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Critical Media Lab (CML)


Co-directed by Lisa Stevenson and Diana Allan

It is our contention that non-verbal sound and visual images participate differently in the economy of thought. When we are trying to break out of a fixed way of perceiving the world, sometimes it is not more words that are necessary, but instead a “devastating” image—one that shakes up our firmly held paradigms and makes us think and feel differently about the world and its inhabitants.

The Critical Media Lab (CML), set to open in Spring 2022, will be a place where students and faculty can both make and study media; where visiting artists and scholars can screen their work in a professional setting with up-to-date audiovisual resources; and where cross-disciplinary exchange—as well as conversations between the community and the university—will be fostered.

The CML will allow students to explore the intersection of ethnographic research and contemporary multimedia practice through photography, digital filmmaking and sound design. The instruction and resources offered through the lab will equip students to graduate not simply as competent media theorists, but also—and above all—as accomplished, critically aware makers of multimedia content.