Talks

2021

Introductions to Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive: talks at the Danish Film Institute’s Cinematheque, Copenhagen Architecture Festival, 8-9 October 2021.

Curating Inclusive Digital Practice in Museums and Galleries: online panel discussion with Teresa Cisneros, Miranda Matthews and Trish Scott, Centre for Arts and Learning, Goldsmiths, 30 June 2021.

Barter Roadshow: online panel discussion with Pat Wingshan Wong, Jessie Brennan and Michael Eglin, Royal College of Art, 26 June 2021.

2019

Letters to Frank Bowling: panel discussion with Phoebe Boswell, Matthew Collings, Rianna Jade Parker and Marlene Smith, Tate Britain, 26 June 2019.

Conversations in the Museum: presentation, Art and Social Innovation, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 21 June 2019.

In Conversation with Silvia Giambrone and Pier Luigi Sacco: panel discussion, Art and Social Innovation, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 20 June 2019.

Kubrick on Masculinity: panel discussion with Hannah Hamad, Julie Lobalzo Wright and Jaap Verheul, BFI Southbank, 15 May 2019.

Vietnam: Images of a Nation: panel discussion with Sung Tieu, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn and Mignon Nixon, Tate Britain, 26 April 2019.

Kubrick’s Architecture: Study Day tutor, BFI Southbank, 6 April 2019.

Future Directions: The Activist Museum: panel discussion, Curating Protest Memory, King’s College London, 28 March 2019.

The Many Exposures of Blow-Up: presentation, Landscape and Architecture in the Cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni, BFI Southbank, 16 February 2019.

2018

Getting Lost in the Museum: talk and panel discussion organised by the Museum of Ordinary People (MOOP), St Augustine’s Centre, Brighton, 3 September 2018.

Besides the Screen: panel discussion, Vaults, Archives, Clouds and Platforms: Archiving and Preservation in the 21st Century, King’s College London, 2 July 2018.

Twin Peaks: The Return: panel discussion, Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain, organised by the Freud Museum, Rio Cinema, London, 27 May 2018.

David Lynch Sprawls: presentation, Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain, organised by the Freud Museum, Rio Cinema, London, 27 May 2018. Updated version published in New American Notes Online.

2017

Critics’ Salon: The Killing of a Sacred Deer: panel discussion with Tara Judah and Kelli Weston, BFI Southbank, 21 November 2017.

Thrilling Berlin: Open Spaces and Locked Rooms: presentation, The Big Thrill, BFI Southbank, 11 November 2017.

Introduction to Rosemary’s Baby: short talk, BFI Southbank, 26 July 2017.

Understanding Steve McQueen: panel discussion with Ashley Clark, Ozlem Koksal and Clive Nwonka, Black Film British Cinema, ICA, 19 May 2017.

Memory Now: talk with Jessica Rapson, JW3, London, 25 April 2017.

The Political Landscapes of Kelly Reichardt: presentation, Certain Women and Other Animals: a Kelly Reichardt Symposium, BFI Southbank, 5 March 2017.

Film | Making | Space: panel discussion, Royal Academy, 13 February 2017.

Martin Scorsese’s History of New York: presentation, BFI Southbank, 1 February 2017.

2016

We are the Institution: On Contemporary Museums: talk, Hawksmoor International Lecture Series, University of Greenwich, 20 October 2016.

The Bare Light Bulb: Speculations on Art and Gentrification: presentation, Configuring Light, LSE, 14 September 2016.

The Art of the Essay: presentation, Architecture | Essay | Film, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, 19 April 2016.

The Lynchian City: presentation, Film, Space and Architecture, Liverpool John Moores University, 26 January 2016.

Jean-Luc Godard as Architect: talk, BFI Southbank, 13 January 2016, followed by discussion with Chris Darke. A video essay based on the talk (directed and edited by Jon Spira) can be seen here.

2015

The Cinema Show: conversation with Ben Rylan, Monocle 24, 11 December 2015.

Introduction to Sunrise: short talk, BFI Southbank, 9 November 2015.

Love, Sex and the Cinematic City: talk, BFI Reuben Library, 9 November 2015.

Regeneration! conversation with Jessie Brennan, RIBA Bookshop, 6 October 2015.

The Architecture of David Lynch: conversation with Helena Lindblad, Lund International Architecture Film Festival, 12 September 2015.

London: Real Dreams, Unreal City: talk, BFI Reuben Library, 7 September 2015.

The Image of Gentrification: presentation, The Malleable Spectacle: a London on Film Study Day, BFI Southbank, 4 July 2015.

Listening to Andrea Fraser: presentation, Archives of/for the Future, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) conference, University of Łódź, 20 June 2015.

Art in Place: talk with artists from Specular Assembly, India Club, 24 May 2015.

Glasgow on Film: talk, Royal Institute of British Architects, 1 May 2015.

Un-Learning from Lynch: Cinema and Architecture in the Alley Behind the Marketplace: talk, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, 11 March 2015.

Her: The Politics of Female Stardom: study day, devised and taught with Lucy Scholes, BFI Southbank, 7 March 2015.

2014

On Weeping and Knowing Why: The Politics of Contemporary US Cinema: panel discussion with Ozlem Koksal and Dietmar Meinel, Rupture, Crisis, Transformation: New Directions in US Studies at the End of the American Century, Birkbeck, University of London, 22 November 2014.

European Cinema after the Berlin Wall: illustrated talk and discussion, Hackney Picturehouse, 12 November 2014.

A Date with the Zone: On Tarkovsky’s Stalker: presentation, Building Brave New Worlds: The Architectural Visions of Sci-Fi Cinema, BFI Southbank, 1 November 2014.

Sci-Fi and Architecture: illustrated talk and discussion, Hackney Picturehouse, 30 October 2014.

The Image of Architecture: seminar, Architectural Association, 25 October 2014.

The Architecture of David Lynch: book launch conversation with Adam Kaasa, AA Bookshop, 23 October 2014.

Introduction to Mulholland Drive: talk, Barbican Cinema, 27 September 2014.

Introduction to Lost Highway: talk, London Design Festival, V&A, 13 September 2014.

Duration Without Breaks: The Life and Times of Christian Marclay’s The Clock and Steve McQueen’s Shame: presentation, Creative Energies, Creative Industries, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) conference, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, 21 June 2014. Updated version published in Alluvium.

No Looking After the Internet: discussion with Oliver Whitehead, the Photographers’ Gallery, 6 February 2014.

2013

Snapshots of the Executioners: Torture, Images, Perpetrators: presentation, Media Politics – Political Media, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) conference, Charles University, Prague, 22 June 2013. Updated version published in Alluvium.

You Can’t Sleep Here: The Housing Crisis and Contemporary US Cinema: presentation, Claiming Space – Reconfigurations in Times of Crisis, Graduate School of North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 24 May 2013. Updated version published in Flow.

The Architecture of David Lynch: lecture, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Technische Universität Dortmund, 16 May 2013. I also led a class on film noir and a seminar on spatial theory during my visit.

2012

American Studies in the UK, 2000-2010: report presented at the BAAS Annual Conference, University of Manchester, 13 April 2012. Summary and project introduction published in American Studies in Britain, Issue 107 (Autumn 2012).

The Architecture of Narrative: Inland Empire: presentation, research seminar, School of English, University of Kent, 20 March 2012.

Star-Gazing at the Griffith Observatory (with James Dean and Henri Lefebvre): talk written and presented with Alice Honor Gavin, Science Museum, 25 January 2012.

2011

The Future of American Studies: roundtable discussion with Jenny Barrett, Michael Collins, Martin Halliwell and Helen Laville, BAAS Postgraduate Conference, University of Birmingham, 12 November 2011.

American Studies in the UK, 2000-2010: research seminar, Department of American Studies, University of East Anglia, 12 October 2011.

Learning from Lynch: Urban Anxiety in Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive: presentation, Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture, 29 June 2011.

The Architecture of David Lynch: presentation, BAAS Annual Conference, University of Central Lancashire, 15 April 2011.

Film and Architecture: lecture, School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University, 22 March 2011.

2010

New Neighbours, Old Stories: The Polish-American Palimpsest of David Lynch’s Inland Empire: presentation, BAAS Postgraduate Conference, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, 13 November 2010. Updated version published in 49th Parallel.

One Big Swamp of Miserable Humanity: Philadelphia, Urban Decline and the “Rabbit” Novels: presentation, Updike in Pennsylvania, John Updike Society conference, Alvernia University, Pennsylvania, 1-3 October 2010.

The Plot Against American Cities: Urban Decline and the Cinema of David Lynch: presentation, American Ideas in Context, University of Nottingham, 14 September 2010.

INS Commission on Crypts: Architecture, Neurosis and Death: discussion with Tom McCarthy, Chloe Aridjis, Patrick Lynch and Darian Leader, Barbican Art Gallery, 29 July 2010.

2009

Film, Desire and Psychoanalysis: discussion with Lucy Scholes and Matt Thorne, hosted by Seph Rodney, Resonance FM, 19 November 2009.

Poor Richard: The Satirical Response to the Nixon Presidency: presentation, Richard Nixon and the Making of Modern America, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, 11 May 2009.

Non-Places: discussion with Matthew Taunton and Mitha Budhyarto, Resonance FM, 13 January 2009.

2008

The Void Which Must Be Visible: Negotiating Catastrophe in the Architecture of Berlin: presentation, The Making and Remaking of European Memory After 1945, University of Reading, 2 July 2008.