Research

The Rendering (the) Visible conference is organized by the doctoral program in Moving Image Studies and is chaired by faculty members Jennifer Barker, Alessandra Raengo and Angelo Restivo. The conference offers a forum for meta-disciplinary discussion of issues pertinent to the study of visuality, moving image media and sound. It has taken place in 2011 and 2014 and has attracted scholars and artists from around the world. Past conferences have opened with screenings of new media art (Phil Solomon in 2011 and a program curated by Timothy Murray in 2014) and have had keynote addresses delivered by Akira Lippit and Vivian Sobchack in 2011 and Pasi Väliaho in 2014. A forum for the showcasing of the most recent turns in media and visual theory, the conference encourages interdisciplinary experimentations and is open to projects that are at the intersection of theory and practice.

In Media Res is dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship. Our goal is to promote an online dialogue among scholars and the public about contemporary approaches to studying media. In Media Res provides a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media at a pace closer to how we experience mediated texts.

Each weekday, a different scholar curates a 30-second to 3-minute video clip/visual image slideshow accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. We use the title “curator” because, like a curator in a museum, you are repurposing a media object that already exists and providing context through your commentary, which frames the object in a particular way. The clip/comment combination are intended to introduce the curator’s work to the larger community of scholars (as well as non-academics who frequent the site) and encourage feedback/discussion from that community.

Theme weeks generate a networked conversation among curators. The posts for theme weeks thematically overlap and the participating curators each agree to comment on one another’s work.

Screening the South (STS) is a digital humanities project started in 2015 seeking to catalog all
film and television productions made in and/or representing the Southeastern United States.
The database records production titles, dates, directors, shooting locations, etc. This information
is gleaned from secondary sources, which are also tracked in the database. The ultimate
goal of the project is to create a working archive of Southern media and a dataset
that researchers can use to explore this body of work.

This project was inspired by Dr. Ethan Tussey’s Atlanta Media Project, reflecting the changes in
the economy, culture, and landscape due to the rise in film and television industry.
Georgia State University’s College of the Arts Librarian, Nedda Ahmed, conceptualized
this project as a resource for filmmakers, researchers, and students interested in
Southern filmmaking and representation from the birth of cinema in 1894 to 2008. In 2008, the
State of Georgia introduced the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act and the Georgia
Entertainment Promotion Tax Credit marking a shift in industry practices and standards outside of
the scope of this project. The research and data visualization strategies are modeled
after UCLA’s Early African American Film Project and have been organized by researchers:
Georgia State University Doctoral Students Matt Smith (2017-2018) and Shady R. Radical (2018 –
present).

To date, STS has catalogued 1,084 film productions and 52 television productions using 68 secondary
sources. According to our sources, 67 films were produced in 1916, making 1916 the most
productive year, following the release of D.W. Griffith’s canonical film, Birth of a Nation
in 1915. Uncle Tom’s Cabin has the most filmic adaptations, 20 features, and even appears as a tv
movie in 1987. The project and research is ongoing and is currently developing its online presence
and engagement.