I work on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus, and on small-footprint media. I program experimental media for venues around the world. I'm a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. As Grant Strate University Professor, I teach in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, on unceded Coast Salish territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations. I am proud to be active on SFU Faculty for Palestine and SFU Council on Islamophobia.
I got a Guggenheim fellowship for Small Files for a Small World, a book on carbon footprint of streaming media. Using it to sponsor international small-file workshops in 12 cities, including Dhaka, Mexico City, Cairo, Kigali, Tehran, and Guwahati.
My book The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos is out from Duke University Press! Use coupon code E24MARKS to save 30%. See some of The Fold's early iterations here
Other recent and forthcoming publications
“Collapse Informatics and the Environmental Impact of Information and Communication Technologies,” Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies. On Selected Writings page
“...Scaling Down: On the Unsustainable Pleasures of Large-File Streaming,” in What Film Is Good For, ed. Julian Hanich and Martin Rossouw. University of California Press
Marks and Przedpelski, "The Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: Problems, Calculations, Solutions," in Film and TV Production in the Age of Climate Change. On Selected Writings page
"Analog Video," for Timelines, a project of Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
"Talismanic Media," forthcoming in "Evil Eye Media Theory," edited by Farshid Kazemi, Radek Przedpełski, and me for Techniques
(Older writings on Selected writings page)
Talks
"Cinematic Friendships and Small-File Perturbations," talk on the panel "On Cinematic Friendships" with Raed Rafei and Peter Limbrick, SCMS, March 16
“Streaming Carbon Footprint,” keynote at INACADE 2023, "Zero Waste and Friendly to the Blue Planet.” Binus School of Design, Indonesia. November 23, 2023. By videoconference.
“Small Files to Heal Cinema’s Environmental Sickness,” talk at Film Criticism Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 10-12, 2023. Though I do not like the Saudi government, I attended to support the great organizers.
“Streaming Carbon Footprint,” conversation with David Rokeby sponsored by Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER), BMO Lab, University of Toronto. November 7, 2023
“Healthy Living for Monads: Do We Need a Multiverse?”, talk at Traill College, Trent University, Peterborough, ON. October 31, 2023
The Substantial Motion Research Network
Inspired by process philosopher Sadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Azadeh Emadi and I founded SMRN in 2018 for scholars and practitioners interested in cross-cultural exploration of digital media, art and philosophy. We meet bimonthly to share work in progress. See documentation of our massive June 2022 event A Light Footprint in the Cosmos here
"Evil Eye Media Theory," featuring articles by SMRN members, is forthcoming in Techniques
Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
Dr. Anne Foerster: The Restorative Brain
My neuroscientist mother's research on spontaneous regeneration in the central nervous system!
lmarks [ ] sfu [ ] ca
