Giovanni Marmont and Jeremiah Ambrose

The College of Arts and Humanities Research Forum

Giovanni Marmont, 'Acts of use from Gestell to Gelassenheit: calculative thinking and exploratory doing'

This presentation addresses the implications of open-ended instances of use and non-instrumental person-thing interactions. The argument builds upon a close analysis of Heideggerian work on technology and particularly of the notions of Gestell [enframing] and Gelassenheit [releasement]. These name respectively modern technology’s inherent danger – a totalising revealing of the world as resources to be exploited – and a possible gateway from it – through an open mode of thinking, void of calculative demands. Suggesting that a transition from Gestell to Gelassenheit would not need to be intended as an exclusively metaphysical shift, it will be considered how a different way ofthinking could be assisted by a different way of acting. Such radical modification will require questioning the very notion of use and its hazy relation to functionality. The presentation will ultimately make a case for modes of interacting with artefacts through acts of use as ends in themselves, transcending teleological explanations. It is proposed that a possible prototype for this type of exploratory doing might be found in the activities of French revolutionary group Situationist International.

Jeremiah Ambrose 'Towards a Synematic Practice: Remediating Interactive Film'

This discussion will provide a contextualisation of practice-based research in a manner congruent with my PhD research in the areas of digital arts, media futures and experimental practice. I will be focusing on practice as process and looking at the shared commonalities that stem from my visual experiments. A common theme to all of my practice is vision as a conceptual model, which gradually shifts into the realm of ocular interactions in practice. This methodological transference imports aspects of the interaction systems designed and developed in my practice, using them as prototyping tools for a new cinematic perspective. As an exponent of the interaction models developed for interactive film, my work aims to consolidate a framework concerned with overcoming the immersive deficiencies of this genre. Synematics is the point of convergence for these practices, which represents an application of systems thinking to cinematics.

The forum is designed to be complementary to the various other research seminar series and gives an opportunity for researchers to share their work with audiences from a range of disciplines in the College. It is often this cross-disciplinary exchange and the critical and creative discussion that develops that is particularly useful.