Here’s a share from Danny Fisher’s Patheos site: Off the Cushion: A Blog about Buddhism and Social Justice

It was so exciting to be part of an amazing panel, “Modeling Marriage: Star Couples and the Politics of Sex and Scandal in Hollywood Romance,” as part of this year’s SCMS. My co-panelists were Sumiko Higashi, Cari Beauchamp, Christina Lane, and our Chair was Giuliana Muscio. We had a great crowd with much lively discussion afterwards. My contribution to the panel was “A Fine Romance: The “Infelicitous” Marriage and Performance of Mabel Normand,” and I have included the slideshow from my talk here.

The talk contained numerous clips that you can find in the playlist below:

I was fortunate to be invited as a participant in the series SOC(i)AL ART + PEOPLE organized by Anne Bray of Freewaves.  Our challenge was to interrogate: “Can Artists Use Technology to Enable Communities?”

Although we had to move venues at the last minute to LACE due to LA events defined by spectacle, we still had a great turnout and a crowd ready with some quite lively conversation.   The event today was part of a series on socially engaged art; for more info on the rest of the series please see here.   Thanks to everyone who came to the event and contributed to some thoughtful discussion on the impact of art on our changing media/political landscape.

Very excited to be a participant in the upcoming Besides the Screen conference at Goldsmiths College, December 1-2.    More details to follow soon, but fellow panelists include Paul Gerhardt, of Archives for Creativity, Sarah Atkinson, faculty at University of Brighton, currently working with the Sally Potter archive SP-ARK, and my colleague at USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy, Virginia Kuhn, Associate Director of the IML.   Our group will be talking about archives and “writing with video.”   If you are in London in early December, hope you can join us — I know I am looking forward to the conversation.

Thought I would test out my new flickr plug in with some images from the Art in the Streets show at MOCA, Spring 2011.  I was fortunate enough to view the show with Nettrice Gaskins, who wrote an thoughtful and informative review for the ART21 blog.  Photos were from the old iPhone so not the best quality.

ART IN THE STREETS, MOCA 2011

ART IN THE STREETS, MOCA 2011

ART IN THE STREETS, MOCA 2011

ART IN THE STREETS, MOCA 2011

ART IN THE STREETS, MOCA 2011

ART IN THE STREETS, MOCA 2011

I am definitely having a very hectic summer so far with lots of travel, and I just returned from the Domitor conference held this year in Brighton. It was a good conference and highlight for me was an evening magic lantern performance.

Now that I am settling in a bit I hope to post an interview with Sumiko Higashi on stars from silent and contemporary era once I get some time to hit the audio editor. In the meantime, there is a very cool site featuring some great research and resources on the silent star Nita Naldi put together by Donna L. Hill, Joan Myers, and Christopher S. Connelly.

Also, just to remind me of my wonderful UK trip, which included a short stay in London and time with friends, I will post a picture from Covent Garden.