Presented by the Centre for Cinema Studies and Cinema Thinks the World, the Critical Thinkers Series features research talks by notable and emerging scholars in Cinema and Media Studies. Join us for the final talk in the Spring Series by Dr. Laura U. Marks, the Grant Strate University Professor in Art, Performance & Cinema Studies at Simon Fraser University.
Microcosmic media, from Islamic talismans to small-file movies
Planetary heating makes it abundantly clear that life on earth is bound to extraterrestrial forces. A decolonial approach, deploying non-Western knowledges and practices, may shake up the zombie tech shareholder capitalism that holds the world in its grip. So let us tilt our heads toward the heavens. Historically, and in many world cultures, the relations between our planet and cosmos are described as orderly and knowable.
I focus on the early-modern Islamic concept of the interconnected cosmos. Cosmic energies are understood to affect earthly creatures, plants, minerals, temperaments, and other things that correspond to them. From this cosmology derives the talisman: a technology that uses earthly elements to intervene in heavenly causality. The talisman is an interface to the cosmos. With a profound knowledge of the cosmos and years of devoted study, the mage adopts a humble attitude of cosmic mimesis: understanding the cosmos intimately in order to take its shape. This theory became the basis of Islamicate occult sciences in Central and West Asia from the eighth century, which were adopted in Europe from the twelfth century. I develop this appealing early-modern technology and practice of cosmic mimesis into a contemporary media theory.
About Dr. Laura Marks:
Laura U Marks works on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus, and on small-footprint media. She programs experimental media for venues around the world, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. As Grant Strate University Professor, she teaches in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, on unceded Coast Salish territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations. She received a Guggenheim fellowship for Small Files for a Small World, a book on the carbon footprint of streaming medi, and is using it to sponsor international small-file workshops in 12 cities, including Dhaka, Mexico City, Cairo, Kigali, Tehran, and Guwahati. Her latest book, The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos, is out from Duke University Press!
This event is free and there is no need to RSVP.
