William Jennings
PhD Student
Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies
Film and Media
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
As an academic, William is primarily focused on memory and its discontents; as an artist, on time and its containment within the moving-image. His MA thesis, You Have a New Memory: On Hauntology, Mnemonic Implants, and the Problem of Memory in the Digital Age, was complimented by a video art installation that debuted at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in July, 2023. This show, entitled Memory Junction Museum, became ground zero for what William has termed slowtime: the curation of a mnemonic phase space by means of alternative temporalities. These new philosophies of time and memory provide the foundations for William's studies as a PhD student.
Despite having a steady but unremarkable career as a freelance videographer and editor, William has primarily spent his adult life working in independent movie theatres and video stores. When not too busy scooping popcorn or chasing down overdue rental fees, William has managed to make a handful of amateur films; his documentary short Half-Day (2017) premiered at the first annual Victoria Short Film Festival, and Jay, 17 (2020) debuted at the Vic Short Film Night hosted at UVic's Cinecenta theatre.
William is also one of the founding members of the Cinema Society of Kingston, a non-profit organization working to foster a strong local culture around film and moviegoing.