Special Presentations, Lectures,
Master Classes, and Workshops
Siona Benjamin
Artist's Talk on the Painting Exhibition, Blue Like Me, Handwerker Gallery
Painter and multimedia artist Siona Benjamin will discuss how her work visually maps hybrid identities and diasporas, and how aesthetic strategies can chart postcoloniality.
Tuesday, March 27, 12:15 -1:15 p.m.
Siona Benjamin and Ishrat Hoque
Color Me Blue Performance, Handwerker Gallery
A multiarts performance with painter Siona Benjamin and dancer Ishrat Hoque rethreading the memes of South Asian art forms, transnational zones, and the gendered body.
Tuesday, March 27, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Renate Ferro
Artist's Talk on the Installation Panic Hits Home
Digital media artist Renate Ferro unpacks how she envisions and materializes panic from a feminist perspective through technological interfaces and installation.
Handwerker Gallery, Friday, March 30, 1:00-1:50 p.m.
Richard Fung
The Documentary Meme Master Class
Trinidadian Canadian video artist and writer Richard Fung explores the boundaries of the performative video documentary in this master class where theory meets practice with a special retrospective screening.
Park 138, Wednesday, March 28, 3:00-4:50 p.m.
Richard Fung
The Soundscapes of Documentary Voice Master Class
Trinidadian Canadian video artist and writer Richard Fung will discuss how writing and voice shape postcolonial documentary practices and unsettle the borders between nation and diaspora, experimental and documentary, politics and art.
Park Auditorium, Thursday, March 29, 4:00-5:50 p.m.
Steve Ginsberg
Hollywood: Fact or Fiction Workshop
Hollywood. Is it the home of an organized counterinsurgency where the cultural elite have monthly blue state meetings to overthrow the government? What does it mean to live in and work there, and is it, in fact, even a city? Do people in Los Angeles have to travel somewhere else for a reality check, or are there actually real families who live there who have nothing to do with the entertainment industry? These and other issues will be addressed in a lively give-and-take discussion with screenwriter Steve Ginsberg that will seek to demystify what it's like to live and work in the "city" of Los Angeles. Included is a 12-step guide on how the entertainment industry functions and what it's really like to live in a place that seems both fascinating and immoral to the world at large.
Park 220, Friday, March 30, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Steve Ginsberg
Writer's Block: A Special Form of Panic Workshop
"Perfectionism is a primary writer's block. We want to write-we just want to do it perfectly." -Julia Cameron, The Right to Write
There are many theories on writer's block. But what it usually amounts to is fear-fear of being bad; fear of not living up to expectations for yourself or of the outside world; even fear of what would happen if you actually did succeed and then had to keep up that superstar reputation so everyone doesn't discover that deep down you really are a "fraud." This workshop will allow us to share those "war stories" on how our minds get the best of us, and advance practical creative strategies to get us back to the page and-yes, even enjoying our work. Included are impromptu writing exercises, procrastination busters, and a forum to exchange the top 10 best excuses not to write and how to counteract them.
Park 332, Thursday, March 29, 2:35-3:50 p.m.
Steve Gordon
How It Works: Inside the Entertainment Industry Workshop
As executive vice president for Creative Affairs at Viacom, one of the largest media companies in the world, Steve Gordon generated over 2,000 hours of programming. In this workshop, he'll share his map of how it all works from the perspective of an insider who has hired and inspired writers.
Park 332, Tuesday, March 27, 2:35-3:50 p.m.
Vincent Grenier
Rescuing Artifacts: Sound/Image/Digital Retrospective and Workshop
In this special retrospective of his large body of work, experimental film and video maker Vincent Grenier will screen works that experiment with color, sound, and composition as expressions of cultural assumptions and as juxtapositions of phenomenological, visual, or psychological events. Through sound-image juxtapositions, digital manipulation, and layering, his films deal with the interaction between the propensity to mislead and the eloquence of the recorded image.
Park Auditorium, Monday, March 26th, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Dale Hudson and Sharon Lin Tay
Undisclosed Recipients Digital Art Lecture
Cocurators Dale Hudson and Sharon Lin Tay analyze how digital artists intervene into and reinvent maps and memes, metropoli, panic attacks, and soundscaping through algorithms, interfaces, iterative media, archives, and remix.
Park 140, Wednesday, March 28, 2:00-3:50 p.m.; Park 285, Thursday, March 29, 6:50-9:20 p.m.
Judy Hyman, Ann Michel, Cynthia Henderson, Phil Wilde and Jeff Claus
Memescapes Remix: The Landscapes and Soundscapes of the Collaborative Process
Join opening night Memescapes team Jeff Claus, Cynthia Henderson, Judy Hyman, Ann Michel, and Phil Wilde in a workshop exploring remixing disciplines, arts practices, skills, technologies, archival film, original music, and live performance.
Park Auditorium, Tuesday, March 27, 4:00-6:50 p.m.
Meg Jamieson and Leah Shafer
FLEFF Open Call Media Works
Coprogrammers Meg Jamieson and Leah Shafer illuminate the matrix of media works by emerging artists curated for this year's FLEFF open call. They'll also provide pointers for emerging media artists on how to navigate the festival scene.
Park 220, Friday, March 30, 3:00-3:50 p.m.
Tim McCaskell
Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality Workshop
Tim McCaskell's book provides a detailed view from inside the experiments, successes, and mistakes in the Toronto Board of Education's quest to provide truly equitable education for a diverse student body. For almost three decades McCaskell and his colleagues fought to deliver antiracism, antisexism, and antihomophobia education. McCaskell's astute blend of personal reflection and political theory illuminates a time of significant social struggle, cultural transformation, and deep learning.
Park 220, Friday, March 30, 2:00-2:50 p.m.
Ulises Mejias
The Gaming Meme I Workshop
New media theorist and blogger Ulises Mejias does a workshop on how games are the new frontier for social justice media.
Williams 221, Wednesday, March 28, 12:00-12:50 p.m.
Ann Michel and Phil Wilde
The Science Meme: Workshop on Science for the People
Award-winning science, engineering, and environmental filmmakers Ann Michel and Phil Wilde present a master class on designing media with a clear purpose and audience in mind—whether for festival exhibition or for client-based work. This master class explores the business of producing. The filmmakers explain how media design often means shifting from a single film to websites, multimedia, interactive media, installation, museum exhibitions, and media and live music performances to get the message across in the most powerful way. Using Wilde and Michel’s work in progress as a case study, this master class explores ways to unpack the research and design elements to get science to the people—and keep them awake.
Park 138, Tuesday, March 27, 1:10-2:25 p.m.
Jonathan Miller
The Listening Room
Radio journalist and producer Jonathan Miller curates a selection of audio works from award-winning Homelands Productions (he's one of the principals) that show the depth and breadth of how soundscaping changes how our minds. See metropoli, panic, and memes.
Handwerker Gallery, Thursday, March 29, 7:30-9:00 p.m.
Sarah Mkhonza
Reading from Her Work
Ithaca City of Asylum writer in residence Sarah Mkhonza reads from her past and recent writing, which evokes the politics and social relations of her native Swaziland.
Handwerker Gallery, Monday, March 26, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Naeem Mohaiemen
...And Who Are the Subtitles For?
Visual artist, activist, writer, and blogger Naeem Mohaiemen lectures about the project Muslims or Heretics: My Camera Can Lie and the particular problems faced when doing activist art around audiences that are hypersensitive to "other" (read: Western) audiences.
Klingenstein Lounge, Wednesday, March 28, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Naeem Mohaiemen
Disappeared in America and Shobak: From Website, to Blogs to YouTube
Visual artist, activist, writer and blogger Naeem Mohaiemen does a special workshop on the web, blog, and interactive artwork of the Visible Collective, Shobak.org, the Disappeared in America site, a series of new media projects and performances that deconstruct racial and ethnic panic.
Park Auditorium, Wednesday, March 28, 2:00-3:50 p.m.
Marion Nestle
What to Eat: Personal Responsibility versus Social Responsibility
Nutritionist, best selling author (Food Politics and What to Eat), and food-lover, Marion Nestle delivers a lecture that guides us through the supermarket, big food companies' marketing practices, and complex labeling devices. She'll also help decode what has become the labyrinth of food lingo like wild, farm-raised, frozen and fresh, organic, natural, supplements, additives, preservatives, carbs, omega-3s, and trans fats.
Textor 103, Tuesday, March 27, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Lisa Patti
The Gaming Meme II Workshop
Film and literature scholar Lisa Patti does a workshop on how social gaming asks us to rethink narrative and rethread interactivity.
Smiddy 325, Wednesday, March 28, 1:00-1:50 p.m.
Claudia Pederson
The Gaming Meme III Workshop
Art historian and computer game theorist Claudia Pederson does a workshop examining the convergence of simulation technologies, the military, entertainment, and medicine in experimental game design.
Smiddy 325, Thursday, March 29, 1:10-2:25 p.m.
Giovanna Pollarolo
Writing Panic in Latin American Cinema Master Class
Peruvian feature-film screenwriter (Tinta Roja, Mariposa Negra), journalist, and poet Giovanna Pollarolo shares her experience writing political thrillers.
Park 225, Friday, March 30, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Brooke Singer
Locative Media: A Wade through the Data Stream Workshop
Digital media artist and member of the Preemptive Media Collective, Brooke Singer introduces participants in this workshop to the exciting new world of locative media – media practices that make visible invisible digital technologies like RFID, WIFI, data mining, cell phones, and beyond.
Park 138, Wednesday, March 28, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
Brooke Singer
Beyond You and the EPA: Agencies, Accomplices, and Action
Locative media artist Brooke Singer discusses and screens her recently completed film on the Environmental Protection Agency and its ombudsman, Robert Martin.
Park 279, Tuesday, March 27, 2:35-3:50 p.m.
Craig Volk
A Dog's Life: Television Writing Workshop
It was Hunter Thompson who noted, "The television business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic highway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. Yet some writers survive this canine fate." This workshop with screenwriter Craig Volk is an introduction to writing for the small (and increasingly smaller) screen. It will examine the rapidly changing television industry with particular emphasis on original content creation for network, cable, Internet, and mobile platforms.
Park 332, Thursday, March 29, 10:50-12:10 p.m.
Master Classes, and Workshops
Siona Benjamin
Artist's Talk on the Painting Exhibition, Blue Like Me, Handwerker Gallery
Painter and multimedia artist Siona Benjamin will discuss how her work visually maps hybrid identities and diasporas, and how aesthetic strategies can chart postcoloniality.
Tuesday, March 27, 12:15 -1:15 p.m.
Siona Benjamin and Ishrat Hoque
Color Me Blue Performance, Handwerker Gallery
A multiarts performance with painter Siona Benjamin and dancer Ishrat Hoque rethreading the memes of South Asian art forms, transnational zones, and the gendered body.
Tuesday, March 27, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Renate Ferro
Artist's Talk on the Installation Panic Hits Home
Digital media artist Renate Ferro unpacks how she envisions and materializes panic from a feminist perspective through technological interfaces and installation.
Handwerker Gallery, Friday, March 30, 1:00-1:50 p.m.
Richard Fung
The Documentary Meme Master Class
Trinidadian Canadian video artist and writer Richard Fung explores the boundaries of the performative video documentary in this master class where theory meets practice with a special retrospective screening.
Park 138, Wednesday, March 28, 3:00-4:50 p.m.
Richard Fung
The Soundscapes of Documentary Voice Master Class
Trinidadian Canadian video artist and writer Richard Fung will discuss how writing and voice shape postcolonial documentary practices and unsettle the borders between nation and diaspora, experimental and documentary, politics and art.
Park Auditorium, Thursday, March 29, 4:00-5:50 p.m.
Steve Ginsberg
Hollywood: Fact or Fiction Workshop
Hollywood. Is it the home of an organized counterinsurgency where the cultural elite have monthly blue state meetings to overthrow the government? What does it mean to live in and work there, and is it, in fact, even a city? Do people in Los Angeles have to travel somewhere else for a reality check, or are there actually real families who live there who have nothing to do with the entertainment industry? These and other issues will be addressed in a lively give-and-take discussion with screenwriter Steve Ginsberg that will seek to demystify what it's like to live and work in the "city" of Los Angeles. Included is a 12-step guide on how the entertainment industry functions and what it's really like to live in a place that seems both fascinating and immoral to the world at large.
Park 220, Friday, March 30, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Steve Ginsberg
Writer's Block: A Special Form of Panic Workshop
"Perfectionism is a primary writer's block. We want to write-we just want to do it perfectly." -Julia Cameron, The Right to Write
There are many theories on writer's block. But what it usually amounts to is fear-fear of being bad; fear of not living up to expectations for yourself or of the outside world; even fear of what would happen if you actually did succeed and then had to keep up that superstar reputation so everyone doesn't discover that deep down you really are a "fraud." This workshop will allow us to share those "war stories" on how our minds get the best of us, and advance practical creative strategies to get us back to the page and-yes, even enjoying our work. Included are impromptu writing exercises, procrastination busters, and a forum to exchange the top 10 best excuses not to write and how to counteract them.
Park 332, Thursday, March 29, 2:35-3:50 p.m.
Steve Gordon
How It Works: Inside the Entertainment Industry Workshop
As executive vice president for Creative Affairs at Viacom, one of the largest media companies in the world, Steve Gordon generated over 2,000 hours of programming. In this workshop, he'll share his map of how it all works from the perspective of an insider who has hired and inspired writers.
Park 332, Tuesday, March 27, 2:35-3:50 p.m.
Vincent Grenier
Rescuing Artifacts: Sound/Image/Digital Retrospective and Workshop
In this special retrospective of his large body of work, experimental film and video maker Vincent Grenier will screen works that experiment with color, sound, and composition as expressions of cultural assumptions and as juxtapositions of phenomenological, visual, or psychological events. Through sound-image juxtapositions, digital manipulation, and layering, his films deal with the interaction between the propensity to mislead and the eloquence of the recorded image.
Park Auditorium, Monday, March 26th, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Dale Hudson and Sharon Lin Tay
Undisclosed Recipients Digital Art Lecture
Cocurators Dale Hudson and Sharon Lin Tay analyze how digital artists intervene into and reinvent maps and memes, metropoli, panic attacks, and soundscaping through algorithms, interfaces, iterative media, archives, and remix.
Park 140, Wednesday, March 28, 2:00-3:50 p.m.; Park 285, Thursday, March 29, 6:50-9:20 p.m.
Judy Hyman, Ann Michel, Cynthia Henderson, Phil Wilde and Jeff Claus
Memescapes Remix: The Landscapes and Soundscapes of the Collaborative Process
Join opening night Memescapes team Jeff Claus, Cynthia Henderson, Judy Hyman, Ann Michel, and Phil Wilde in a workshop exploring remixing disciplines, arts practices, skills, technologies, archival film, original music, and live performance.
Park Auditorium, Tuesday, March 27, 4:00-6:50 p.m.
Meg Jamieson and Leah Shafer
FLEFF Open Call Media Works
Coprogrammers Meg Jamieson and Leah Shafer illuminate the matrix of media works by emerging artists curated for this year's FLEFF open call. They'll also provide pointers for emerging media artists on how to navigate the festival scene.
Park 220, Friday, March 30, 3:00-3:50 p.m.
Tim McCaskell
Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality Workshop
Tim McCaskell's book provides a detailed view from inside the experiments, successes, and mistakes in the Toronto Board of Education's quest to provide truly equitable education for a diverse student body. For almost three decades McCaskell and his colleagues fought to deliver antiracism, antisexism, and antihomophobia education. McCaskell's astute blend of personal reflection and political theory illuminates a time of significant social struggle, cultural transformation, and deep learning.
Park 220, Friday, March 30, 2:00-2:50 p.m.
Ulises Mejias
The Gaming Meme I Workshop
New media theorist and blogger Ulises Mejias does a workshop on how games are the new frontier for social justice media.
Williams 221, Wednesday, March 28, 12:00-12:50 p.m.
Ann Michel and Phil Wilde
The Science Meme: Workshop on Science for the People
Award-winning science, engineering, and environmental filmmakers Ann Michel and Phil Wilde present a master class on designing media with a clear purpose and audience in mind—whether for festival exhibition or for client-based work. This master class explores the business of producing. The filmmakers explain how media design often means shifting from a single film to websites, multimedia, interactive media, installation, museum exhibitions, and media and live music performances to get the message across in the most powerful way. Using Wilde and Michel’s work in progress as a case study, this master class explores ways to unpack the research and design elements to get science to the people—and keep them awake.
Park 138, Tuesday, March 27, 1:10-2:25 p.m.
Jonathan Miller
The Listening Room
Radio journalist and producer Jonathan Miller curates a selection of audio works from award-winning Homelands Productions (he's one of the principals) that show the depth and breadth of how soundscaping changes how our minds. See metropoli, panic, and memes.
Handwerker Gallery, Thursday, March 29, 7:30-9:00 p.m.
Sarah Mkhonza
Reading from Her Work
Ithaca City of Asylum writer in residence Sarah Mkhonza reads from her past and recent writing, which evokes the politics and social relations of her native Swaziland.
Handwerker Gallery, Monday, March 26, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Naeem Mohaiemen
...And Who Are the Subtitles For?
Visual artist, activist, writer, and blogger Naeem Mohaiemen lectures about the project Muslims or Heretics: My Camera Can Lie and the particular problems faced when doing activist art around audiences that are hypersensitive to "other" (read: Western) audiences.
Klingenstein Lounge, Wednesday, March 28, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Naeem Mohaiemen
Disappeared in America and Shobak: From Website, to Blogs to YouTube
Visual artist, activist, writer and blogger Naeem Mohaiemen does a special workshop on the web, blog, and interactive artwork of the Visible Collective, Shobak.org, the Disappeared in America site, a series of new media projects and performances that deconstruct racial and ethnic panic.
Park Auditorium, Wednesday, March 28, 2:00-3:50 p.m.
Marion Nestle
What to Eat: Personal Responsibility versus Social Responsibility
Nutritionist, best selling author (Food Politics and What to Eat), and food-lover, Marion Nestle delivers a lecture that guides us through the supermarket, big food companies' marketing practices, and complex labeling devices. She'll also help decode what has become the labyrinth of food lingo like wild, farm-raised, frozen and fresh, organic, natural, supplements, additives, preservatives, carbs, omega-3s, and trans fats.
Textor 103, Tuesday, March 27, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Lisa Patti
The Gaming Meme II Workshop
Film and literature scholar Lisa Patti does a workshop on how social gaming asks us to rethink narrative and rethread interactivity.
Smiddy 325, Wednesday, March 28, 1:00-1:50 p.m.
Claudia Pederson
The Gaming Meme III Workshop
Art historian and computer game theorist Claudia Pederson does a workshop examining the convergence of simulation technologies, the military, entertainment, and medicine in experimental game design.
Smiddy 325, Thursday, March 29, 1:10-2:25 p.m.
Giovanna Pollarolo
Writing Panic in Latin American Cinema Master Class
Peruvian feature-film screenwriter (Tinta Roja, Mariposa Negra), journalist, and poet Giovanna Pollarolo shares her experience writing political thrillers.
Park 225, Friday, March 30, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Brooke Singer
Locative Media: A Wade through the Data Stream Workshop
Digital media artist and member of the Preemptive Media Collective, Brooke Singer introduces participants in this workshop to the exciting new world of locative media – media practices that make visible invisible digital technologies like RFID, WIFI, data mining, cell phones, and beyond.
Park 138, Wednesday, March 28, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
Brooke Singer
Beyond You and the EPA: Agencies, Accomplices, and Action
Locative media artist Brooke Singer discusses and screens her recently completed film on the Environmental Protection Agency and its ombudsman, Robert Martin.
Park 279, Tuesday, March 27, 2:35-3:50 p.m.
Craig Volk
A Dog's Life: Television Writing Workshop
It was Hunter Thompson who noted, "The television business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic highway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. Yet some writers survive this canine fate." This workshop with screenwriter Craig Volk is an introduction to writing for the small (and increasingly smaller) screen. It will examine the rapidly changing television industry with particular emphasis on original content creation for network, cable, Internet, and mobile platforms.
Park 332, Thursday, March 29, 10:50-12:10 p.m.
