Robot and Frank
The screening
will be followed by an expert panel discussion and audience debate to
explore philosophical and neuroscience perspectives on the mind and memory
and states of consciousness; identity, retirement and representations of
ageing in film, and Alzheimer’s disease as a metaphor for cultural loss and
forgetting.
A collaboration between Chapter Arts Centre, the British Film Institute
(Film hub Wales) and Cardiff University. This programme of events curated
by Dr Katie Featherstone will explore contemporary social and cultural
developments and the ideas found within new-release, cult and classic film,
with a focus on understandings of the mind, human behaviour, memory, the
life-course, and ageing.
Speakers
Chris Allen is
a Neuroscientist at Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre
(CUBRIC) within the School of Psychology. The theme of his research is
consciousness with a particular focus on how we measure consciousness, both
form the experiential side and the neurological side, and how these two are
brought together. http://psych.cf.ac.uk/contactsandpeople/researchstaff/allen_chris.php
Virpi Ylänne is Senior Lecturer in Language and Communication at Cardiff School of
English, Communication and Philosophy. Her research interests include media
representations of older people and ageing, and discursive construction of
lifespan identities. She will talk about aspects of identity, retirement and
representations of older adults in contemporary film. http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/contactsandpeople/profiles/ylanne-virpi.html
Ryan Prout is based at Cardiff School of Modern Languages. His research is
primarily on contemporary film, writing, and visual culture from Spain and
Latin America. He has published work on representations of autism in Spanish
comics, and on depictions of Alzheimer’s in films from Catalonia and
Mexico. His current book project is Piensa diferente [Think Different]:
Rethinking Neurodiversity in Spanish and Latin American Films and Comics.
In his work on films about Alzheimer’s he has focused on the issues raised by
the use of the disease as a metaphor for cultural loss and forgetting.
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/modern-languages/profile/ryan-prout/#
