How is watching and recording spacialized? From the perspectives of film, still photography, and forensic architecture, Jeremy Dennis, Benj Gerdes, Dan Miller, and Jacqueline Olive, present on the rules and norms that govern the ways in which places and the people in them are monitored and how surveillance technologies can be used towards justice. This 2018 MDOCS Forum panel is free and open to the public.

About the Panelists

Jeremy Dennis uses photography to capture the ineffable. His work is conceptually influenced by Herbert Randall, a local photographer in New York, along with Cindy Sherman, Gregory Crewdson, and Philip Lorca Dicorcia, and aims to capture the narrative quality of their imagery. He received a BA in Studio Art from the University of Stony Brook in New York. His work has been displayed in several exhibitions at Stony Brook University, Pennsylvania State University, and in Beijing, China. Dennis is most interested in creating images that tell stories. He intentionally uses ambiguity to grant the viewer’s story enough space to change the meaning of his photographs with each viewing.

Benj Gerdes is an artist, writer, and organizer working in video, film, and related public formats, individually as well as collaboratively. He is interested in intersections of radical politics, knowledge production, and popular imagination. His work focuses on the affective and social consequences of economic and state regimes, often via historical research, as well as the critical methods through which art and cultural projects can contribute to social change in the present. His work has been exhibited and screened at venues including the Centre Pompidou, National Gallery of Art, New Museum, REDCAT Gallery, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the Tate Modern. Writings have been published in October, The Journal of Aesthetics + Protest, Incite!, and Rethinking Marxism. Gerdes has lectured and taught widely in the United States and internationally. Prior to assuming his current position at LIU Post he held positions at Cooper Union, Bard College, and Parsons School of Design at The New School.

Dan Miller is a researcher and designer with a background in cultural geography and mapmaking. He develops methods to critically engage geospatial data, media, and visualization in spatial justice work. At SITU, an interdisciplinary architectural practice, Dan facilitates research initiatives that support human rights defenders by applying design, digital reconstruction, mapping, and platform development to fact-finding, advocacy, and litigation. His work with SITU and the Spatial Practice as Evidence and Advocacy project has received recognition from SXSW’s Place By Design competition and has been exhibited at the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the Yale University Art Gallery. He holds a Bachelor of the Arts in Geography and German from Middlebury College and has taught urban and environmental sociology at Queens College, CUNY.

Jacqueline Olive is an independent filmmaker and transmedia producer who has received artist grant from Sundance, Independent Television Service, Firelight Media, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Catapult Film Fund, and others. After receiving a master’s degree from the University of Florida Documentary Institute in 2007, she worked on the production team of the Emmy Award-winning PBS series, Independent Lens. Jacqueline is currently directing the documentary feature film, Always in Season, which explores the lingering impact of a century of lynching African Americans. Gaining experience with transmedia production as a fellow with the Bay Area Video Coalition, the National Black Programming Consortium New Media Institute, and, most recently, the Open Immersion VR Lab, sponsored by Ford Foundation, National Film Board of Canada, and Canadian Film Centre, Jacqueline is also producing a VR project that explores the film’s theme of dehumanization, offering strategies for moving confidently through the racialized public spaces that black women navigate daily.

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.