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In buying myself a bit more time over the half-term period to work on part six of my 'Re-Viva la Revolución' series , I thought you'd be keen to hear all about my recent adventures where I had never been before. My partner is one of those late Gen-Xers who has since childhood loved Star Trek ( The Original Series hereafter) and Star Wars (he fervently will not refer to the original film by its retrospective subtitle 'A New Hope'). Although a self-professed sci-fi nerd, I could have happily lived the whole of my life without seeing any of either franchise. He has most certainly irreversibly changed that outlook. While I have now seen, let me see, the first and third Star Wars trilogies plus Rogue One and Solo , and I admit to enjoying the outlanders of the franchise Rogue One and The Last Jedi , I would maintain that I am not a fan. But when it comes to the Star Trek universe (galaxy, really), I hugely enjoy the company of the characters and the knowledge that flo

Preview of episode 77 with artist Johanna Leech talking about the Amabie Project. https://youtu.be/YeYalwMKOuw Subscribe to my YouTube channel or wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the full episode on Wednesday. Make your own audiogram (affiliate link): https://getaudiogram.com/register/822fec Join the pod at https://www.patreon.com/avcultures or support via https://www.buymeacoffee.com/peablair

In part procrastination, in part showing off some skills and trying to promote myself on no budget, I present this film I made showing my mask-making process. I'm struggling hard with brain fog and tiredness lately (more than the usual base levels that are my constant companions) and part 6 of my series on Good Vibrations and No is the section that needs the most work and requires reading theory that I just don't have the headspace for. I suppose I didn't anticipate being as busy as I have been when I started out. A good thing about managing your own deadlines is you can go easy on yourself when you recognise the possibility of crashing and burning. Plus I'd rather work well when I can than forcing it and producing nonsense. Anyway, this film, I hope, shows that I did indeed learn a few things in undertaking three film degrees. It's hardly a masterpiece, but given the production environment and ah hoc nature of it, I hope you'll agree that it's not bad. An

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3   Part 4 Reframing Violence Just before the paramilitary ceasefires in Northern Ireland in 1994, David Miller pointed out that since the end of World War I in 1918, ‘[t]he guiding light of British policy […] has been to try and push Ireland to the margins of British politics. This was managed quite successfully until 1968, when the North exploded on to television screens around the world. Since then, British policy has been directed to containing the “troubles”’. 1 The constructed concept of the ‘Troubles’ – a term which connotes a containable and manageable group of homogenous events – was coined by the British press in the 1980s and spread into common parlance. All the while, that parallel containment of the conflict in politics and journalism, Miller continues, emphasized the ‘criminality’ of the Irish Republican Army which, as Miller points out, only served to raise the ‘news value’ of the political violence (pp. 2–3). What it also achieved, tho

Film scholars Andrew Shail and Arnojya Shree discuss Tamasha (dir. Imtiaz Ali, 2015). With occasional swearing and brief mention of abusive relationships. Music: commonGround by airtone (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703 Recorded on Zoom Instagram Live Edited by Paula Blair with Audacity Kdenlive Join the pod at https://www.patreon.com/avcultures or support via https://www.buymeacoffee.com/peablair

  Preview of episode 76 with Andrew Shail and Arnojya Shree talking about Tamasha (dir. Imtiaz Ali, 2015). Join the pod at https://www.patreon.com/avcultures or support via https://www.buymeacoffee.com/peablair   https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/peablair  https://liberapay.com/peablair

    A recent discovery in my growing self-awareness has been learning that within my broad love of cinema and art one of my favourite sub-genres is the art documentary. By that I mean documentaries about the art world, market, artists and practices rather than artists' films that are documentary in nature, although I'm partial to those too. The latter have often fuelled my research and teaching, but as a form of relaxation and more gentle learning, I do love a good doc telling me something about art and artists. It is a way of seeing that to which I typically do not have access because the works are hidden away in private collections or galleries I'll never get to visit. But far beyond mere interest and information, Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint, written and directed by Halina Dyrschka and available to view now via Modern Films , simply blew me away. Hilma af Klint was a Swedish artist born in 1862 who made paintings substantial in size and sum and kept meticulous note

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3   Remediating the past Bearing in mind the nostalgic tone of Good Vibrations , some of its sequences can also facilitate critical re-evaluation of the past. Its opening implements accelerated archival footage showcasing Northern Ireland’s products and industries that then capture the sense of nation-/region-hood beginning to fragment as collectives splinter off in the transition to civil conflict. While No economically tells the politics of Chile’s recent past, Good Vibrations shows two decades of Northern Ireland’s industrial, cultural, religious and political histories. Both of these compressed accounts serve as backdrops to the individual men on which the films centre, with René and Terri both embodying the fictionalized truths the films (re)present. Whereas Good Vibrations uses the archive to show Northern Ireland’s transition into conflict, the opening sequence in No consists of text outlining a brief contextual synopsis of the 1973 military