About us
The Moving Image Research Centre
(MIRC) is as a hub for filmmakers and researchers working with the moving
image. It provides a vibrant context for research, filmmaking and debate.
MIRC’s black box studio and satellite pre/post-production spaces offer highly
active production environments, including a unique multi-screen platform.
MIRC’s annual calendar of events,
on and off UEL’s Docklands campus, include symposia, screenings, guest lectures
by visiting filmmakers and scholars, and work-in-progress workshops with
London-based moving image artists.
MIRC offers an annual residency
to mid-career moving image artists and filmmakers, and access to the Moving
Image Studio (MIS), editing suites and shooting equipment, including 16mm
equipment and processing.
The studio is also a home for
postgraduate research and teaching. Along with BA, MA, Professional Doctorate
and PhD students, academics use the space for workshops, lectures, film
planning, rehearsals, shooting, installation, test screenings and discussions.
We have an extensive network and
a wide range of partner organisations including: Whitechapel Gallery, Close-Up
Film Centre, BFI London Film Festival, discover.film, Film and
Video Umbrella, Film London, London Short Film Festival, East End Film
Festival, the annual Visible Evidence conference, the Institute of Asian and Transcultural
Studies (Vilnius) and the Centre for Social Science Research
(Dhaka).
There are currently six sponsored
PhD candidates attached to the centre, and about twenty in-house scholars and
filmmakers. Their interdisciplinary research projects combine both theory and
practice, and incorporate a diverse range of disciplines.
Research
- Artists' Moving Image: gallery practices, multi-screen installation, artists' feature film, sound art, film & performance art, materiality and process.
- Film Historiography: European, Asian and Latin American cinemas, cult films, film archives, the film essay.
- Counter cultural cinema: film collectives, guerrilla filmmaking, cinema of transgression, underground film, film activism, doc-fiction hybrids, De Sade studies.
- Contextual and relational practices: site-specific film and sound installations.
- Affect: Deleuze studies, urban film, time-image.
- Film and History: memory studies, borders, new ethnographies.
- Gareth
Evans – dissertation title: The Idea
of Armenia
areas: the national, film and creative writing.
Supervisors: Valentina Vitali, Kate Hodgkin, Tessa McWatt.
- Orson
Nava – dissertation title: Eastern
Promise? Race, Innovation and Opportunity in the Creative Industries’
Regeneration of East London.
Supervisors: David Chapman, Ash Sharma, Dominic Hingorani.
- Najat
Alsheridah –
dissertation title: Women and Dance in Kuwaiti Cinema
areas: feminist film studies, film and performance, film historiography. Supervisors: Valentina Vitali, David Chapman, Sarahleigh Castelyn.
- Dhruv
Rupapara –
dissertation title: Kathak and Cinema in India
areas: South Asian cinemas, film and performance. Supervisors: Valentina Vitali, Ash Sharma.
- Rishabh
Shrivastav –
dissertation title: Atheism and Cinema in India
areas: cinema, South Asia, atheism, politics. Supervisors: David Chapman, Valentina Vitali.
- Naida
Redgrave – dissertation title: Muslimah,
a research-led practice exploration of the representation of black Muslim women
in British cinema, 1997-2017.
areas: British cinema, black and Muslim identity. Supervisors: Tessa McWatt, Valentina Vitali.
- Natalia
Jezova – research areas: Research:
cultural history, memory and autobiography, photography; moving image.
Supervisors: Antigone Memou, Jill Daniels.
- Carmen
Aleman – research areas: feminism and
violence, mixed media, moving image. Supervisors: Grenville Davey, Jill
Daniels, Angie Voela.
- William
Bishop-Stevens –
research areas: absurdity, animism, animation. Supervisors: Grenville Davey, Jill
Daniels.
- Ashwin Joy – research areas: Malayalam cinema, horror cinema. Supervisors: Lindsay Hallam, Valentina Vitali, Jill Daniels.
Student Initiatives
Teaching
The taught programmes
delivered through the Moving Image Studio Research Centre are BA (Hons)
Film and MA Filmmaking. These courses take a more
discourse-driven and socially engaged approach to module content and delivery
than comparable masters and undergraduate courses. The programmes draw upon the
rich and diverse research practices of a number of practitioners and theorists
within and outside of the School of Arts and Digital Industries.
Core teaching staff:
David Chapman, Jill Daniels, Paul Gormley, Lindsay Hallam, Johannes Maier, Jo
Shoop, Valentina Vitali.
Staff
Residencies and Fellowships
In 2013 MIRC partnered with Film & Video Umbrella and Jerwood Space on the VU/Jerwood moving image award. The four award
recipients used the moving image studio and other resources within the school
to realize their projects, which were exhibited at the Jerwood Space and CCA
Glasgow in the spring of 2014. Each of the artists gave presentations of their work and the projects in progress.
Marianna Simnett filming 'The Udder' 2014 at the MIRC studio as part of her Film and Video Umbrella and Jerwood Space Moving Image Award.
Animation by Sebastian Buerkner, MIRC artist in residence 2015, in MIRC Studio
Since then, MIRC has offered a residency to an emerging artist every year:
- 2015: Sebastian Buerkner
- 2016: Alia Syed
- 2017: Louis Benassi
- 2018: Frances Scott