Presentation delivered at the ARLIS UK and Ireland Conference, Bristol, 2013

1. ‘“Old Wine in New Bottles”:
Researching Cinema Heritage
Through Pervasive Media’
Dr Charlotte Crofts
University of the West of England
charlotte.crofts@uwe.ac.uk
Accessing Cinema Memories
Through Pervasive Media
charlotte.crofts@uwe.ac.uk
@charlottecrofts
Dr Charlotte Crofts
Digital Cultures Research Centre
University of the West of England (Bristol, UK)

2. The Curzon Memories App

3. The Curzon Memories App

4. The Curzon Memories App

5. QR Codes
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Back Row

6. https://vimeo.com/44960163
The Curzon Memories App

7. Projection Hero

8. Projection Hero
http://curzonproject.wordpress.com/videos

9. Rebecca Solnit, Infinite City: A San
Francisco Atlas (2010)
“…there were certain things that were
meaningful, exciting, strange about San
Francisco and about places in general
that were better told through maps than
through words. For example if I tell you
there were 99 murders in SF in 2008,
that’s not very exciting, but if I actually
show you the maps with the murders
mostly on the east side of the city, kind of
scattered like buckshot across the
geography and you can imagine the
particulars of place, and you can see that
it happened here, and it happened here
and it happened here, it’s much more
immediate and visceral and affecting.”
Cinema City: Muybridge
inventing movies, Hitchcock
making Vertigo

11. GIS Map - Know Your Place
http://maps.bristol.gov.uk/knowyourplace/

13. Whiteladies Picture House

14. Whiteladies Picture House

15. Whiteladies Picture House

16. Lost Cinemas of Castle Park

17. Lost Cinemas of Castle Park

18. The Queens Picture House 1910-1933

20. The Odeon 1938-present

21. “What, the curtains?”
VALIE EXPORT
Tap & Touch
Cinema (1968)
Dennis Göttel
http://apertura.hu/
2008/nyar/goettel,
citing Laura Marks,
The Skin of the Film

22. Lost Cinemas of Castle Park

23. Lost Cinemas of Castle Park
Olympia / Tatler
1910-1963
Empire Theatre
1893-1963
Kings
1910-1982

24. The Olympia / Tatler 1910-1963
“I saw my first sub-titled picture shortly
after I arrived. It was at the Tatler, an art
house disguised as an exploitation flea pit
near Old Market – a 1939 Claude Autant-
Lara comedy called Fric-Frac starring
Fernandel, Arletty and Michel Simon. Not
long after that I saw my first neo-realist
film there, Rossellini's Paisa” (Philip
French).

25. Magic Moments

26. Armchair Mode

27. SoLoMo
(Social / Local / Mobile)

28. Locative Experience Design
• Emphasis on audio allows location to be the screen
• “Dialectical montage” / frisson between physical
location, media content and user interface.
• “Magic moments” (Reid et a.l) – when the app
interacts with location
• “Arm chair” mode needs to be equally compelling
• “SoLoMo” - Location-based engagement
• Social media / ability to comment / add memories
• Call to action vs “lost impulse”

30. Future Developments
• Digital Fleapit – portable Projection Hero,
Encounters 2013
• Cinemapping – future collaborations:
– Comparative Study of Bristol /Liverpool
University, Museum of Liverpool / Merseyside
GIS
– HOMER / Cinema Treasures / mapping the
world
• REACT ‘Objects Sandbox’ 2014…

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32. Digital Fleapit
• flea·pit
n. Chiefly British
Slang. A cheap or
squalid theatre.
• flea cir·cus
n. A miniature novelty
show of performing
fleas.

33. Dr Charlotte Crofts
charlotte.crofts@uwe.ac.uk
http://www.eyefullproductions.co.uk/curzon
www.cinemmapping.co.uk
@charlottecrofts #curzonmemoriesapp #lostcinemas @cinemapping