New Cinema Symposium - France
In the Cinemathèque de Toulouse 2-4th of February, they arrange a symposium on new cinema, where they explore the connection between cinema and other visual media, such as videogames. Among the speakers are Espen Aarseth, Jay Bolter, Richard Grusin and Peter Chung. Another one of those events where a poor scholar would have liked to be. And this is one of those happening where said scholar would REALLY have liked to be present, and would have, if the chains of labouring in the auditorium did not hold a woman in such a harsh grip at the moment.

Videogames and cinema.

Colloquium the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of February 2004

Film Archive of Toulouse (Cinémathèque de Toulouse)

69 rue du Taur

31080 Toulouse

France

February 2004 is an important time in the life of the Film Archive of
Toulouse. Officially created on the 12th of February 1964, this February
marks it's the Film Archive's 40th birthday.

We wish to celebrate this birthday by organizing a 3 day colloquium on « the
hybrid form of images: emergence of a new cinema? ». This symposium is being
run in cooperation with the « PNR cinema of Toulouse » ('the National Pole
of cinema resources') which was created by the Department for Education.

The colloquium is based on an emergence of a new cinema which is very much
linked to other media such as video-game, Internet, comics, etc.

We anticipate discussion involving the recent movies: Matrix, Matrix
reloaded and Matrix Revolution as well as the Animatrix, EXistenZ, Avalon,
etc. These movies are widely viewed by the younger generation but many of
the older generation don't seem to be prepared to face these 'new' hybrid
images. One of the goals of this symposium is to facilitate a better
understanding of these films.

4 main forms of crossed images / hybrid pictures have been identified
within the academic community:

- The comment (like in ExistenZ, where the film takes a video games universe
as its backdrop)

- The quotation (The Beach, where Danny Boyle places Richard -played by L de
Caprio- into a computer game in the jungle)

- The adaptation (Tomb raider, Super Mario Bros, Mortal Kombat, Final
Fantasy, etc.)

- And remediation (where we find video game codes in movies. a theory
explained by R Grusin and D J Bolter in their book, Remediation,
Understanding new media).

This symposium is a remarkable as an opportunity to hear some of the
international specialists on crossed images and videogames talk on this
subject for the first time in France, These specialists include: Richard
Grusin (GIT), Jay David Bolter (GIT), Angela NDalianis (Melbourne), Margaret
Robertson (Edge Magazine), Espen Aarseth (Copenhagen), Peter Chung
(Director- Animatrix), etc.

More details: www.lacinemathequedetoulouse.com

[CV of the speakers and their abstracts available in English]

Further details: ludovic.graillat@ac-toulouse.fr [the organizer of the symposium]