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 51社区黑料 in Vancouver, Canada, on unceded Coast Salish territory of the S岣祑x瘫wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:l艒, S蓹l虛ílw蓹ta蕯 (Tsleil-Waututh) and x史m蓹θk史蓹y虛蓹m (Musqueam) nations. I am proud to be active on and 51社区黑料Council on Islamophobia.
I got a Guggenheim fellowship for Small Files for a Small World, a book on carbon footprint of streaming media. I'm using it to sponsor international small-file workshops in 12 cities, including Dhaka, Mexico City, Cairo, Kigali, Tehran, and Guwahati. See updates at
My book is out from Duke University Press! See some of The Fold's early iterations here
Events
Keynote talk at CAMP Study Day, Museum of Modern Art, New York, in connection to "," curated by Stuart Comer and Rattanamol Singh Johal. May 20, 2025. Here's the of all the wonderful talks. Mine starts at about 2:16
"Enfolded Media, from Glissant to Small Files," keynote at Opacities, National College of Art and Design, Dublin. By videoconference.
I was on the feature film jury at the in April 2025, a wonderful experience!
"Microcosmic media, from Islamic talismans to small-file movies," talk in UBC Centre for Cinema Studies Critical Thinkers series, April 11, 2025
"Small Files Palestine and Sudan," talk on the panel "Transnational Palestinian Cinemas" chaired by Joy Schaefer and William Brown, SCMS, Chicago. April 5
“Mitigating the environmental impact of machine learning: Talismanic Tiny Media.” Keynote talk at workshop, Jönköping University, Sweden. Organized by Annette Hill. By videoconference. January 15, 2025.
“Mitigating the environmental impact of machine learning,” talk in the series , organized by Yaim Cooper. 2025 Joint Mathematics Meeting, Seattle. Online. January 9, 2025.
“Spice Media,” talk in panel I organized, “A phytogeography of magic: migrations of Islamicate talismanic plants,” Middle East Studies Association. Online. November 14, 2024.
Other recent and forthcoming publications
“Witches and the Origins of Capitalism” and “Letters from Home,” in , ed. Clint Enns (Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 2025). 10-11, 176-179.
“Small Files and the Environment: A Riyadh Case Study,” in Film Criticism Conference, ed. Carmen Victor (Riyadh: Saudi Film Commission, 2024). 77-82.
“Streaming video, a link between pandemic and climate crisis,” Pause. Fervour. Reflections on a Pandemic, ed. Manca Bajec, Tom Holert, and Marquard Smith (Journal of Visual Culture and Harun Farocki Institut, 2024). 44-46.
“Can cinema slow the flow of blood?”, Routledge Handbook of Arab Cinema, ed. Noha Mellor (London and New York: Routledge, 2024). 252-264.
“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, 2024. On Selected Writings page
(Older writings on Selected writings page)
Five years in, we're #toosmalltofail! Check out our low-carbon small-file web site designed by Joni Schinkel. This year we'll be screening films from the international small-file workshops. @smallfile
The Substantial Motion Research Network
Inspired by process philosopher Sadr al-Di虅n al-Shi虅ra虅zi虅, 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," edited by Farshid Kazemi, Radek Przedpe艂ski, and me and featuring articles by SMRN members, is forthcoming sometime
Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
My neuroscientist mother's research on spontaneous regeneration in the central nervous system!
lmarks [ ] sfu [ ] ca
@lauraumarks
