Profile
My work across films and research is situated on the uncertain thresholds of the perceptible and the communicable, organism and environment, and knowledge regimes and power. It is interdisciplinary and engages film practice and film theory in conversation with media studies, environmental humanities, and the history and philosophy of science.
I have recently completed the final piece in the trilogy of films ‘Monsters, Measures and Metabolisms’, which I have been making together with my collaborator Beny Wagner. The trilogy is comprised of A Demonstration (2020), which looked at the presence of monsters at the centre of Early Modern taxonomic science, and Constant (2022), which explores the social and political history of measurementstandardisation, and My Want of You Partakes of Me (2023), which interrogates digestion as a process of physiological, psychological, spiritual, literary and scientific dimensions. As part of this broader project we have co-authored the book All Thoughts Fly: Monster, Taxonomy, Film (Sonic Acts Press, 2021).
Prior to this I worked on a long-term research project proposing the theory and the practice of geological filmmaking as an aesthetic strategy for grappling with some of the key representational and perceptual challenges posed by the ecological crisis. This is explored in detail in my monograph Geological Filmmaking (Open Humanities Press, 2022). As part of this research I made two films, Salarium (2017) on sinkholes and Asbestos (2016) on asbestos.
My films have been screened worldwide including at film festivals such as the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Cinema Du Reel, RIDM Montreal; and major art institutions including the Tate Modern, the Baltic Triennial, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Museum of the Moving Image New York, TIVA Taipei, ICA London and Transmediale, among many others. The films have received numerous awards internationally, including at IndieLisboa, Guanajuato Film Festival, CPH:DOX, EXiS Seoul, Second place at Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis (BAFTA equivalent) and Longlisted for an Oscar Academy Award. My work has been subject of focus and retrospective screenings at more than fifteen venues worldwide including Courtisane Festival, Union Docs NY, LA Filmforum and e-flux screening room, and has been featured in publications including Cahiers du Cinema, Sight & Sound, Frieze, Senses of Cinema, Filmmaker Magazine, among others.
Prior to starting at QMUL in 2019 I completed a PhD in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths.
I am the 2024 Winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize, and will be on extended research leave funded by the award starting in 2025. I am going to be working on a new book monograph and a feature film.
Publications
Filmography
My Want of You Partakes of Me, 2023, 54 min, with Beny Wagner
Constant, 2022, 40 min, with Beny Wagner
Every Rupture, 2021, 13 min
A Demonstration, 2020, 25 min, with Beny Wagner
Bilateria, 2019, 13 min, with Beny Wagner
Salarium, 2017, 42 min, with Daniel Mann
Asbestos, 2016, 20 min, with Graeme Arnfield
The Stability of the System, 2016, 17 min, with Isabel Mallet
Exile Exotic, 2015, 14 min
Evergreen, 2014, 27 min
Immortality, home and elsewhere, 2014, 12 min
Alluvion, 2013, 31 min
Books
Geological Filmmaking, Open Humanities Press, 2022
All Thoughts Fly: Monster, Taxonomy, Film, with Beny Wagner, Sonic Acts Press, 2021
Articles and book chapters
'Two Hundred Years of Total Conversion', with Beny Wagner, Ecoes journal, issue 6, 2023
'Monster as Medium: Experiments in Perception in Early Modern Science and Film', with Beny Wagner, e-flux journal, March 2021
‘Asbestos: Inside and Outside, Toxic and Haptic’, in Environmental Humanities vol. 11 no. 1, special section on ‘Toxic Embodiment’, 2019
'Never Odd or Even - on Palindromes and Metaphors', with Beny Wagner, Hereafter, Sonic Acts, 2019
'Geological Filmmaking: Seeing Film Through Geology and Geology Through Film’, in Transformations no. 32, special issue on ‘Ecological Thinking of the Moving Image’, 2018
‘Sinkholes in Signification’, with Daniel Mann, Sonic Acts Reader, Sonic Acts, 2018
'From Exile to Entropy: Notes on Protagonists and the Posthistorical’, New Cinema and the City: Migrations, edited by Ektoras Arkomanis, Cours De Poetique, 2020
Awards
My Want of You Partakes of Me wins Jury Special Mention, CPH:DOX, Denmark, 2024
Constant wins Best Film at AFO Olomouc, Czech Republic, 2023
Constant longlisted for Academy Award in Short Documentary Category, 2022
Constant wins Sylvestre Best Short Film at IndieLisboa film festival, Portugal, 2022
Constant wins Best Short Documentary at Guanajuato film festival, Mexico, 2022
Constant wins Jury Special Mention at EXiS Seoul film festival, South Korea, 2022
A Demonstration wins second place German Short Film Prize (BAFTA equivalent), 2020
A Demonstration wins Best Visual Concept Prize, Bucharest International Experimental FF, 2020
A Demonstration nominated for the Golden Bear, Berlinale Shorts, 2020
Salarium wins Best Documentary Award, 2 Annas Film Festival, 2018
Salarium wins Best Soundtrack award, Cinema Du Reel, 2018
Film Festivals (selection)
CPH:DOX film festival, Denmark: 2024 / 2022
Curtas Vila do Conde, Portugal: 2024
Bogota Experimental, Columbia: 2024
Vilnius Documentary Film Festival: 2024
Imagine Science Film Festival, NY, USA: 2024 / 2022 / 2020
2 Annas Riga International Film Festival, Latvia: 2023 / 2018
Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Netherlands: 2022 / 2017
Courtisane Film Festival, Ghent, Belgium: 2022 / 2017 / 2016
IndieLisboa, Portugal: 2022
EXiS Seoul, South Korea: 2022
Open City Docs Festival, London, UK: 2022 / 2012
Curtocircuito, Santiago di Campostella, Spain: 2022 / 2020
Guanajuato Film Festival, Mexico: 2022 / 2020
Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, USA: 2022 / 2020 / 2017 / 2016 / 2015
First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image, NY, USA: 2022
Prismatic Ground, Maysles Documentary Center, NY, USA: 2022 / 2021
Olhar de Cinema, Curitiba, Brazil: 2022
Camden International Film Festival, USA: 2022
MUTA International Film Festival, Lima, Peru: 2022
Bangkok World Film Festival, Thailand: 2022
Addis Video Art Festival, Ethiopia, 2022
Punto de Vista Film Festival, Spain: 2021
Dokfilmwoche, Hamburg, Germany: 2021
Vilnius Film Festival, Lithuania: 2021 / 2020
Australia Environmental Film Festival, Australia: 2021
Berlinale, Germany: 2020 / 2017
Kasseler Dokfest, Kassel, Germany: 2020 / 2018 / 2016 / 2015 / 2014 / 2012
Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada: 2020
Cinema du Reel, Paris, France: 2018 / 2016
Alchemy Film Festival, Hawick, Scotland: 2018 / 2016 / 2015
RIDM Rencontres Internationales Documentaire, Montreal, Canada: 2018
Edinburgh International Film Festival, Scotland: 2017 / 2015
Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA: 2016 / 2015
L'Alternativa Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain: 2016
Kino Der Kunst, Munich, Germany: 2015
Festival Du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal, Canada: 2015
Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, UK: 2014 / 2012
Exhibitions and screenings (selection)
Sonic Acts Biennale, Amsterdam, 2024
CCA Glasgow, Sonica, UK, 2024
Science, Body, Anatomy, Tate Modern, London, UK, 2023
Seoul Media Art Biennale, South Korea, 2023
Taiwan Video Art Exhibition, Taipei, Taiwan, 2023
40 Ans du Frac!, Frac Ile-de-France, Paris, France, 2023
Non-Human Narrators, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Poland 2023
Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria, 2023
Systems, M-Cult, Helsinki, Finland, 2023
The Measure of the World, Radius CCA, Delft, The Netherlands, 2023
Asia Cultural Center, Seoul, South Korea, 2022
Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, USA, 2022
IMPAKT festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2022
Transmediale, HKW, Berlin, Germany, 2022
Baltic Triennial, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2021
Media Art Biennale WRO, Wroclaw, Poland, 2021
Abandon Normal Devices, Manchester, UK, 2021
LOOP, Barcelona, Spain, 2021
New Nature, Museum of the Moving Image, New York, USA, 2020
New Nature, Goethe Institut, Montreal, Canada, 2020
The Allure of Matter, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, USA, 2020
Ecology Without Nature, e-flux Film and Video, 2020
Third from the Sun, Mumok, Vienna, Austria, 2019
Front Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, USA, 2018
Videobrasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2017