Events News
April 18th, 2012
An Event celebrating 25 years
of the Joint Ph.D. program in communication
(Université de Montréal, Concordia University, UQAM)
Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT)
1201, boul. St. Laurent, Montréal
On April 25th, we invite you to join us in celebrating 25 years of the Joint Ph.D. program in communication. For that purpose, we invite you to a free one-afternoon symposium — held at the Société des Arts Technologiques — dedicated to the ideas of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan — whose one-hundredth birthday was celebrated last year. We will have two panels of three presentations each, featuring the works of our colleagues and students (see program hereafter), and a keynote address by Jeffrey Schnapp, founder and faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard, introduced by Luc Courchesne, in the “McLuhan Massage Parlour” at Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT).
Dr. Schnapp will present a talk entitled “Marshall McLuhan and the Electric Information Age Book” based on his recent book, The Electric Information Age Book (co-authored with Adam Michaels (Princeton Architectural Press, January, 2012). This book explores the nine-year window between 1966 and 1975, when a group of designers, graphic artists, and editors literally invented the future of the paperback book. The period begins in 1966 when Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore, in collaboration with Marshall McLuhan, employed a variety of radical techniques—verbal visual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics—to produce a book in the shape of “an inventory of effects:” The Medium Is the Massage. Schnapp’s keynote address will be presented in the context of Luc Courchesne’s immersive installation entitled “le salon de massage McLuhan” (in collaboration with Mike Wozniewski, Benjamin Bergery, Luc Martinez et David Duguay). This interactive experience, inspired by McLuhan’s, Fiore’s and Agel’s book, marks the one-hundredth anniversary of McLuhan’s birth in a medium that he could only have dreamed about. During Dr. Schnapp’s keynote, the public will be located at the center of the Satosphere dome, while Luc Courchesne will “move” inside The Medium is the Massage whose every page has been redeployed in the 3D space of the Satosphere dome, the biggest immersive projection room in the world. This gigantic dome, with its 54-foot diameter and 45-foot height, is equipped with eight video projectors and 157 speakers to allow immersive and participatory exhibits of this kind.
On April 25th, the medium will thus be the message, the mental and audiovisual massage of the cybernetic age!
PROGRAMME
1:00 pm – Welcoming Address
1:15 pm – Session 1 – Decoupling Innis and McLuhan?
Chair –Sandra Gabriele, Professor
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
“Le concept de moyen de communication dans l’École de Toronto”
Luiz Martino, Professeur
Faculdade de Comunicação, Universidade de Brasilia
“Innis, un homme de son temps ? McLuhan, un homme de l’espace ?”
Gaetan Tremblay, Professeur
École des médias, UQAM
“The Rise of McLuhanism, The Loss of Innis-sense: Rethinking the Toronto School of Communication”
Bill Buxton, Professor
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
Respondent:
Shirley Roburn, PhD Candidate
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
3:00 pm – break
3:15 pm - Session 2 – Probing McLuhan
Chair – Lorna Roth, Professor
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
“Marshall McLuhan and the Economies of Citation”
Darren Wershler, Research Chair in Media and Contemporary Literature
Department of English, Concordia University
“Le concept de forme chez McLuhan. Plaidoyer pour un changement d’ethos”
Oumar Kane, Professeur
Département de communication sociale et publique (UQAM)
“McLuhan’s legacies: An Animal-studies perspective”
David Jaclin
PhD Candidate,
Département de communication, Université de Montréal
Respondent: Christina Haralanova
PhD Candidate
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
5:00 pm – break
5:30 – Keynote
“Marshall McLuhan and the Electric Information Age Book”
Jeffrey Schnapp,
Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and Comparative Literature,
Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society,
Harvard University
“Le salon de massage McLuhan”
Luc Courchesne, Professeur,
École de design industriel, Université de Montréal
7:00 – 8:00 Reception
Jeffrey T. Schnapp is Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures at Harvard University, where he also teaches on the faculty of the Department of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, and serves as faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In February 2011, he co-founded a new laboratory under the aegis of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society: metaLAB (at) Harvard. Though primarily anchored in the field of Italian studies (before moving to Harvard in 2011, he occupied the Pierotti Chair of Italian Studies at Stanford) Dr. Schnapp has played a pioneering role in several areas of transdisciplinary research and has been at the forefront of a new wave of digital humanities work. His research interests extend from antiquity to the present, encompassing the material history of literature, the history of 20th-century architecture and design, and the cultural history of science and engineering. Trained as a Romance linguist, Schnapp is the author or editor of twenty books and over one hundred essays. His book Crowds was the recipient of the Modernist Studies Association prize for best book of 2006. He has recently co-authored The Electric Information Age Book: McLuhan/Agel/Fiore and the Experimental Paperback.
Luc Courchesne Based in Montreal, Luc Courchesne is a founding member of the Society for Art and Technology [SAT], and since 1989, professor of design at Université de Montréal, where he teaches media and experiential design. Over the last thirty years he has made a major contribution to the emergence of media arts. His early work on interactive portraiture and landscape contributed to a revolution in these genres with his installations and “panoscopic” images, which transform spectators into visitors, actors and inhabitants of his experiential crafts. His work is part of major collections in North America, Europe and Asia and has been shown extensively in galleries and museums worldwide, including: Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo’s InterCommunication Center (ICC), Paris’ La Villette, Karlsruhe’s ZKM/Medienmuseum, Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain, the National Gallery of Canada, Barcelona’s Fundacion La Caixa and Beijing’s National Art Museum of China.
The Joint Ph.D. Program in Communication is unique in North America. Created in 1987, this dynamic, inter-university program combines the talents of some 50 professors, a hundred and fifty students, and the staff of three institutions: the University of Montreal, Concordia University, and the University of Quebec at Montreal. One of the challenges and, indeed, strengths of the program is its bilingual nature.
Contact :
Dr. Thierry Bardini, program director, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Dr. William Buxton, Concordia PhD director, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Dr. Éric George, UQAM PhD director email hidden; JavaScript is required
Josée Duranleau, coordinator of the programme, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Telephone : 514-343-6111 poste 5419
March 5th, 2012
 On Friday March 16th at 2:30 pm (doors open at 2:00 pm), Communication Studies will be hosting “A Conversation with Pierre Even”, another distinguished alumni (Graduate Diploma 1990) who is returning to spend some time with our students, faculty and staff.
Pierre Even is the producer of numerous critically acclaimed feature films such as C.R.A.Z.Y., Une vie qui commence, Café de Flore and Rebelle. Even’s productions have been winners of many prestigious awards and prizes, including Rebelle‘s recent win at the Berlin International Film Festival 2012 (Silver Bear Award, Best Actress for Rachel Mwanza). Even owns and works out of the Montréal production company, Item 7.
Our ‘conversation’ with Pierre Even will be facilitated by another distinguished alumni, Brendan Kelly, CBC Radio and The Gazette. This event takes place in CJ 1.114 and there will be a reception in Pierre Even’s honour, in the Atrium, immediately following the ‘conversation’.
We are very excited about Pierre’s visit and urge you to join us in ‘conversation’.
A Conversation with Pierre Even
Friday, March 16, 2012 at 2:30 PM
Loyola Campus
Communication and Journalism – CJ Building,
CJ 1.114
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec
January 30th, 2012
 The Media Gallery in the Department of Communication Studies
proudly presents the exhibition
Fanciful: Small Media Moments
curated by Kim Sawchuk and Rae Staseson
Featuring the work of Margaret Murphy, Emily Pelstring, Kelly Thompson and Karen Trask, this exhibition plays with our notion of scale and challenges us to reconsider intimacy, domestic display and the role of whimsy in communication.
The artists all use a combination of old technologies in conjunction with new media, in highly unique ways, to create surprising connections.
February 10th – April 13th, 2012
Media Gallery
CJ Building 1.419
Concordia University’s Loyola campus
7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal
Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 9:00 – 4:45pm and Friday 9:00 – 12:45pm
For additional information please call Rae Staseson at 514-848-2424 x2535 or x2555.
January 27th, 2011
The small community of Marconi Towers, located a few kilometers south of Glace Bay in Cape Breton, is home to what remains of the first commercial transatlantic wireless station established by Guglielmo Marconi and the Marconi Company of Canada in 1907. Linked to its sister station in Clifden, Ireland the Glace Bay Station was the first in what would eventually become a global communications network and a Canadian landmark in the early history of wireless telegraphy and radio.
The station remained in operation to the end of the Second World War, after which the property and buildings were sold to Russell Cunningham. To this day, the site is privately owned by the Cunningham family who still occupy the Station Manager’s home and maintain what is left of the Condenser House, the only original Marconi station structures left in the world today.
Through a mix of photography, sculpture, and original artifacts, Longford and Prenovault explore what remains and has been lost of the industrial infrastructure – the condenser house, coal fired generators, towers supporting huge antennae arrays, spark transmitters and banks of vacuum tubes – required to send the pulse of energy translated into the dots and dashes that made up the language invented by Samuel Morse. In its day, the powerful station could be seen and heard for miles around. Today it is silent, hidden from view by the surrounding forest as the remaining structures fall in on themselves slowly deteriorating over time. http://www.marconiruins.ca/
Artist Biographies
Michael Longford is the Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University. He is a Co-Director of the Mobile Media Lab (MML), which is made up of an interdisciplinary research team exploring wireless communications, rich media content development for mobile technologies, and locative media practices. He is also a co-editor of the recent publication, The Wireless Spectrum: The Politics, Practices and Poetics of Mobile Media (2010), and a co-editor for the Visual Communication Journal published by Sage.
Robert Prenovault is an artist and designer whose practice is strongly informed by materials, processes, technologies and the role they play in the interface between human beings, the build environment, and the natural world. Over a period of four decades he has exhibited, produced artist books, and done performance and installation work across Canada. As a member of the Mobile Media Lab (MML), his creative practice is currently focused on the integration of traditional techniques with digital technologies.
Marconi’s Ruins
Michael Longford & Robert Prenovault
February 07 – April 29, 2011
Vernissage: Thursday, February 10, 4:30 – 6:30 PM
Media Gallery
Department of Communication Studies
Concordia University, Loyola Campus
CJ Building 1.419
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec Canada H4B 1R6
Gallery Hours: Monday – Thursday, 9:00 AM – 4:45 PM
Friday, 9:00 AM – 12:45 PM
http://www.marconiruins.ca/
November 11th, 2010
The Departments of Communication Studies and Journalism will be holding an information session on
Friday, November 26 at 1:30 p.m. in CJ 1.114.
The event aims to introduce students to the different programs and review the various entry requirements.
Loyola Campus
Communication and Journalism Building, CJ 1.114
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec
For more information please contact the Department of Communication Studies at 514-848-2424 xt 2555, or the Department of Journalism at 514-848-2424 ext 2465.
October 19th, 2010
 Owen Chapman will be performing with Clara Furey at Theatre Quat-Sous, Montreal for 5 nights from Oct 21-25 2010. The evening will feature original songs composed by Furey for piano and voice, with arrangements and accompaniment executed by Chapman using a variety of live sound technologies including turntable, contact microphones, wine glasses, drum machine, Ableton Live, a Martenot Clavi-harp, an array of effects pedals, MIDI keyboards and voice. A few of Chapman’s own compositions will also be featured. The evening will include other guest performers as well as video projections prepared by Jonathan Inksetter. For more information, please consult http://www.quatsous.com
September 29th, 2010
Media Gallery Exhibition: Ear on Arm, featuring video by Stelarc.
Where: Media Gallery, Department of Communication Studies
CJ building 1.419, Loyola Campus
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
When: October 21-December 1st, 2010
Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 9-4:45 pm and Friday 9-12:45 pm.
For additional information please call Tagny Duff at 514-848-2424 ext 2560
Vernissage: The artist will be in attendance
Where: CJ Atrium, Loyola Campus
When: October 21, 4:30-6:15pm
Public lecture: Stelarc
Where: Oscar Peterson Hall, Loyola Campus
When: October 21, 6:30pm
Free and open to the public: http://fluxmedia.concordia.ca
“I have always been intrigued about engineering a soft prosthesis using my own skin, as a permanent modification of the body architecture. The assumption being that if the body was altered it might mean adjusting its awareness. Engineering an alternate anatomical architecture, one that also performs telematically. Certainly what becomes important now is not merely the body’s identity, but its connectivity- not its mobility or location, but its interface.” – Stelarc
Sponsored by Fluxmedia in partnership with Concordia and the Communication Studies Department, Incubator Hybrid Lab at the Intersection of Art, Science and Ecology, University of Windsor, Elektra, NXI Gestatio, Hexagram/CIAM UQAM, Mobile Media Labs, Media Gallery, Dept. Communication Studies, Hexagram Concordia Center for Research Creation, and The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Image: Nina Sellars
September 14th, 2010
 ‘The Visual Language of Herbert Matter’
A new documentary film by Reto Caduff
October 23rd 2010 at 7.30pm
Concordia University (Hall Building H-110)
1455 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal
The Quebec premiere of a fascinating new documentary film on the life and work of Herbert Matter, the hugely influential mid-century artist, designer and photographer. The director, Reto Caduff, will be present for a Q&A after the screening.
Free and open to the public. More info: http://www.herbertmatter.net
Sponsors:
Concordia Signs Project; Dr Carole Brabant, Office of the Vice President of Research & Graduate Studies, Concordia University; ICOGRADA; Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University; Department of Design & Computation Arts, Concordia University.
September 3rd, 2010
 The Media Gallery, in the Department of Communication Studies, is pleased to announce the opening of the new exhibition, Endeavour, by performance and media artist Frances Leeming. This exhibition, consisting of two animated film loops and a separate audio-track, is a wry and whimsical response to such historical but failed initiatives as the Women’s Space Program (1960) characterized as “prefeminist agitation” and a threat to NASA’s manned space exploration.
Frances Leeming’s work explores the relationship between gender, technology, and consumerism. Leeming’s media projects have been exhibited internationally and her films have been collected by the National Gallery of Canada and Cornell University. Her collage animation, Genetic Admiration was nominated for numerous festival prizes and won the grand prize at Toronto’s Images Festival (2005). Her performance and film work has been written about by numerous critics and historians and has been published in several anthologies. Leeming, a graduate of Concordia University and a former professor in Communication Studies, now teaches in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University.
Endeavour runs from September 7th until October 15th, in the Media Gallery, CJ Building 1.419, located at Concordia University’s Loyola campus, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 9-4:45 pm and Friday 9-12:45 pm.
For additional information please call Rae Staseson at 514-848-2424 x2555.
May 20th, 2010
 The Communication Studies and Journalism Departments are proud to host the 30th Canadian Communication Association annual meetings as part of Congress 2010, from June 1 to 3.
You can visit the official site at cca30.wordpress.com or download the complete program here:
CCA-Program.pdf (3.5MB)
April 21st, 2010
 Prodfest is the annual series of screenings and vernissages featuring production work by students in the Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University.
SCHEDULE 2010
- Video III & Intermedia
Saturday, April 24th, 7pm – 5333 rue Casgrain, suite 602
- Video II
Tuesday, April 27th, 7pm – Room H-110 1455 de Maisonneuve (Hall Bulding)
- Intermedia II & Sound II
Wednesday, April 28th, 7:30pm – Il Motore 179 rue Jean Talon Ouest
- Film II
Thursday, April 29th, 7:30pm – Room H-110 1455 de Maisonneuve (Hall Bulding)
- Film III Friday, April 30th, 7:30pm – Room H-110 1455 de Maisonneuve (Hall Building)
March 2nd, 2010
Alumni Salvatore Barrera and Sara Morley visit Liz Miller’s intermediate video production class and share invaluable advice on titles, producing, and working with designers.
insets: Salvatore and Sara while students at Concordia, circa 1990 – click to enlarge
Salvatore Barrera, B.A. Communications Studies 1992, is a Video / Multimedia Producer and Motion Graphics Designer at University Communications Services, Concordia University. Former director at Design Postimage and one of its founding members, creating intro sequences and motion design for feature films, documentaries, television productions, live presentations and the web. He has over 15 years experience in Montreal’s film and video industry. Partner and producer at Productions Jeux d’Ombres for nine years from it’s inception in 1994, Salvatore’s feature productions include: Zigrail (1995), André Turpin’s first feature film; Burnt Eden (1997), winner of the Telefilm Canada People’s Choice Award at the Montreal Festival of New Cinema (FNC); Méchant Party (2001); and A Project of the People (1996), a documentary about community development in the Windward Islands. In 1992, his first music video clip for Dédé Traké won Best Independent Music Video Clip from Musique Plus. In the early nineties, Salvatore was systems administrator at Concordia University’s multimedia lab, MITE AVISTA, and a technician at the AV Sound Studios. Presently, he is a video producer and motion designer for Concordia’s Marketing Communications.
Sara Morley, B.F.A. (Studio Art), is Design Postimage’s creative director and a founding member. She has over 20 years experience in design for print, multimedia, documentary and web production, working extensively in the educational and non-profit sectors, as well as for the film and television industry—designing titles and print campaigns for many of Quebec’s acclaimed feature films. Partner at Productions Jeux d’Ombres for eight years, Sara produced A Project of the People (1996), a documentary about sustainable development in the Eastern Caribbean. She also directed Oh Mother! (1998), a documentary that aired on the WTN Lifestyle Network and was featured at the 1998 Montreal Festival of New Cinema (FNC). Sara directed A Day in the Life of an Engineer, multimedia web portraits that present a typical day in the lives of five Aboriginal engineers from across Canada. The feature received the Canadian Education Association Achievement Award for 2005. She also designed the Quebec Film and Television Council’s online location photo gallery, which received a silver Horizon Interactive Award for interactive design. In 2007, Sara co–curated Katja MacLeod Kessin’s memorial retrospective at Concordia University’s FOFA Gallery. Recently, she has created proposal documents for the Cirque du Soleil and designed a 280-page architectural book featuring Bell Canada’s new global headquarters on Nuns’ Island. Sara is currently in postproduction on her feature-length documentary Tea with Nell
February 22nd, 2010
 Convenor: William Buxton (Communication Studies)
March 5 | 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Annex CI-104
School of Community and Public Affairs, 2149 Mackay Street
Free Admission
This colloquium will focus on funding for the arts and the humanities and will combine comparative historical studies with an examination of current trends in the support of the arts and humanities in Canada. In particular, it will explore how research and teaching in the arts and the humanities have been shaped by the designs and priorities of large philanthropic bodies and government agencies. Part 1: Historical Case Studies of Canada, United States and Australia. Part 2: What are the Prospects for the Arts and the Humanities in an Age of Cutbacks and Strategic Funding? What are the implications of the 2010 Federal Budget for the funding of the Arts and Humanities? Presentations followed by round-table discussion.
Colloquium Program
For more information: William Buxton
February 22nd, 2010
 Fluxmedia presents:
Art, Science Technology: Speaking of art/sci research
Invited international bio-artists in conversation with Concordia researchers.
Cellular interventions in art
Marta de Menezes in conversation with Dr. Kim Sawchuk, Department of Communication Studies
Wednesday, March 3, 5pm
Of mice and transgenic rats in art and scientific research
Kathy High in conversation with Dr. Barbara Woodside, Department of Psychology
Wednesday, March 10, 6:00pm
Transformation and biodiversity in art and biology
Brandon Ballengée in conversation with Dr. Dylan Fraser, Department of Biology
Wednesday, March 31, 5pm
Location:
Lecture Hall, 1.114, CJ building
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Loyola Campus
Concordia University
For additional information
contact Tagny Duff, email hidden; JavaScript is required
This event is sponsored by Fluxmedia with the support of Studio XX and funded through a Concordia Aid to Research Related Events grant.
Fluxmedia, situated within the Department of Communication Studies, is a research network exploring the intersections of art, science and technology
Image credit:
“DFA 25, Promethéus”
Scanner Photograph of Cleared and Stained Multi-limbed Pacific Tree frog from Aptos, California in Scientific Collaboration with Dr. Stanley K. Sessions.
MALAMP titles in collaboration with the Poet KuyDelair. 46 in. x 34 in.
Unique IRIS print on watercolor paper
2003/07
Courtesy the artist and Nowhere Gallery, Milan
February 3rd, 2010
 The Department of Communication Studies and Screen Culture Research Group Present
Screen World: A Symposium on Screen Technology, Media Space, and Mobile Media
February 12, 2010
CJ 1.114
Panels Begin at 9 am and run through to 5 pm
This event showcases recent scholarship investigating screens and mobility as dominant features of our media environment. Participants will address such topics as hand-held mobile devices, digital and celluloid exhibition, locative media, and artistic practice in gaming and augmented reality.
Featuring a keynote address from
Dr. Janine Marchessault (CRC York University)
“The Screen as World: Terre des hommes as Global Media Experiment”
For more information and for a full schedule of presentations, contact Charles Acland at email hidden; JavaScript is required or Zach Melzer at email hidden; JavaScript is required .
Support for this event comes from the Concordia University Research Chair in Communication Studies, Dept. of Communication Studies, TAG, ARTHEMIS, and Mediamixx (McGill University).
|
