Featuring the work of specialists from Europe, the United States and Asia, the conference works from the assumption that economic development requires industrial organization, while industrial organization requires communication and communication requires media.

Bringing together perspectives from cinema and media studies, economic history and science and technology studies, this conference aims to develop an analytical framework for understanding the uses of art in industry and the media culture of industry.

The conference is open to the public and includes screenings of rare films from archives in the United States, Great Britain, Italy and Central and Eastern Europe.

Conference Locations, Frankfurt am Main:
– Museum Angewandte Kunst, Schaumainkai 17
– Kino im Deutschen Filmmuseum, Schaumainkai 41

Programm on December 16, 2015:

9 – 10:45 a.m.
Circulations of Knowledge: Governance and Instruction 1
Lee Grieveson (London)
The Pan American Road to Happiness and Friendship
Scott Anthony (Cambridge/Singapore)
Free Enterprise Film: The Aims of Industry on Screen
Chair: Martin Loiperdinger (Professor of Media Studies, University of Trier)

11:15 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Circulations of Knowledge: Governance and Instruction 2
Charles Acland (Montreal)
New Media for the School of Tomorrow: The AV Instructional Films of Robert W. Wagner
Oliver Gaycken (Maryland)
Pouring, Welding, Pulverizing, etc.: Cataloguing the Movements and Behaviors in the Encyclopedia Cinematographica’s Technical Science Collection
Chair: Florian Hoof (Assistant Professor, Universität Frankfurt/M.)

2 p.m. Lunch break

3:45 p.m.
The Politics of Empire(s) 1
Dr. Ravi Vasudevan (New Delhi)
Information Film Infrastructures: Film Policies and Practices in Colonial India, 1918–1946
Tom Rice (St. Andrews)
Working through the End of Empire
Chair: Christian Kleinschmidt (Professor of Economic History, Philipps-Universität Marburg)

5:45 p.m.
The Politics of Empire(s) 2
Rudmer Canjels (Amsterdam)
Framing Local and International Sentiments: Unilever and Royal Dutch Shell Imagining Change and Tradition in Nigeria
Martin Stollery (Southampton Institute)
Saudi Arabia’s John Ford? Robert Yarnall Richie, Desert Venture and Biographical Legends in Industrial Film
Chair: Vinzenz Hediger (Professor of Cinema Studies, Universität Frankfurt/M.)

6:15 – 8 p.m. Screening 2
Industrial Image / Industrial Sound: Films from the BFI (curated and presented by Patrick Russell)

Guinness for You (Guinness, d. Anthony Short, 1971, 15’)
The Balance 1950 (ICI, 1951, 9’)
Every Valley (British Transport Films, d. Michael Clarke, 1957,
20’)
Songs of the Coalfields (National Coal Board, 1957/1964, 13’) This is Shell (Shell, d. Geoffrey Jones, 1970, 7’)
Divertimento (BP, 1968, 7’)
Stone into Steel (United Steel, d. Paul Dickson, 1960, 35’)

8:15 p.m. Screening 3
La via del petrolio (Agip – ENI, IT 1966, R: Bernardo Bertolucci) Teil 1: Le origini (48’)
Teil 2: Il Viaggio (40’)
Teil 3: Attraverso l’Europa (45’)

The whole program and all further information can be found in the attached PDF.