ICCIT-CDRS Lightning Lunch- Nov 20, 2020

Join us for an ICCIT and CDRS joint lightning lunch featuringthe research projects of ICCIT faculty members: Marie-Pier Boucher, Lilia Topouzova and AlessandroDelfanti.  Through each of their 7 min presentations, attendees will be immersed in questions and projects that explore outer space and urban infrastructures; longitudinal filmmaking as scholarship and practice; and potential futures of human and robot labour. After their presentations,  KathleenScheaffer and ElizabethParke, the co-organizers and hosts of this event, will facilitate discussions between participants and presenters.

Marie-Pier Boucher, Assistant Professor

Space & the City

• How do we design environments for sustaining life in extreme environments?
• How can we develop creative and ethical frameworks for the urbanization of outer space technology?
• What is the role of media scholars in shaping the future of habitats?

Cities are sites of capital accumulation and locations whereby technology finds concrete expression. As new urban interventions are needed to respond to conditions of massification, densification,mobility, heterogeneity, inclusion, global health, and environmental degradation, Space& the City is a research-creation project that interrogates the relation between outer space science and technology andurban infrastructures in order to develop practical, tactical, and speculative modes of engagement that creatively assess (identify, evaluate, and subvert) the impact of outer space at the urban level.

Lilia TopouzovaAssistant Professor

Let the years speak: Longitudinal filmmaking as a scholarly & critical media practice

Some of the most compelling and accomplished documentary films emerge from a longitudinal practice. The filmmaker spends many years tracking lives and stories and sometimes several years editingthe footage. The outcome is frequently a moving and powerful visual narrative. Yet, longitudinal docs are in decline. They are difficult and expensive to produce, and they often require a profound personal commitment that defies the conventions of the filmmakingprocess. In this talk, I discuss the longitudinal documentary as both a scholarly and a media practice. Based on my own decade-long film production, I outline the challenges and opportunities of this type of immersive and participatory filmmaking. Respondingto shifting patterns in the scholarly and media productions worlds, I propose that integrating elements of both serves best our collective need for knowledge, its meaning and representation.

Alessandro Delfanti Associate Professor

Humans and robots at Amazon

What will be the place of digital technology in the way humans work and produce in the future? Take Amazon. In its warehouses, it deploys robotic and algorithmic systems, but at the same time it employs thousands of workers performing manual tasks. Patents owned by the company allow to glimpse at the future relationship betweenhumans and machines it imagines. As working lives are increasingly shaped by the interaction with technology, understanding its future direction is crucial to building a more just and sustainable society.