Julian Ross
Assistant Professor
- Name
- Dr. J.A. Ross
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 2358
- j.a.ross@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Julian Ross is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.
Fields of interest
- 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), 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-) 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: www.rossjulian.com
Curatorial activities
I’m a Programmer at International Film Festival Rotterdam. I was a member of the selection committee at Locarno Film Festival (2019-20), 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 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
As Programmer at International Film Festival Rotterdam, I’m responsible for feature films from Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia and I co-programme the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition and the Short & Mid-Length section. In the 2020 edition, I co-coordinated IFFR Sessions – a discursive 5-day workshop at Kunstinstituut Melly – and the Bright Future Competition for debut features. In 2017, I curated the exhibition Norio Imai – Severed Film / Jointed Film, which was also presented as an installation at BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts. As part of the festival, I have programmed retrospectives of Cauleen Smith, Masao Adachi, Basim Magdy, Su Hui-yu and Norio Imai.
Grants and awards
2015-18 Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (University of Westminster)
2012-13 Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Fellowship (Meiji Gakuin University)
2009-12 White Rose Research Studentship (University of Leeds)
2011 Worldwide Universities Network: Research Mobility Grant (University of Sydney)
Other grants:
2019 Purin Picture Grant (for Animistic Apparatus)
2018-19 British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (for May Adadol Ingawanij)
Research Associate (University of Westminster)
2017-18 Andy Warhol Foundation Grant (for Collaborative Cataloging Japan)
2015-16 Japan Foundation Films Showing Abroad Grant
2011 Japan Foundation Intellectual Exchange Conference Grant
2011 Japan Foundation Films Showing Abroad Grant
Past Teaching & Education
2019-21 Mentor, Netherlands Film Academy (MA)
2015-19 Research Fellow, University of Westminster
2009-14 PhD, University of Leeds
2006-09 BA, Queen Mary University of London
I have given guest classes and tutorials at Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths University of London, SOAS University of London, Central St. Martins University of the Arts London, American University of Paris, University of Reading, Dartmouth College, Antioch College, Gerrit Rietveld Academie and University of Amsterdam.
I joined Leiden University in 2019.
Teaching activities (2021-22)
- Curating Film and Video (MA)
- Contemporary Theories of Film (MA)
- Cinema: Avant-garde (BA)
- Third Cinema (BA)
- Visual Evidence in Cinema (BA)
- TV Series (BA)
- World Cinema A (BA)
Assistant Professor
- Faculty of Humanities
- Centre for the Arts in Society
- Literatuurwetenschap
- Leeuw I. de & Ross J.A. (2021), Polyvocality as Resistance. [catalog].
- Bloom E., Emmerzael H., Mechanicus K. & Ross J.A. (19 September 2021), What is expanded Japanese cinema (with Julian Ross). Celebrating Cinema [podcast].
- Ross J.A. & Kawakubo Y. (26 April 2021), Yoi Kawakubo in conversation with Julian Ross Interviewed by for e-flux Video & Film [interview].
- Ross J.A. & Voelcker B. (2020), There is no conclusion to this assembly: a conversation about Koki Tanaka, Non-Fiction (2): 12-17.
- Ross J.A. (2020), 'From Tomorrow on, I Will'. Frames of Representation, Institute of Contemporary Art. [catalog].
- Ross J.A. & Rizaldi R. (2020), 'Riar Rizaldi "Kasiterit"' (Website): Vdrome. [website].
- Ross J.A. (2020), Midnight Seance with Su Hui-yu (Website). Taiwan: Double Square Gallery. [website].
- Ross J.A. (2020), Killer Joe’s: 1960s Japanese Expanded Cinema in Discotheques (Website). Brooklyn, NY, USA: Pioneer Works, (Broadcast). [website].
- Fleischmann P., Fränzen B., Meden J., Menegon M., Milovanovic M., Jansen W., Pelzer W., Ross J.A. & Young N. (2020), 'Notes on Film' (Website), (Vienna Shorts). [website].
- Ross J.A. (2020), Experimental film: forms, spaces and networks: a history of Japanese experimental film. In: Fujiki H., Phillips A. (Ed.) The Japanese Cinema Book.: The British Film Institute. 192-202.
- Ross J.A. (2020), Funeral Parade of Roses, Sight & Sound (Summer): 30-31.
- Go Hirasawa, Ross J.A. & Ann Adachi-Tasch (Eds.) (2020), Japanese Expanded Cinema and Intermedia: Critical Texts of the 1960s. Berlin, Germany: Archive Books.
- Ross J.A (2020), Situating intermedia and expanded cinema in 1960s Japan. In: Adachi-Tasch, A.; Hirasawa, G.; Ross, J.A. (Eds.) Japanese Expanded Cinema and Intermedia: Critical Texts of the 1960s. Berlin, Germany: Archive Books. 11-32.
- Ross J.A. (2019), America, America, America: Japanese artists in the United States in the Sixties and Seventies. In: Jhaveri S. (Ed.) America: Films from Elsewhere.: The Shoestring Publisher. 424-439.
- Cavoulacos S., Dinçel N., Ferm M., Lampert A., López A.E., Porterfield M., Ross J.A. & Szlam M. (2019), Seven Ways to Re-View a Film History, MoMA Magazine .
- Ross J.A. (2019), Landscape, video and the Anthropocene: Interview with Lukas Marxt. In: Slanar C. (Ed.) Lukas Marxt: From Light to Cold. Vienna: VfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst. 99-112.
- Dornieden A., Monroy J.D.G. & Ross J.A. (2018), (Reopening) the Open Frame. In: Greenfield L., Philips D.S., Schroedinger K., Speidel B., Widmann P. (Eds.) Film in the Present Tense: Why can't we stop talking about analogue film?. Berlin: Archive Books. 111-112.
- Hirasawa G. (2017), Politics, the Street, and the Expansion into Everyday Life [政治、街頭、あるいは日常への拡張] (translation: Ross J.A.). In: Endo M., Kurokawa N., Tasaka H. (Eds.) Japanese Expanded Cinema RevisitedMiyuki Endo, Noriyuki Kurokawa and Mayuki Endo. Tokyo: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. 138-148.
- Ross J.A. & Stojković Jelena (2018), Performance in Print: Channeling Tōmatsu Shōmei’s NO.541, Photography & Culture 11(2): 181-196.
- Chulphongsathorn G., Clang J., Dinçel N., Hilmandi D., Hope S., Jhaveri S., Khanna S., Liu S., Makhmalbaf M., Muller N., Nasiri H., Ortiz D., Ross J.A., Sawa H., Shitamichi M., Tafakory M. & Zakeri B. (2018), In & Out Member of editorial staff Nang (4).
- Ross J.A. (2018), Japanese Artists' Film in 1968-69. In: Reichardt J. (Ed.) Fluorescent Chrysanthemum Remembered. Gdansk: Laznia Center for Contemporary Art. 58-60.
- Ross J.A. (2017), Explorers of Boundaries: 1960-70s Expanded Cinema in Japan. In: Endo M., Kurokawa N., Tasaka H. (Eds.) Japanese Expanded Cinema Revisited. Tokyo: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. 149-164.
- Ross J.A. (2016), パフォーマンスとしてのエクスパンデッド・シネマ. In: Nishimura T., Kaneko Y. (Eds.) アメリカン・アヴァンギャルド・ムーヴィ. Tokyo: Shinwa-sha. 161-182.
- Kawamura E. (2016), Etsuko Kawamura: Just Another Season [川村悦子−ありふれた季節] (translation: Ross J.A.). Nishinomiya: Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City.
- Ross J.A. (2016), Curating Problems for Expanded Cinema. In: Noble F., Ferreboeuf R., Plunkett T. (Eds.) Preserveation, Radicalism and the Avant-Garde Canon. London: Palgrave McMillan. 35-49.
- Ross J.A. (2015), Ethics of the Landscape Shot: A.K.A Serial Killer and James Benning's portrait of criminals. In: Jorge N.B., Luca T. de (Eds.) Slow Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 261-272.
- Ross J.A. (2015), "An infant with four breasts?" Slide Projections in Postwar Japanese Art, PhotoResearcher (24): 32-37.
- Oshima, N. (2015), Two short essays on Angelopoulos' early films [Two Short Essays on Angelopoulos’ Early Films] (translation: Ross J.A.). In: Koutsourakis, A.; Steven, M. (Eds.) The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 39-44.
- Ross J.A. (2015), Yoko Ono, Sight & Sound (July): 54-55.
- Ross J.A. (2015), Geologic Time, the Anthropocene and Earthquake Sensitivities: Interview with Kodwo Eshun. In: Belina M. (Ed.) The Geologic Imagination. Amsterdam: Sonic Acts. 53-63.
- Ross J.A. (2014), 映画における直接行動. In: Takeda S. (Ed.) 赤瀬川原平. Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha. 225-233.
- Ross J.A. (2015), In The Realm of the Senses. In: Haenni S., Barrow S., White J. (Eds.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Films. London and New York: Routledge. 21-24.
- Ross J.A. (2014), 『もうヨーロッパには何も期待したくていいんだ』日本の非商業映画・実験映画ヨーロッパ公開史, 言語文化 (31): 44-65.
- Iimura T., Ishizaki K., Obayashi N., Sato J. & Richie D. (2014), Film Independents Manifesto [フィルム・アンデパンダン宣言] (translation: Ross J.A.). In: MacKenzie S. (Ed.) Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology. Berkeley: University of California Press. 70-72.
- Ross J.A. (2013), Projection as Performance: The Degrees of Intermediality in Japan's Expanded Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. In: Jerslev A., Nagib L. (Eds.) Impure Cinema: Intermedial and Intercultural Approaches to Film. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. 249-267.
- Ross J.A. (2012), Site and Specificity in Japanese Expanded Cinema: Intermedia and is Development in the late-60s, Décadrages 21-22: 81-95.
- Toscano A. & Hirasawa G. (2013), Walls of Flesh: The Films of Koji Wakamatsu (1965–1972) [Walls of Flesh: The Films of Koji Wakamatsu (1965–1972)] (translation: Ross J.A.), Film Quarterly 66(4): 41-49.
- Ross J.A. (2012), Guest Editor's Intro, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema 3: 3-4.
- Wakamatsu K. (2012), Masao Adachi, kamaitachi [足立正生、 鎌鼬] (translation: Ross J.A.). In: Hirasawa G. (Ed.) Masao Adachi. Mexico: Universidad nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 205-206.
- Programmer