluded our discussion, but at 10:00AM-10:50AM in Park 220 Ulises Mejias will lead a discussion about Augmented Reality Games

ULISES MEJIAS: OFF THE NETWORK

"Networks increase participation, but also increase inequality."

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"It's not if we shape our tools or if our tools shape us, but how."

Mejias' agenda includes "thinking the network" and then how we are to then "unthinking the network" to get us to move beyond network logic through many strategies, like intensification.

First, what is a network?

1. Nodes (each one of us)

2. Links (similar interests)

The problem with this type of "nodocentrism" is that a node cannot connect to anything except other nodes. Take your friend who refuses to make a Facebook page, you may realize the trouble they have getting party and event invitations since people only invite people currently on Facebook. This is an issue with social networking.

And, while those with few connections still grow (the poor), those with large networks (the rich) will rapidly gain more connections. This is a preferential system where Mejias says "the rich get richer."

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"[Networks] are shaping the way we think about friends."

A network in Facebook or media terms is something very specific. It is a template created that is altering the way we think about things like friends and likes. It is software and programming that is reprogramming our mind based on algorithms.

It has moved from a network as a metaphor to a network as a template.

Mejias also explains the change from old media as a "one-to-many" monopoly to a new media "many-to-many" perfect competition.

However, monopsony is the economics of new media, it is a "many-to-one" approach.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Can these metrics help us catch terrorists? How?

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"The sacrifices in privacy may not be worth the gains."

Inequality through participation takes many forms. This includes surveillance, filtering, blocking, psyops, spambots, and the loss of freedom of speech.

This is done by organizations and companies that run social media networks. Using fake accounts to spread propaganda, deleting so-called "problematic" accounts, and simply shutting off the network are all possibilities that can limit the people utilizing the network.

QUESTION: What are the power dynamics between activists, hackers, and the media?

SHORT SCREENING: Virtual Revolution, a BBC documentary.

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"Dissent will only become possible in the spaces outside of the social networks."

We need to look into the spaces between the nodes. We must see the paranodes are the resisters, the rejecters, the expelled, and the excluded.

Paranodality: the outside of the network is not empty but inhabited by multitudes that do not conform to the organizing logic of the network.

And once we reach these paranodes and maintain a MOBILITY between being in a network to being outside of it we can find power (intensification).

QUESTION: Is it easier to express dissent inside or outside the network?

Blog post by Chloe Wilson, Television-Radio '14, FLEFF Blogger, Ashland, Massachusetts

Happy first day of FLEFF, everyone!

Filmmaker Jon Bowermaster will be bring his film "Dear Governor Cuomo" to FLEFF later this week. He was kind enough to answer some of my questions and give some insight into his film.  Read on for what to expect from "Dear Governor Cuomo"!

Chloe Wilson: For those who are unfamiliar, can you give a brief description of “Dear Governor Cuomo”?