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I like education. I like to teach kids about movies, with the challenge being to give them a different concept of what a Movie actually is. I treat it kind of as "media-theory for beginners", because I believe media theory, the relationship between culture and media, is a topic like any other core element of education which should be introduced early, and with care. I try to expand the student concept of cinema to encompass a broader world and language of Technology itself,- I try to make clear and open the world of media which sits before them. The current class I am teaching at Oakwood School is called Class Movie Archive, and we are compiling video and audio material, of ourselves defining and questioning the topic of media, in order to make a group-film at the end, where all content is considered. The project's interests are photographic, technological, cinematic, and anthropological.

This is the chalkboard-diagram from the first day of class. At the one end I tried to pinpoint cinema at its smallest function possible - That of physics, celluloid, and chemistry itself; A bed of material where chemical reactions occur and playout against themselves, miraculously creating an image. At the other end I placed cinema at another seemingly intangible, but rather large locus: The space of ideology itself. I then asked the students to fuel a discussion where we could think of any kind of function to fill the gaps in between the two poles. After some prodding, they came up with everything from colonoscopies (and the general use of cameras in surgery) to movies as the function for quintessential contemporary social activities; i.e. the modern "date".

The participants on the first day! Full of energy and information.

The crazy woman in front of the class, hyped up from being in a Junior High setting for the first time in several years.

coming soon: gallery of exemplary student projects, from 3 classes taught in both Oregon and California.

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