Supervisor: Volker Eichelmann 

What is trembling? What are its qualities? Where is it to be found, can it be produced and can it be productive? This research proposes a notion of trembling that articulates an ongoing, dispersed and shifting state of vulnerability. I aim to locate and produce instances of trembling beginning with trembling in the human body and expanding to include other types of vulnerable bodies; social bodies, bodies of knowledge and collections of objects. Through moving image and sound practice I will develop strategies for bringing trembling to the screen, and methods for bringing a range of narrative and non-narrative instances of trembling into relation with each other. In parallel, I will test the technology of high definition (HD) video and sound production with focus on the sound/image relationship. I will build on materialist film practice to conceptualise the specifics of the technology and to articulate its operations in the context of an emerging discourse of artists’ HD video production. I aim to evolve a language of trembling that is both produced from, and moves between technical, formal, narrative and creative registers. Materialist filmmaker Lis Rhodes said, Only the permitted is really visible in a culture that equates real with visible; the unreal becomes invisible; I see is synonymous with I understand; reality cannot explain itself. (1996). In bringing a range of instances of trembling into relation with each other through a common visual and conceptual language the research aims to make visible on-going and dispersed states of vulnerability.  Website:  www.jennacollins.com