Research interests
° Transdisciplinarity as research practice and analytical tool for interdisciplinary collaboration in the Arts, Humanities and Sciences.
° Human agency in relation to the imagination, production and interpretation of technology: experiences in technologically mediated (audio-visual) environments; anthropology of the senses.
° Networked knowledge of innovative, creative research practices in late 19th century art, science and technology collaboration and exchanges: resituating the avant-garde at the threshold between science and popular culture.
° Ontological and epistemological approaches to audio-visual media: processes of perception (time, memory, consciousness), intuition and creativity; application of Henri Bergson’s philosophy to a contemporary understanding of perceptual processes at the interface with anthropology, psychology, consciousness studies and media technologies.
° Spiritual/metaphysical dimensions of technology: popular connotations of technology and the refiguring of ‘spirit’ within the cognitive dimensions of the ‘human perceptual apparatus’.
Recently concluded research project:
Co-Investigator “Technology, Exchange and Flow: Artistic Media Practices and Commercial Application” (HERA) led by Prof. dr. Michael Punt in collaboration with VU University Amsterdam, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Eye Film Institute Netherlands and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision:
The project explored the relationship between creativity and innovation within the contemporary European media sector. The project asked how traffic between cultural forms in Europe, such as industrial film and new media arts on the one hand, and commercial exploitation of audiovisual media on the other hand, is radically transformed at key moments. As such it was intended to prepare the way for thinking about new media environments when the distinctions between kinds of producers and the consumer and the producer are no longer valid or viable distinctions. The project brought together three expert teams and two significant archives in a research partnership that focused on three distinct European examples of artistic practices and their commercial applications: early advertising and experimental film at a moment when the technologies of production become more widely available, post-war industrial films & early television commercials, and finally the emerging category of prosumers in contemporary distributive media consequent on games culture. The project examined the connections between the arts and their application from a Pan-European perspective by combining philosophical, historical, and practice-based approaches. The project findings have been presented in publications, symposia and conferences culminated in an interactive exhibition at the Kunsthalle Vienna using gaming feedback strategies (March 2013) and knowledge exchange events at the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision, Hilversum and the EYE Film Institute Netherlands, Amsterdam (April 2013).
For more information see: http://trans-techresearch.net/tef
Grants & contracts
2013 – 2017
Collaborator, Marie Curie Initial Training Network ‘CogNovo: Creativity and CognitiveInnovation’ (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN-IDP 604764; 2013-2017; 4.3M€); Training oninter- and transdisciplinarity and supervisor for project: Early Cinema andCognitive Creativity (10). Supervisor for additional Plymouth University fundeddoctoral projects: Collaboration and Influence (24), Ideas Exchange (25) andHypnosis in Creative Practice (23). http://www.cognovo.eu
Apr. 2012 – Mar. 2013
Co-investigator, HERA Knowledge Transfer project “Advertising the Sublime”. Collaboration with Utrecht University, EYE Film Institute Netherlands and Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Value € 40k.
Apr. 2010 – Mar. 2013
Co-investigator (co-author); EU project “Technology, Exchange and Flow: Artistic Media Practices and Commer cial Application” ( funded by European Science Foundation / HERA: Humanities in the European Research Area) Led by Transtechnology Research (Prof. dr. Michael Punt) in collaboration with VU University Amsterdam, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Eye Film Institute Netherlands, Institute for Soundand Vision Hilversum. Value € 1M.
Nov. 2008 – Feb. 2009
SeniorTeaching Fellowship at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany. Value € 20k.
Dec. 2007
Co-investigator. AHRC ICT Methods Network Workshop: ImmersiveVision Theatres and Strategies forKnowledge Transfer, co-organised with Prof. M. Punt, Transtechnology Research, University of Plymouth. Value £ 2.5k.
May 2005
WellcomeTrust/Theatre Royal Plymouth (TR2), research grant. PhysicalTheatre and Knowledge Transfer. Value £ 1k.
Feb. 2004 – Jul. 2007
PhD bursary full-time, University of Wales. Value £ 75k.
Creative practice & artistic projects
Films:
2004 Lotte Hahn – ein Leben für die Kunst (A Life for Art). Co-directed with Gerald I. Hauzenberger. Col DIGIBETACAM 98 min. Premiered in November 2004 at the Cinema Paradiso in St. Pölten and in May 2005 in the Lengenbach Saal in Neulengbach, Austria. Subsidised by: Land Niederösterreich, Tirol and Stadt Wien.
2000 Lichtgestalten(Shapes of Light) Col DV 35 min. Premiered at the Beeld voor Beeld filmfestival in Amsterdam in May 2000 (Independent production).
1999 Collaboration on the Videoproduction Lightbeings of the Waterly Realms directed by Gerald I. Hauzenberger. Presented at the exhibition by Marc Thomas Merz in the Fashion Museumin Munich from October 1999 until April 2000.
Projects:
1997 (March – June) Museumsproject “Displaying the Object” at the Ethnographic Museum (Völkerkunde-Museum) in Vienna, a collaboration between Cultural Anthropologists (University of Amsterdam) and Architects (Technical University Vienna). Catalogue is available.
Research groups
Transtechnology Research