How does surveillance control movement in between our international and national borders? This 2018 MDOCS Forum panel discussion features four makers and scholars—Javier Barboza, Camilla Fojas, Sylvia Ryerson, and Adam Tinkle—who will share their current work which addresses the surveillance of borders and prisons.

This event is free and open to the public.

About the Panelists

Javier Barboza is an award-winning filmmaker, creative director, animator, educator, and founder of Kaleidoscope Media. His work tackles the complexity of identity and migration, using a surreal and narrative method to engage the audience in an experience best described as “visually immersive.” Born and raised in Los Angeles, Javier has been animating through after-school inner-city outreach programs since the age of 16. He continued his studies at East Los Angeles College, dedicating himself to fine arts, animation, and graffiti. He transferred to California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) and majored in Character Animation and Film/Video, earning his BFA. He received his MFA at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, DADA Animation Division. He was awarded the Princes Grace Film Grant, was selected as an Annenberg Fellow, and has showcased at a variety of film festivals.

Camilla Fojas teaches in Media Studies and American Studies at the University of Virginia where she co-directs the Surveillance and Infrastructure research area of the Informatics Lab. She also co-directs the Global South lab. Fojas is the author of five books: Cosmopolitanism in the Americas (Purdue UP, 2005), Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier (University of Texas Press, 2008), Islands of Empire: Pop Culture and U.S. Power (University of Texas Press, 2014), Zombies, Migrants, and Queers: Race and Crisis Capitalism in Pop Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2017), and Migrant Labor and Border Securities in Pop Culture (Routledge, 2017). She is currently working on a new project on surveillance and borders tentatively titled Border Securities/Border Futures.

Sylvia Ryerson is a radio producer, sound artist, and journalist whose work probes the overlapping crises of mass incarceration, rural poverty, and environmental destruction. Her work has been featured on the BBC Radio 4, NPR, The Marshall Project, Transom.org, and the Third Coast International Audio Festival. After graduating from Wesleyan University, Sylvia moved to southeastern Kentucky to work at Appalshop, a renowned documentary arts center and home to WMMT-FM community radio. Sylvia served as a reporter and Director of Public Affairs for WMMT-FM, and led the production of Calls from Home, a nationally recognized radio program sending messages from family members to their loved ones incarcerated in Central Appalachia. In 2014, Sylvia started Restorative Radio, a participatory radio project that broadcasts audio postcards from family members to their loved ones in prison. The project aims to transcend prison walls and change public perceptions of who is behind them.

Adam Tinkle is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar, trained in music and currently working at the interface of audio documentary, intermedia, performance, and participatory/collaborative modalities. His book manuscript on experimental music and the aesthetics of social participation probes the reputedly recondite 20th century sonics of John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Pauline Oliveros, and their co-conspirators, and explores their surprising resonances with contemporary conversations around inclusive, public practice in the arts. His recent artistic projects include a pair of 2017 gallery exhibitions as a member of the collaborative Seven Count, that included pirate radio, immersive sampledelia, and participatory sound making; an artist’s book and multimedia environment (exhibited at the Bennington Museum) remixed from material from his award-winning documentary solo performance A Mess of Things; and concert performances of interactive visual music with the duo Timbree. He has published in Leonardo Music Journal, Organised Sound, and American Music Review. Tinkle teaches at Skidmore College, where he has guided the development of its summer Storytellers’ Institute since its inception in 2015.

About MDOCS Forum

This event is organized by the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) at Skidmore College as part of its annual Storytellers’ Institute’s MDOCS Forum. This year documentary makers who explore the theme of surveil/surveilled through film, sound, interactive media, museum curation, scholarship, etc. connect with Skidmore and community members during the weekend-long event. Join an international group of storytellers to explore these questions in events including film screenings, audio experiences, dialogues, and star gazing. Visit MDCOS website for more information on all of the events taking place at various locations on Skidmore campus from June 7-10, 2018. This event is free and open to the public.