Autopsies Research Project Study Day, UCL (University College London)

Sponsored by The Film Studies Space: The Centre for the Cultural History of the Moving Image

Friday, 4 June 2010, Roberts G08 Sir David Davies Lecture Theatre

The Autopsies Project explores how objects die. Just as the twentieth century was transformed by the advent of new forms of media--the typewriter, gramophone, and film, for example--the arrival of the twenty-first century has brought with it the disappearance of many public and private objects that only recently seemed essential to ‘modern life.’

Responding to recent work in cultural history, spatial studies, and 'thing theory,' this study day reflects on the ends of objects, raising questions of modernity, obsolescence, memory, collecting and recording. How can critical theorists and cultural historians participate in the reflexion on the ends of objects—from their physical finitude to the very projects for their disposal, the latter increasingly of concern with the multiplication of things that do not gently decompose into their own night?

This study day on ‘Yesterday’s Objects’ will investigate the everyday objects—the fridges, typewriters, and jukeboxes—that have irrevocably changed our lives. Invited papers will explore how these objects have refashioned and reimagined our work, home, and leisure spaces.

A programme detailing the papers and round table is available on the 'events' page of the Autopsies Group website: www.autopsiesgroup.com

This event is free and open to all. To register for the study day, please write to deadobjects@gmail.com