Department of Modern Culture and Media

Elemental Media Lab

Elemental Media Lab

The Elemental Media Lab is a collaborative initiative hosted by the Department of Modern Culture and Media to bring questions of ecological and deep temporal inquiry to the study of media in line with turns in the field at large, such as media archaeology, media ecologies, bio-mediatics, the study of non and inhuman forms, and of technologies and the techniques of power.

How might scholars account for the force of the elemental- it's substances, its material concepts, its methods, its violences- in the collective making of our many worlds across atomic, universal, and particulate scales? What does media-specific thinking have to contribute to ecological studies at the intersection of the arts and sciences? How does media studies in extended perspective intersect with current de-colonial projects and methodologies in the arts and humanities? How does media studies contribute to questions about cultural techniques and their polluted structures? 

Elemental Media Lab Study Group

The Elemental Media Lab hosts the EML Study Group throughout the semester. The study group facilitates conversation between scholars and practitioners thinking about lightning as a media, the ocean as method, a shoal as gestural, unlearning imperial plunder through jewelry, the search for bones in deserts, and glitter as elemental work.

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Elemental Media Conference

October 16-18, 2024
CONFERENCE | FILM SCREENING | ENDURANCE PERFORMANCE
A three-day conference of panels, screenings, and performances exploring the force of the elemental in and beyond media studies.

Close up of sand against black background with text "Elemental Media Conference."

Elemental Media Conference
October 16-18, 2024
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts

The 2024 Elemental Media Conference will bring together an interdisciplinary collective of scholars, artists, students, and community members to explore questions of the elemental in and beyond media studies. Over the course of three days, participants will engage in collaborative sessions taking the form of moderated conversations between leading scholars and practitioners, research presentations, keynote roundtables, film screenings, as well as the last ever performance of artist Julie Tolentino’s HONEY and a featured lecture by Naomi Klein in conversation with Macarena Gómez-Barris and Bonnie Honig. This event develops out of a departmental initiative to bring questions of ecological and deep temporal inquiry to the study of media in line with turns in the field at large, such as media archaeology, media ecologies, bio-mediatics, the study of non and inhuman forms, and of technologies and techniques of power.

An Ignite Campus Event. Also supported by the Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Culture and Media Studies and Environmental Humanities at Brown (EHAB).

Learn more

Learn more about the Elemental Media Conference here.

Elemental Media Conference