Dr. Helen Wheatley will give a ketnote address entitled 'The desiring girl: exploring the erotics of television' at the ‘Girls on film’: Visualising Femininities in Contemporary Culture conference at Northumbria University on May 23rd.

Here is the abstract for Dr. Wheatley's paper:

This paper will consider the figure of the desiring girl on and in relation to television; in doing so it re-evaluates the applicability of screen theory to television, particularly Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975). Drawing on both close analyses of contemporary television drama (for example My Mad Fat Diary (E4, 2013-15), Poldark (BBC1, 2015–), Banana (E4, 2015) and Les Revenants (Canal+, 2012-)) and qualitative audience research into relationship between television and desire, the paper will sketch out the ways in which a variety of contemporary television dramas feature a desiring girl at their heart and through her seek to provide the viewer with intentional erotic spectacle: moments, images, characters, even episodes which both seek to represent and provoke desire. In doing so, this paper will attend to the fact that contemporary television particularly focuses on the presentation of intentional erotic spectacle for a heterosexual, female audience.

On the other hand, however, I will argue television is also characterised by accidental erotic spectacle and that scopophilia can also be located in ‘unlikely’ places on television; the scopophilic visual pleasures of the medium, particularly for the desiring girl, cannot be easily contained in or confined to particular programmes, genres or slots in the schedule. I will draw on Barthes’ notion of erotic intermittence (1975) to argue that the appearance and disappearance of erotic spectacle is fundamental to the structures of television narrative and television scheduling. Barthes’ exploration of the play between presence and absence in the erotic, and the making of what is ‘private’, ‘public’, expresses something of what is specific to a televisual presentation of erotic spectacle that centres on the girl as protagonist and potential viewer.

Find out more about the conference HERE

Current PhD student Claire Jesson and research Fellow Dr. Richard Wallace (both part of The Projection Project) will give a film talk about one of th unsung heroes of cinema at Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday 7 May, 11am - 3pm.

The projectionist was the technical wizard who brought the screen to life, making audiences laugh, cry and even scream. An illustrated talk by the Projection Project’s Claire Jesson looks at how the movies imagine this mysterious figure, and Dr Richard Wallace has recorded projectionists’ memories spanning over 50 years of cinema history and the transformation from celluloid to digital exhibition. Includes a screening of Oscar-winning film, Cinema Paradiso, and a chance to glimpse inside Warwick Arts Centre’s own projection box.

Inside the projection box, plus screening of Cinema Paradiso

Lifting the veil on cinema’s secrets

Warwick Arts Centre Cinema

Saturday 7 May, 11am-3pm

Tickets £12 (£9)

Book at: http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/2016/film-talk-inside-the-projection-box-lifting-the-veil-on-cinemas-secrets/

From April 20-23rd 2016 Stella Bruzzi was a guest of the Doha Film Institute, Qatar. "Fashion in Film: Costume as Character" was a short season of films part-curated by her with screenings of Le Samourai, Funny Face, Rashomon, The Birds, Age of Innocence, 3000 Nights and Disney's Cinderella. She also delivered a 2-hour master class on costume in cinema.

Find out more about the events HERE.

The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese, 1993.

The Projection Project, which is an AHRC funded research project that investigates projection, will contribute a number of events at the upcoming Flatpack Film Festival in Birmingham:

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Richard Nicholson: The Projectionists

Gas Hall: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
From Wednesday 20 April at 11am to Sunday 24 April at 5pm 
A free event suitable for all ages

Photographer Richard Nicholson has been travelling the country, gaining privileged access to a realm where most cinema-goers never venture; the projection box. As film has made way for digital, both the job and the work-place have changed fundamentally, and Richard’s beautifully detailed images capture this pivotal moment.

This exhibition is part of our Projection Project, exploring the changing role of the projectionist over the past century. Some of the fruits of this work will be on show as part of the Celluloid City day, including Richard himself in conversation.

Gas Hall opening times: Wednesday – Friday 12pm – 7pm, Saturday 10.30am – 9pm, Sunday 10.30am – 5pm

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Secrets of the projection box

Part of the Flatpack Film Festival’s ‘Celluloid City’ day

Gas Hall: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Sunday 24 April, 3.45pm 
A free event suitable for all ages

Hair in the gate. Cigarette burns. The Maltese Cross. Projectionists inhabit a parallel universe with its own lexicon and rituals. Last year we embarked on the Projection Project exploring different aspects of this world, and at this event we will share some of the stories, sights and sounds we’ve discovered.

Claire Jesson is interested in the projectionist as represented onscreen, and will be showing a selection of clips from different movies. Richard Wallace has travelled the country interviewing a range of film technicians about their work, while Michael Pigott has been capturing the unique auditory environment of the box. Finally, Alexa Raisbeck is a projectionist and artist who will be talking about how her work is informed by analogue film technologies.

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There will also be a Virtual Projection Box to explore, and members of the research team will be there to talk about the project (both in the Gas Hall along with the Richard Nicholson exhibtion).

And WarPUnit - the Warwick Projection Unit - will see intrepid Warwick students taking to the streets of Birmingham to do some guerrilla outdoor projection during the festival.

At this years University of Warwick Staff Awards, Dr. Rachel Moseley and Dr. Helen Wheatley of the Film and Television Studies Dept. won the Community Contribution award for their work on the children's television exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery andMuseum in Coventry.

"Dr Moseley and Dr Wheatley have developed a new collaborative relationship with The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, one of the University’s major regional partners in the cultural sector. Both worked on a major exhibition documenting the history of children’s television in Britain that has led to significant economic and cultural impact in the local community. Last year’s exhibition was widely publicised and exceptionally well-attended. This initiative shows how specialised research at Warwick can translate into a major cultural collaboration at a local level. Such work encourages the emergence of new dialogue between academia and the local community."