Relationality in VR - Interdisciplinary Workshop on Aesthetic Research in Virtual Reality
Conference programme https://blog.hslu.ch/relationality/

Abstract

How can we describe co-presence in Virtual Reality? Which modes of relationship are presupposed or encouraged by VR technology? Does a symptomatic reading of VR content and user behavior help us understand recent cultural, social and aesthetic dynamics? This interdisciplinary workshop explored the possible impact of the cognitive and corporeal experiences in digital encounters on our perceptual, social, and psychological capabilities.

Public Lecture Series "Immersive Arts" - Immersion and Extended Realities
lecture recording https://blog.zhdk.ch/immersivearts/lecture-spg222/#2

Challenging the Individual - Perceptual con/fusions in Virtual Reality - Abstract

Immersion is a variously shaped and fragile state of mind that is easily lost due to sensual input. Sometimes, irritating triggers are incorporated into the design of the user experience of a VR-world. Sometimes they originate (un)intendedly in the real world and remind us of our divided corporal condition.

In this lecture, I commented on a selection of alienating situations that I experienced in recent VR pieces. The transformative impetus of VR on our self-concept is mind-opening and encourages speculation on the ontology of the perceptive and/or ludic self and the supposedly formative influences of media on our cognitive or even behavioral capacities. I traced these experiences back to a model of perception derived from the field of cognitive psychology and process philosophy. Once having established a preliminary inventory of the complex perceptual situation in VR, I switched to practical considerations concerning VR conceptualization and writing: How can spatial and interactive experiences be translated into a linear reading setup? I shared aesthetic and formal solutions for scriptwriting and storyboarding in VR.

German Studies Association Conference 2021, Indianapolis (30 Sept 2021)

Murmurs in "Theory of Film" - Siegfried Kracauers Pre- and Post-Immigration Conceptions of Film Ontology (german presentation)
Abstract

Using Charlie Chaplin as a guiding figure, the lecture outlines Kracauer's film ontological conception at three different points in time: Once in the 1920s in Frankfurt, when Kracauer wrote about slapstick comedies as a journalist and film critic, then in the late 1930s as a cinephile and exile in Paris, and finally in the late 1950s as a sociologist in New York, with Chaplin's expulsion from the USA as a warning example. The gaps in the ontological reconstruction caused by the lack of sources are filled by biographical and contemporary historical "murmurings" and visualised by a multitude of cross-references.

Netted Letters - Development of an Interactive and Immersive Research Environment
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

Digital editions facilitate rich contextualisations of archival materials such as personal letters, notes, photographs and objects. The research team develops a new presentation and collaboration format for historic discourses including VR.

Our case study focusses on the writer, film scholar and philosopher Siegfried Kracauer (1889 – 1966). We will develop a prototype for an interactive research platform to visualize his intellectual exchange. To this end, a rich corpus of textual and (audio-)visual references will be linked to his archived correspondence, supporting alternative interpretations and fostering exchange among experts. At the same time this online platform addresses a broader public by implementing ludic experimentation in VR as a means of discursive kowledge production.

read more at https://data.snf.ch/grants?q=netted%20letters
read more at https://www.hslu.ch/en/lucerne-university-of-applied-sciences-and-arts/research/projects/detail/?pid=5668

Abstract

Against the background of the omnipresence of the net as visual metaphor and a recent turn to cultural critique in Digital Humanities, an esthetic reconsideration of network visualizations is still pending. In this paper, I discuss the esthetic impact of nodes and edges with regard to current digital publishing initiatives of historic correspondence and their implementation in interactive epistolary networks. Social network visualizations show an equalizing attitude towards the agents in the network. A central challenge in this field is the depiction of emotions and individuality, if, the increasing standardization of tools shall not impede a differentiated perception of historic connections and relations. Apart from ethic and philosophic considerations, this paper introduces single design solutions, as currently developed and discussed in the framework of e.g. feminist approaches in DH, as well as my own design strategies in a related practice-based research project.

Beyond Change - Conference (Swiss Design Research Network) (9 März 2018)
read more at http://www.beyondchange.ch/front 

Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg (25 Apr 2018)
Presentation at the Research Training Group 1767: Factual and Fictional Narration
read more at http://www.grk-erzaehlen.uni-freiburg.de/english-summary/

Eberhard Karls University Tübingen (1 Feb 2018)

Presentation of my dissertation at the Research Training Group 1808: Ambiguity – Production and Perception 
read more at http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/en/research/core-research/research-training-groups/rtg-1808-ambiguity-production-and-perception.html

German Literature Archive Marbach

Research Grant "Digital Humanities" by MWW Research Association 

Institute of Experimental Design- und Mediaculture (IXDM) at FHNW, Basel (2 Nov 2016)

Presentation of my dissertation at the Critical Media Lab Colloquium 
read more at https://www.ixdm.ch/ambiguity-contemporary-cinema/

Workshop: Invited by the PhD-group, Prof. Dr. Giaco Schiesser at ZHDK in Zürich (17/18 Nov 2016)

Extensive presentation and discussion of my dissertation and critical feedback to the artistic research projects of other participants 

International Screenwriting Research Conference 2016, Leeds UK (8-10 Sept 2016)

abstract
This paper addresses the question of methodology at the earliest inception of story development. It draws on the Deleuzian concept of “topological transformation”, which is introduced and contextualized in order to establish a fresh perspective onto the practice of story development. The concept of topological transformation can most fruitfully be adopted, when considering a film narration as an organized magnet field of virtual images, referring to actual and past, private and public experiences with beings and/or matter. I state that the maybe not-yet-defined topic(s) as well as the not-yet-existing narration which concretizes through a complex and dynamically self-organizing process of recursions can be enhanced with the help of several non-logocentric techniques applied e.g. by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sergio Caballero, and others.

abstract
The PhD dissertation on “Ambiguity in Contemporary Cinema – Attempts in Aviation” traces a prominent narrative tendency in cinema, outlining its dramaturgical potential as well as its ethical (or micropolitical) implications. In order to describe a number of typical patterns in ambiguous film narration that are operative already on the pre-conscious level of affects, I draw on concepts from the process philosophy by Alfred North Whitehead and its more recent reformulations by Gilles Deleuze and Brian Massumi. Departing from Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel the reader gets on a virtual flight through carefully chosen film examples with a cultural anchor point in Contemporary Japan.

supervisors:
Prof. Dr. Timo Skrandies, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany
Prof. Herbert Wentscher, Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany
Prof. Thomas Bauermeister, Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany

In: z. B. - Praxisbasierte Forschung in Design und Kunst. Ed. by Klapsing, Daniel et al. Weimar: Bauhaus-University Press, 2013, pp 215-223.

abstract
This essay summarizes the development process of the multi-channel video installation Shifting Ground as well as its constant changes through different presentation contexts/exhibitions. The text was published in a conference reader on artistic research. (ISBN 978-3-86068-490-0)

Conference: Breaking Boundaries, Leeds, UK (6 Nov 2010)

In: Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, Vol 3:1, 2011, S. 45-53.
https://doi.org/10.1386/jjkc.3.1.45_1

Abstract

The article breeds my personal intercultural viewing experience of Naoko Ogigami's Megane (2007) with a reader-response critical approach, considering Ogigami's playful and humorous stagings of Japanese cultural stereotypes and paradoxes as (cross-cultural) dramaturgical device. As such, in Megane they prove successful in designing the viewer's cognitive processes to an extent that in the end, the relief of our common patterns of thought induces a unique and lasting form of catharsis. The corporeal feeling of lightness remains long after the film has concluded.

1-3 Dez 2011, Bauhaus-University Weimar

Abstract

Since the 1990s, numerous art colleges and universities in Europe have established degree programmes in Artistic Research and Design Research. These programmes encourage artists and designers to develop their own epistemological and methodical approaches to concrete problems which differ from purely scientific and artistic / design approaches. In view of the different forms of these disciplines and the development of PhD programmes at various universities, it seems that interdisciplinary, hybrid forms of knowledge and their corresponding methods can neither be comprehensively depicted nor disciplinarily organized. This conference aimed at demonstrating research methods in creative processes, artistic strategies, their results and artefacts, and at discussing how they might be integrated into academic classification systems.

more information at www.practice-based-research.com