Surface Encounters

Though often taken for granted, everyday objects influence how people experience moving images. Andrea J. Kelley uses bedsheets and inflatables as cultural media tools to explore the powerful ways familiar things shape audience perceptions and reactions. Kelley expands film history into homes, parks, and outdoor spaces to reveal that ordinary screen materials bring with them long histories tied to labor, race, gender, and industry. As she shows, when people project films onto these surfaces, their histories impact the meaning of the viewing experience. Kelley draws on archival research, film analysis, and examples like backyard movie nights and COVID-era outdoor screenings to focus on how overlooked elements affect our understanding of spectatorship, exhibition, and media culture. An evocative look at a popular experience, Surface Encounters shows that movie screens matter because of what they are made of and the ways people encounter them in everyday places.