Moving Image Research Laboratory

The Moving Image Research Laboratory (MIRL) is a funded project by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. MIRL focuses on the transformation of film history due to the shift from celluloid to digital media. The discipline now encompasses the broader history of moving image technologies and their interaction with other domains. The three main investigators at MIRL, Michael Cowan, Alanna Thain, and Thomas Lamarre, explore the relations between moving image media and transformations in modernity's understanding of the body. This includes examining the emergence of an "energetic body" in early 20th-century Europe, the challenge to notions of the "live body" in post-WWII North America, and the impact of digital animation on contemporary transnational network communities. MIRL provides essential infrastructural components, including a moving image analysis lab and a data processing lab, to facilitate these investigations.