About

Screen studies are currently searching for new paradigms to address rapid transformation of the moving image caused by the shift from analogue to digital formats. At the same time, there is a growing recognition among film and media scholars that it is necessary to approach the digital present and future through an historical understanding of earlier theoretical, cultural and technological developments. The Screen Histories and Futures Research Program responds to this conjuncture. It is a concerted and integrated unit committed to the collaborative study of the history, theory, practice, criticism and future development of the moving audio-visual image as it evolved over the long durée of the twentieth century and now heads into uncharted waters in the digital twenty-first century. The program promotes and facilitates a host of approaches to the moving image, mobilising both traditional and innovative perspectives in screen scholarship as they inform the practice and criticism of all screen-based audiovisual culture.

The program draws on existing Media, Film and Journalism (MFJ) research strengths to expand into newer areas of enquiry in and through collaborations with adjacent fields of study. These fields include media archaeology, history of science, research on AI, electronic games, database artworks, social media, VR, interactive and communal creativity in sound and image, streaming technologies, mobile/locative artwork, network theory and practice, and eye-tracking technologies. In other words, the program encompasses all the digital audio-visual creativity that has grown out of film and television and that now exists alongside them. The program has a particular focus on the under-researched and marginalised aspects of moving image histories and cultures, ranging from research on Indigenous screen media to the utilitarian use of film, and from diasporic and multicultural cinema to the history of Australian film criticism.

This work is led by research personnel in MFJ who have developed nationally and internationally recognised expertise in a broad range of disciplinary areas, including European, American, Asian, Russian and Australian film and television histories and cultures, realist and documentary film theory, Indigenous filmmaking, experimental and avant-garde film theories, film and television seriality, cinema institutions and the archive, screen translation, and interdisciplinary research on cinema, subjectivity and the brain.

Through various initiatives, including public forums, symposia and conferences, Screen Histories and Futures seeks to advance its research, forging links with such areas as Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA), Information Technologies, SensiLab and Education Faculties at Monash, external research centres (e.g. ACMI), universities, film-makers and audio-visual industries nationally. At the same time, it is distinctly international in its outlook, building upon existing contacts at such institutions as University of California San Diego, King’s College London, Warwick University and Free University Berlin, to continue and extend its international collaborations and reputation.