Past events 2009/2010

History of Art summer taster day: 28 June 2010 6-8pm: This event included mini lectures on the theme of Portraiture, followed by a Q&A session by leading academics including Professor Simon Shaw Miller, Head of the department.

Digital Pioneers exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum: 7 December 2009-20 June 2010: the results of a joint research project between Birkbeck and the Victoria and Albert Museum, Digital Pioneers provided an overview of the first decades of the computer's history in art and design. It included some of the earliest computer-generated works in the V&A’s collections, many of which have never been exhibited in the UK before. Digital Pioneers is one of the outcomes of The Computer Art and Technocultures Project.
The Inside Out Festival: 19-25 October 2009: Inside Out is a major new festival curated by LCACE (the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange) to showcase the fascinating contribution of nine London universities to the capital’s cultural life. Download a copy of the festival leaflet.

Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire: 7-9 July 2010
Cultural Impact symposium: Friday 15 May 1:30 -6pm: The notion of cultural impact has become a core criterion in assessing – or attempting to assess - the value and afterlife of cultural events. Cultural impact implies more than an economics-based model (revenue, profit, attendance figures), bearing social and perhaps moral significance. But can the impact of a cultural event (a film, an exhibition, a concert...) on society at large be measured, and if so, how? How do we define positive or negative impact and what are the historical assumptions that have informed current definitions and debates? Download a copy of the publicity poster
Sites of memory symposium: Friday 27 February 2009, 1.30-6pm: This event explored how memories are embedded in places and objects, and re-mediated from one context to another. Download a copy of the symposium flyer

Tuesday morning: Belvedere Palace: Baroque Palace with Medieval, Baroque, 19th and 20th century art galleries.
Tuesday afternoon: Karlskirche, baroque church and Secession House on Karlsplatz.
Wednesday morning: Theatre Museum: special exhibition: Gustav Mahler and Vienna
Wednesday afternoon: Visit to Otto Wagner's Am Steinhof Church on the hills overlooking Vienna.
Thursday morning: Museum of Applied Arts
Thursday afternoon: Museum Centrum - Leopold Museum
Friday morning: Kunsthistorische Museum – National Gallery
Friday afternoon: Free (suggestions of further sights will be given)
For information on our fieldtrips, please contact Clare Thomas.

Murray Memorial Lecture: 6 November 2009 6-7.30pm: Sculpture comes to Life: the carving and colouring of wood in Spain and elsewhere, by Nicholas Penny, Director of The National Gallery. Followed by an informal drinks reception.
Rome Lecture Series 2009-10: Mark Wilson Jones (University of Bath) ‘The Enigma of the Pantheon’ 5 November 2009: 6pm.

This programme consisted of three of the most outstanding of the Arts Council's visual arts films from the golden age of of 1975-85, when these represented the cutting edge of new arts documentaries:
18 May Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) - an 'artist of the floating world' of Soho in the late 50s
25 May Blow Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) - high 60s fashion, photography and style
1 June More London Artists - including Fathers of Pop and others tbc
8 June Love is the Devil (John Maybury, 1998) - on Francis Bacon
15 June Savage Messiah (Ken Russell, 1972) - on Henri Gaudier-Breszka
22 June The Moon and Sixpence (Albert Lewin, 1942) - Gauguin transplanted (initially) to London
27 June The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin, 1945)
Watch the London Screen Archive on YouTube.

The second part of this year-long exploration of the capital's culture looked at music in the city. From the 18th century satirical Beggar's Opera, filmed in 1952 by rising theatre genius Peter Brook, to the dawn of pirate radio evoked in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, this is largely a story of irreverent popular culture clashing with establishment prejudice. Much of the London shown here was studio built, whether in Hollywood for Cukor's My Fair Lady or at Shepperton for Reed's Oliver!. But above all these are films about the city nurturing talent and creating new opportunities for musicians and audiences alike.
5 Apr The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, 1948)
12 Jan A Hard Day’s Night (Dick Lester, 1964)
19 Jan Sally in Our Alley (Maurice Elvey, 1931)
26 Jan The Great Mr Handel (Norman Walker, 1942)
2 Feb Champagne Charlie (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1944)
9 Feb The Beggar’s Opera (Peter Brook, 1952) + ext. Threepenny Opera
16 Feb My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964)
23 Feb Performance (Donald Cammell, Nic Roeg, 1969)
2 Mar Oliver! (Carol Reed, 1968)
9 Mar Young Soul Rebels (Isaac Julien, 1991)
16 Mar O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973)
Watch the London Screen Archive on YouTube.

Simon Shaw-Miller addressed the Society for Musicology in Ireland on the topic of 'Opera’s Offspring: The Gesamtkunstwerk and Film' at their Annual Conference at the University of Ulster Magee Campus, Derry, Northern Ireland.