Modernist Energies

2016-17

Robert Michel. “200 Horsepower Double ‘Gnome’ Rotary Engine.” (1921-22).

In the 2016-17, COMMA will investigate the technological, material, and artistic energies that animate the 20th century. The year-long programing will include film screenings, reading groups, and keynote addresses by Professor Imre Szeman (English and Film Studies, University of Alberta) and others.

Please check back for a full schedule of events will be posted in late October, 2016.

Reading Group

24 7

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary.

Film Series

Upstream_Color_poster

Upstream Color (2013), dir. Shane Carruth.

How have modern energy infrastructures (oil, natural gas, nuclear) shaped political, artistic, and social potentialities? What is the relationship between material and political “power”? How does the reconceptualization of matter as energy relations inaugurate new perceptions of humans relationship to our environment, economy, and history? These are only a few of the questions that will guide our investigation of “Modernist Energies” in the 2016-17 academic year.