Julian Ross is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.

More information about Julian Ross

Research interests

- Artists’ moving image
- Experimental film
- Asian cinema
- Experimental documentary
- Intermediality
- Film installation and performance
- Video Art
- Media Archaeology
- World cinema

Research

My ongoing research on Japanese expanded cinema in the 1960-70s began with my PhD dissertation ‘Beyond the Frame: Intermedia and Expanded Cinema in 1960-70s Japan’, supervised by Professor Lúcia Nagib at the University of Leeds. Since, it has led to several projects: a 2016 film and performance series Throwing Shadows for Tate Modern and International Film Festival Rotterdam, co-curated with Go Hirasawa; the 2017 group exhibition Japanese Expanded Cinema Revisited at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, for which I was curatorial advisor; group exhibition More Than Cinema: Motoharu Jonouchi and Keiichi Tanaami at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, co-curated with Ann Adachi-Tasch and Go Hirasawa in 2020; and the book Japanese Expanded Cinema and Intermedia: Critical Texts of the 1960s (Archive Books, 2020) co-edited with Ann Adachi-Tasch and Go Hirasawa, for which a book launch was organised with MoMA, Eye Filmmuseum and Tallinn Photomonth Biennale. With funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation Grant, Collaborative Cataloging Japan, a non-profit organisation for which I am Core Research Member, initiated collection surveys and preservation projects for works of Japanese expanded cinema. My research on Japanese expanded cinema is a historical study that proposes to not only internationalise the study of expanded cinema but also to consider the local critical discourse of the period as a contribution.

As part of my Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2015-18), I researched how the carousel slide projector has been used by contemporary artists internationally since Kodak terminated its production in 2004. The research project culminated in the 2019 group exhibition Blackout, which was presented at Kunsthal Rotterdam as part of International Film Festival Rotterdam, after which it was presented in Ambika P3 (London) and Greylight Projects (Brussels). The exhibition was covered by Sight & Sound, NECSUS, Hyperallergic, MUBI Notebook, De Groene Amsterdammer, De Filmkrant and Metropolis M. Part of the project forms a book chapter I contributed for The Moving Form of Film (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). The project questions to what extent the industry determines the lifespan of a technological apparatus and, again, calls for the internationalisation of the study.

In 2018-19, I was Research Associate for Professor May Adadol Ingawanij’s British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship research project Animistic Apparatus. As part of this project, we co-organised the following: a research workshop in Udon Thani, Thailand, with 40 artists, curators and researchers; screenings at Alliance Française Bangkok, Aperture: Asia & Pacific Film Festival (London), Rijksacademie (Amsterdam), Nordland Kunst- og Filmfagskole (Kabelvåg, Norway), Other Futures (Amsterdam), Zone2Source (Amsterdam), Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; and a group exhibitions as part of NTT ICC (Tokyo) and Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival (UK). The project has received coverage from Sight & Sound, Art Monthly and NANG, and we are contributing a co-written article in an upcoming issue of the journal World Records.

I’m co-editor of the World Cinema Series (Bloomsbury) with Lúcia Nagib since 2016 and I’m on the advisory board for the book series Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image (Palgrave MacMillan). Previously, I have been on the selection committees of Asia Cultural Centre Cinema Fund (2020), Hubert Bals Fund (2017-2021) and Eye Experimental distribution of Eye International (2017) and have served on several juries at film festivals. For more details on my written work and research presentations, please see: https://www.rossjulian.com.

Curatorial activities

I was a Programmer at International Film Festival Rotterdam (2015-22) and was a member of the selection committee at Locarno Film Festival (2019-20). I was also a guest programmer at Singapore International Film Festival (2021) and film curator for the 2021 edition of Other Futures. My curatorial projects have been presented at Tate Modern, Art Institute of Chicago, Kunsthal Rotterdam, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Eye Filmmuseum, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Anthology Film Archives, Harvard Film Archives, British Film Institute, Light Industry, Tallinn Photomonth Biennale, e-flux Video & Film and other places. In 2019, I was selected as one of thirty “Future Leaders” in film programming and curating by Screen International. For more details on my curatorial activities, please see: https://www.rossjulian.com/curating

I joined Leiden University in 2019.

Teaching (2022-23)

Curating Film and Video (MA), Cinema: Avant-garde (BA), Third Cinema (BA), Visual Evidence in Cinema (BA), TV Series (BA), World Cinema A (BA)

Publications