Stickiness is ambiguous. Sometimes we want to avoid it, and sometimes we need it. Sticky tapes can repair and mend, or accelerate decomposition and destruction. While film editors and projectionists enjoy the convenience given by the practice of cutting strips of film and sticking them together with tape, archivists may have to deal with “Sticky Shed Syndrome” when over time magnetic tape sheds a residue, slowly hiding away the content between increasingly sticky layers of material. How can we conceptually think of these (un-)desirabilities of stickiness in relation to objects in film and media studies?
By capturing the double meaning of film as both a medium that exists within cultural industries, and as a thin viscous layer atop something, the conceptual and material explorations of films as inherently sticky go against the assumption that current transformations in film and media culture are continuous and smooth, and rather provokes us to experience and feel them differently, even paradoxically.
We have gathered scholars from various fields to think about, with, and through these contradicting or even resisting conceptions of stickiness for the study of configurations of film and media. Where does stickiness surface, what does it carry along, powerful momentum or unwanted distraction? Our line-up brings together erratic examples of stickiness, adhesives, glue, and paste to create contact zones.

Conference Modalities
“Sticky Films. Conceptual & Material Explorations” is an on-site live event.
To register for the event please use this form.

To download the conference program click here.
If you have further questions please contact the organizing committee via sticky2023[at]gmail.com.

Organized by the Graduate Research Training Program 2279 Configurations of Film. The conference is made possible through the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.