CGB Database Goes Live!

Our fully searchable database of 600 films shot in Battersea has gone live. Click the link to identify films by location, theme or name. This is still very much in beta stage so there may be a few glitches and bugs, but we would be really grateful for feedback.

http://expressivespace.org/cinematicbattersea/

Cinematic Battersea goes Global...

 Battersea Ghost seminar led by Prof Richard Koeck at Nanjing University China.

Cinematic Urban Geographies conference update

Here is a timetable for the forthcoming conference at CRASSH, Cambridge. All times, places and people are subject to changes. Please watch this space for more details.

CINEMATIC URBAN GEOGRAPHIES CONFERENCE @  CRASSH  - 3&4 OCT 2013

DAY 1

9.00 - 9.20 Registration

9.20 - 9.30   Welcome

CARTOGRAPHIC CINEMA: THE ROLE OF MAPS IN FILMS

9.30 -  10.00    Tom Conley (Harvard University)

10.00 – 10.20  Teresa Castro (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3)

10.20 – 10.40  Henry Keazor (Universität Heidelberg)

10.40 – 11.00  Discussion

11.00 – 11.20    Coffee Break

11.20– 12.00 [10x1x1]

Eric Schuldenfrei (The University of Hong Kong)

Emma Hayward (University of Liverpool)

Berit Hummel (TU Berlin)

‘MOVIE CENTRIC’ MAP OF CITIES – MAP-READING AND CINÉ-TOURISM

12.00 - 12.30    Roland-François Lack (University College London)

12.30 – 12.50    Andong Lu  (Nanjing Univesity)

 Discussion

1.15 – 2.15 Lunch

FILMS AS SITES OF MEMORIES – LIEUX DE MÉMOIRES

2.15 – 2.45  Steve Pile (Open University)

2.45 – 3.05  Frederick Baker (University of Cambridge)

3.05– 3.20  Discussion

3.20 – 4.00  [Panel 1 of 3 x 10 mins + discussion]

Maurizio Cinquegranni (University of Kent)

Evgenia Giannouri (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)

Annalisa Mirizio (Universitat de Barcelona)

4.00 - 4.30 Coffee break

4.30 – 5.30 [Panel 2 of 4 x 10 mins + discussion]

Sophie Jackson (Anglia Ruskin University)

Anna Batori (University of Glasgow)

Liew Kai Khiun & Natalie Pang (Nanyang Technological University)

Carmen Pérez Ríu (Universidad de Oviedo)

End 5.30pm  - all go to Arts Picture House

6pm Screening at the Arts Picture House – Helsinki Forever Intro and discussion with Peter van Bagh

8.15PM DINNER AT TRINITY HALL

DAY 2

CINEMATIC TOPOGRAPHIES WITHIN THEIR SOCIAL & CULTURAL PRACTICES

9.15 – 9.45   Charlotte Brunsdon (University of Warwick)

DATABASE CINEMA: VISUALISING THE CINEMATIC URBAN ARCHAEOLOGY

9.55 – 10.25  Andrew Prescott (King's College London)

10.35 – 11.00 coffee

11.00 - 1.15 Parallel sessions

PARALLEL SESSION 1 - cinematic topographies within their social & cultural practices	PARALLEL SESSION 2 - database cinema: visualising the cinematic urban archaeology of a city
Session 1 Chair:  Charlotte Brunsdon Mark Shiel (King's College London) John Beck (University of Westminster) Erica Stein (University of Arizona) Fran Bigman (University of Cambridge) Simone Chung (University of Cambridge) Seungho Yoo (University College London) Lawrence Webb (University of Gothenburg)	Session 2 Chair: Andrew Prescott Stavros Alifragkis & Giorgos Papakonstantinou (University of Thessaly) Chris O’Rourke (University College London) Amir Soltani (University of Cambridge) Gul Kacmaz Erk (Queens University Belfast) Luisa Feiersinger (Humboldt Universität, Berlin) Ruxanda Berinde (University of Sheffield) Michael Hrebeniak (University of Cambridge)

1.15 – 2.00 Lunch

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH LOCAL FILMS THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING

2.00 – 2.30 Richard Coyne (University of Edinburgh)

GEO-LOCATING MOVIES IN THE CITY – MOBILE APPS

2.40 – 4.00  Cinematic Geographies of Battersea Panel

Aileen Reid (English Heritage) & Maureen Thomas (University of Cambridge) Chris Speed & Chris Barker (University of Edinburgh)

Richard Koeck & Matthew Flintham (University of Liverpool)

Alex Butterworth (Amblr)

Eleonora Rosati (University of Cambridge)  

4.00 – 5.00   [4 x 10x 1]     

Rocio von Jungenfeld (University of Edinburgh)   TBC

Bertrand Pleven (Université Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) TBC

Myriam Fazel (University of Sheffield)

Kateřina Krejčová & Lukáš Matoška  (Charles University in Prague)

PANEL DISCUSSION

5.00- 5.30

5.30pm   Drinks reception in the foyer

END

App Testing and Interviews

Under the sweltering July sun, the Cinematic Geographies project team had a full day in Battersea Park testing the prototype of BatterCtrax, an immersive, geolocative iPhone app designed to deliver audio from feature films that were shot in and around the park. Working with app developer Amblr, the project team have identified dozens of film locations in the area and refined a technology that allows the audio from those films to be delivered to the iPhone user as they pass through the park triggering GPS-enabled geofences. For example, the experience of hearing sounds from the Festival of Britain Pleasure Gardens (1951) or Battersea Fun Fair (closed - 1974) while standing in those locations is pretty eerie, or looking out over the Thames and hearing the sounds of the industrious river as it was 50 years ago is startling. BatterCtrax is still in research and development phase but we are working hard to make a publicly available version as soon as possible. Watch this space.

We also spent a good deal of the day interviewing and filming a group of ex-Battersea residents who gather once a year to catch up with friends and say hello to SW11. Many thanks to all those who kindly gave up their time to share memories and observations of Battersea as it developed over the course of the 20th Century. It was invaluable for us to hear directly about the social and cultural changes that have shaped the area, but also to have certain historical preconceptions of the area (largely presented to us through cinema) changed in a positive way.

Conference call for papers

Cinematic Urban Geographies

Thursday, 3 October 2013 to Friday, 4 October 2013
Location: CRASSH, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DT - SG1&2

Conveners

François Penz (Architecture Department, University of Cambridge)

Co-Conveners

Richard Koeck (School of Architecture, University of Liverpool)
Chris Speed (Edinburgh College of Art)
Andrew Saint (English Heritage)

Summary

The Cinematic Urban Geographies conference aims to explore the different facets by which cinema and the moving image contribute to our understanding of cities and their topographies. This event will be the final act of an AHRC research project entitled Cinematic Geographies of Battersea.

The Cambridge conference will offer a unique opportunity to debate issues of cinematic geographies, filmic urban characterisation within the cultural & social dimension and database cinema (metadata) as well as film archives and the locative media potential afforded by the new generation of mobile phones.

The conference will take place over two days – corresponding to two complementary themes:

Theme 1 probes the many trajectories and points of contact between the cinema and its topographic context. This opens a number of sub-themes, including:

• films as sites of memories –lieux de mémoires (after Pierre Nora) 
• ‘movie centric’ maps of cities – map-reading and ciné-tourism
• cinematic cityscapes within social & cultural practices
  
• cartographic cinema: the role of maps in films
• cinematic cartography: the cinematic appeal of maps

Theme 2 is concerned with the process of cinematic restitution at the place where films were shot – probing the issue of bringing the invisible filmic material layered over the city to life –through the sub-themes:

• visualising the cinematic urban archaeology of a city
  
• geo-locating movies in the city – mobile Apps
  
• public engagement with local films through social networking
• database cinema – meta cinema – cinemetrics
  
• virtual cinematic sites of memories 

Call for Papers

We welcome abstracts of no more than 500 words in one of the two main conference themes, with a perspective relating to one of the sub-themes. Conference papers should take 20 minutes to read. A separate cover-page should be submitted with the title of the paper and the name, affiliation, e-mail address and full postal contact information of the author. The abstract and cover-page should be sent as a Word doc or pdf file via e-mail to cug@aha.cam.ac.uk, with the subject heading: 'CUG paper submission'. Please indicate which of the listed sub-themes you would like to contribute to.

10 minutes x 1 image/clip

We also strongly encourage graduate students and early career researchers to present work-in-progress in the 10 minutes x 1 image session, on one of the two main conference themes. We welcome abstracts of no more than 250 words. A separate cover-sheet should be submitted with the title of the paper, the name, affiliation and full contact information of the author. The abstract and cover-page should be sent as a Word doc or pdf file via e-mail to cug@aha.cam.ac.uk, with the subject heading ‘CUG 10x1 submission’. Please indicate which of the listed sub-themes you would like to contribute to.

The deadline for abstract submissions is 1 July 2013 and all applicants will be notified of the outcome by 15 July 2013.

Sponsors

Supported by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH), the Architecture Department and the AHRC.

Accommodation for non-paper giving delegates

We are unable to arrange accommodation, however, the following websites may be of help.

Visit Cambridge
Cambridge Rooms
University of Cambridge accommodation webpage

NB. CRASSH is not able to help with the booking of accommodation.

Administrative assistance: conferences@crassh.cam.ac.uk

cinematicbattersea Facebook page now active.

Optimists of.... ?Chelsea

The Optimists of Nine Elms is a 1973 film about a grumpy old entertainer (played by Peter Sellers sporting, for reasons that never become apparent, a large prosthetic nose...) who lives with his talented dog in a derelict canalside warehouse supposedly in Nine Elms, Battersea. The film charts his relationship (these were more innocent times) with two "'Battersea" children, Liz and Mark, in a well-trodden filmic path from antagonism through tolerance to friendship. It all plays out against the backdrop of post-industrial decay, as the children wait their chance to move from their cramped Victorian ("Victorian", like "Battersea" is always bad in films up to the 1980s) basement flat with outside loo into the clean, new concrete flats they see "across the river" (meaning north of the river, of course). Except the filming locations tell a different story. That derelict warehouse? It's in Chelsea... Crown Wharf, Lots Road, now the west London branch of Bonhams auctioneers, the decay all around is the site of swanky Chelsea Wharf, just beside Lots Road Power Station.... all north of the river, like the children's basement flat, which is actually in Uverdale road, Chelsea, just behind the power station, all seen here a few years earlier from a picture in English Heritage's Aerofilms archive:

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw006137

Those wonderful flats are actually miles to the east, and south of the river, at Thamesmead, which plays a less congenial role in A Clockwork Orange, and, more recently, in Misfits.

What does this tell us? Even in 1973 "Chelsea" would not have been plausible as an emblem of social decay. Battersea, more particularly Nine Elms, was a shorthand all Londoners would have understood for deprivation. The discourse of south London = bad, north London = good is as old as Old Father Thames. Aileen Reid, Survey of London