Screening: Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira” ?>

Screening: Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira”

Please join the Fordham University Friends of Films for Photographers and students from the course Documentary Photography: Japan 2014-2015 for a screening of Katsuhiro Otomo’s1988 landmark film, Akira (in BluRay).

Tuesday, December 9, 2014, 6PM
Fordham University Friends of Films for Photographers
113 West 60th Street
Visual Arts Complex
SL24L: Screening Room

It’s an oldie, but certainly a goodie, in fact, the grandfather of contemporary anime. The influence of this movie can not be overstated.

One of the best-known examples of contemporary Japanese animation, this cyberpunk adventure takes place in the post-apocalyptic city of Neo-Tokyo. A teen-age boy is exposed to a mysterious energy source and develops telekinetic powers that place him at the center of a conflict that may destroy the world.Rotten Tomatoes

Read from The Guardian:
Akira: the future-Tokyo story that brought anime west

Dystopian Tokyo 2019 has never looked better. Food and friends are both welcome.

For more information please contact Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock: apicellahit@fordham.edu

Living Los Sures: Selections ?>

Living Los Sures: Selections

LIVING LOS SURES: SELECTIONS
Curator: UnionDocs
Exhibition dates: July 25 – October 25, 2014
The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023

The six works in this show are part of the larger project Living Los Sures, a collaborative documentary about the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, produced by UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art.

From 2010 through 2014, UnionDocs is producing a collaborative web documentary about the Southside neighborhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where the organization has been situated for nearly a decade. Part omnibus film, part media archeology, part deep-map and city symphony, the project uses Los Sures, a brilliant work of cinema verite directed by Diego Echeverría in 1984, as a starting point for the investigations of more than forty artists over the course of four years. Collectively, their projects tell the story of a longstanding Latino community that is defeating displacement and surviving the growth machine. Living Los Sures is a multi-part project that restores a lost film, remixes local histories, reinvestigates Williamsburg’s Southside today, and hopes to reunite a neighborhood around a sustainable future.

In the late seventies and early eighties, the Southside of Williamsburg was one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. In fact, it had been called the worst ghetto in America. Los Sures, a documentary from 1984 by Diego Echeverría, skillfully represents the challenges of this time; drugs, gang violence, crime, abandoned real estate, racial tension, single parent homes, and inadequate local resources. Yet, Echeverría’s portrait also celebrates the vitality of this largely Puerto Rican community, showing the strength of their culture, their creativity and their determination to overcome a desperate situation.

UnionDocs has partnered with Echeverría to develop Living Los Sures, revisiting his powerful film to pursue four primary goals. RESTORE: Bring the original film back to life and make it accessible online for the first time, working with the local community to update, annotate, and challenge the narrative through a participatory platform. REMIX: Expand the experience of the original through deeply interactive audio/visual experiments. REUNITE: Activate the community to engage vital civic issues for a more sustainable future. REINVESTIGATE: Create new short documentaries to illustrate the issues the community faces today.

To date, over thirty such reinvestigations have been created by members of the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio. Each year since 2010, UnionDocs has hosted twelve Collaborative artist-fellows who work together to produce short documentary projects about the Southside today. These projects cover a wide range of topics and forms — from short videos to soundworks, audio walks, installations and interactive media. The works in this show represent the variety of form and subject matter, as well as the common concerns, that characterize the Living Los Sures project.

For more information please contact: Toby Lee or Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock

From the Archives ?>

From the Archives

BUTLER_GALLERY_FROM_THE_ARCHIVES
From the Archives: Photographs by William Fox from the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections
Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
Exhibition dates: June 6 – July 18, 2014
The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
From the Archives: Photographs by William Fox from the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections brings together seventeen contemporary digital prints made from the original negatives housed in the Archives at the Rose Hill campus’ Walsh Family Library. William Fox was a professional photographer who worked for Fordham University on a freelance basis for upwards of twenty years generating photographs that span a range of topics from commencements, to classrooms, and from campus architecture, to student life. The varied images presented in this exhibition were all created between the years of 1940 and 1941.
Fox’s negatives were all made to the exacting standards of the time with a large format, tripod mounted camera and provided an impressive level of fidelity – a task requiring considerable craft. The fact that the negative emulsion has separated, cracked, and deteriorated is not due to their care, as archival standards in archives only developed in the 1980s, but due to the instability of the materials themselves. That we have them at all is a small miracle and testament to the good care provided by those that have worked at the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections over the years.

The images in From the Archives are a small sample selected from thousands of negatives made by William Fox and represent the beginnings of Fordham University’s self-awareness, from a publicity and photographic point of view. His photographs documented the growth of Fordham University over an extended period and gave shape to aspects that the university valued up to and through the tumultuous times of World War two.
It should be emphasized that not all of William Fox’s negatives evidence deterioration. The curatorial choices here intentionally highlight the flaws of the analog process for their mystery and visual beauty, in contrast to our digital age of precision and perfection. Special thanks to Patrice Kane, Head of Archives and Special Collections at Fordham University for her expertise and continued assistance.
Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, 2014
For more information please contact: apicellahit@fordham.edu

Case Study Tokyo 2014 Book ?>

Case Study Tokyo 2014 Book

By Fordham University Gabelli School of Business students Domingo Amaro Chacon, Suzette Dorrielan, Marie Georgantzas, Irene Hartnett, Sam Houston, Samuel Hysell, Jennifer Jenkins, Alice Smyth, Melissa Tan, and Alberto Torrado Aguilar Cauz. Edited and designed by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock. Print Book, 146 Pages, 7 × 7 in. (18 × 18 cm).

Take one part working methodology from the famous 1972 book, Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form, combine with the megacity of Tokyo, add ten Fordham University Gabelli students, stir for nine days in Japan and what do you get? You get direct acquisition of knowledge through experience with a small team, realized in an online, as well as hardback research volume focusing on branding, sensory marketing, architecture, design, photography, and urban planning.

Click HERE for online case study.

Click HERE for book.

Documentary Photography: Japan 2013-2014 Book ?>

Documentary Photography: Japan 2013-2014 Book

By Quinrui Hua, Leah Kirsch, Isabelle Langley, Giovani Santoro, Maggie Wilson, and Xuan Zheng. Edited by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock. Print Book, 80 Pages, landscape, 10 × 8 in. (25 × 20 cm).

Click HERE for book preview.

This book is the final culmination of the course Documentary Photography: Japan offered by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock through the Department of Theatre and Visual Arts at Fordham University.

The course description is as follows: This intensive class is designed as a platform for intermediate and advanced level students to further develop their photographic production with an emphasis on generating documentary projects focusing on the people, culture, and architecture of Japan. The megacity of Tokyo will serve as the starting point for our investigations, with image making itineraries that will take us from the cosmopolitan ward of Shinjuku, to the center of youth culture in Shibuya; and from the cutting edge fashion districts of Harajuku, to the temples and shrines of Asakusa.

Concurrent with our photographic explorations we will examine contemporary exhibitions in venues such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu, as well as view the ancient collections housed in Japan’s oldest and largest museum, the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno. Traveling by Shinkansen bullet train at 300 km/h (186 mph), we will make our way south to Kyoto, the nexus of traditional Japanese culture and history with approximately two thousand temples, shrines, and gardens that we can utilize as both the catalyst and stage for our photography. The extraordinary wealth of visual stimuli we will experience in Japan over ten days will certainly inspire, as well as function as the backdrop against which to critically discuss the strategies that photographers employ in communicating their interests.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi ?>

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Please join the Fordham University Friends of Films for Photographers and students from The Gabelli School of Business course Marketing and the City: Tokyo for a screening of David Gelb’s 2011 film, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014, 6:30 PM
Fordham University Friends of Films for Photographers
113 West 60th Street
Visual Arts Complex
SL24L: Screening Room

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is the story of 85-year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearances, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a prestigious three-star Michelin Guide rating, and sushi lovers from around the globe make repeated pilgrimage, calling months in advance and shelling out top dollar for a coveted seat at Jiro’s sushi bar.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a thoughtful and elegant meditation on work, family, and the art of perfection, chronicling Jiro’s life as both an unparalleled success in the culinary world and as a loving yet complicated father. –Magnolia Pictures

Food and friends are both welcome.
For more information please contact Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock: apicellahit@fordham.edu

Film Screening: Gerry ?>

Film Screening: Gerry

 

Please join the Fordham University Friends of Films for Photographers for a screening of Gus Van Sant’s 2002 film, Gerry.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014, 11:30 AM
Fordham University Friends of Films for Photographers
113 West 60th Street
Visual Arts Complex
SL24L: Screening Room

No description included for fear of plot spoiling; however, I can say clearly that there is walking and landscape. Who needs more?

Food and friends are both welcome.
For more information please contact Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock: apicellahit@fordham.edu