Ben Mendelsohn, "Documentary Experiments in Urban and Environmental Research"

PPEH Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Ben Mendelsohn will speak as part of the Center for Humanities at Temple (CHAT)'s Climate Speaker Series.

This presentation explores the intersections of scholarly and artistic practices in urban and environmental studies. What can video art, experimental documentary, and sensory ethnography teach us about the practice of critical urban, spatial, and environmental research?  Conversely, how are scholar-filmmakers utilizing audiovisual tools and contributing to these genres of film and video art? This talk surveys a range of film and video works about urban phenomena including the production of space, human-environment interaction, and the politics of infrastructure. Taken as a genre, these time-based works provide a powerful model for training scholars’ observational skills, conceptualizing scales of analysis, and engaging broader publics in urban knowledge making.