Search

Robin Curtis, ‘Empathy vs. Einfühlung: Modalities of Compassion and Alignment’, talk presented at the workshop Harun Farocki and the Notion of ’Einfühlung’, ICI Berlin, 4 July 2016, video recording, mp4, 34:06

In the short yet compelling text ‘Einfühlung’ (2008), Harun Farocki questions the relation between distance and identification from the point of view of both the film actor and the spectator. Right at the start of the text, the German filmmaker emphasizes that the term Einfühlung has been ‘handed over to the enemy’. Who is this enemy? And what is the context within which the German filmmaker positions this complex and ambiguous concept? Is ’empathy’ – the term most commonly used to translate Einfühlung – even strictly equivalent to the German term? Over the past decades, many studies have been published on the topic of empathy across a range of disciplines. Yet the debate on this topic is not limited to academic contexts: to react empathically is almost considered a social duty, amplified by the possibilities enabled by new media which allow for immediate contact with stories and experiences of distant people practically simultaneously. The general trend is arguably that of focusing on a supposed fusional relation between subject and object, without taking into account the distance and conflict implicit in sensing the other. Focusing on Farocki’s manifold research relating to the topic of Einfühlung, the workshop seeks to explore these issues, as well as the cinematic techniques/devices used to tackle them., Harun Farocki and the Notion of ’Einfühlung’, workshop, ICI Berlin, 4 July 2016

While montage is generally considered to pertain first and foremost to rhetorical strategies of production and persuasion, in her research Roben Curtis seeks to investigate the degree to which montage, understood here as the aspects of combination and association called up by the viewer’s processes of imagination, may be understood as a significant part of the process of aesthetic reception. Current notions of what immersion entails suggest that both illusory spatial effects and oftentimes a particularly “interactive” apparatus-based experience are necessary for the creation of such a state of deep involvement with an aesthetic object. She argues instead that immersion is a product of the effort to combine and synthesize (oftentimes even) contradictory aspects of that experience and moreover that such synthetic participation is dependant on the particular aesthetic characteristics provided by the “text” or object of aesthetic attention in question, rather than a product of the medium per se. The spatial cues are offered by a given work function in conjunction with the particular manner in which such cues are integrated by the reader, user or viewer, into his or her own imaginary conceptualization of that “possible world.” Within her present research Robin Curtis seeks to examine the extent to which, instead of being understood as an a priori of the apparatus, immersion might be better conceptualized as the result of a complex set of ramifications of the process of reception, as set out by a given aesthetic object. Thus immersion – and this is her working hypothesis – is understood to be the result the processes of combination and synthesis which are part and parcel of the confrontation between inter- and multimodal perception and an aesthetic object. The Bauhaus artist and pedagogue, László Moholy-Nagy, began experimenting with film in the early 1920s and sporadically to make short films sporadically until his premature death in 1946. By considering the relationshi, Robin Curtis, The Immersive City: Montage and Sensory Intermodality in Moholy-Nagy’s Films of the early 1930s, lecture, ICI Berlin, 27 May 2010

Abschlusstagung des Teilprojekts B11 des SFB 447 – Kulturen des Performativen (FU Berlin) Diese Tagung ist der Abschluss eines Forschungsprojektes, das die performativen und synästhetischen Effekte verschiedener kinematographischer Elemente (Raum, Farbe, Kinetik/Motorik) untersucht hat. Dabei standen zuletzt Fragen einer Neubewertung von Montage im Zentrum. Wenn Montage als Synchronisierung begriffen wird, rücken die Verfahren und Techniken der Kohärenzherstellung ins Blickfeld: Wie werden die einzelnen medialen Ebenen zu einer Einheit synchronisiert? Und was sind die synästhetischen Effekte einer solchen Synchronisierung? Die Tagung zur ‘Synchronisierung der Künste’ stellt diese Fragen bezogen auf diverse ästhetische Bereiche, wie Kino, Musik, Literatur, Digital Video und DJ-Kultur. Synchronizing the Arts This international conference marks the conclusion of a research project on the performative and synaesthetic effects of different cinematic elements (space, color, and kinetics/motorics). A revaluation of montage emerged as a final, central concern. If montage is conceptualized as synchronization, the methods and techniques of producing coherence come to the fore. How are the individual media levels synchronized? What are the synaesthetic effects of such a synchronization? This conference on »Synchronizing the Arts« poses these questions in regards to diverse aesthetic fields, such as cinema, music, literature, digital video, and DJ culture., Synchronisierung der Künste, conference, ICI Berlin, 7–8 May 2010

Das Kino hat in seiner Geschichte unterschiedliche Adressierungen des Publikums ausgebildet. »Einstellungen der Öffentlichkeit. Filmische Konfigurationen von ›Ich‹ und ›Wir‹« widmet sich diesem Phänomen im Spannungsfeld von ästhetischen und gesellschaftstheoretischen Fragestellungen und aus der Perspektive einer ausdifferenzierten medialen Gegenwart. Im Zentrum der Tagung steht die Wechselwirkung zwischen dem einzelnen »Ich«, das – stark zugespitzt – für Subjektivität, Affekt und Wahrnehmung des individuellen Zuschauers steht, und dem sozialen »Wir« des Massenmediums Film, dem sich verschiedene Utopien in Kunst und Politik seit den 1920er Jahren stets aufs Neue gewidmet haben. The event, like all events at the ICI Berlin, is open to the public, free of charge. The audience is presumed to consent to a possible recording on the part of the ICI Berlin. If you would like to attend the event yet might require assistance, please contact Event Management.Throughout its history, cinema has developed different modes of addressing spectators. Incorporating approaches from aesthetic and social theory, »Perspectives on the Public Sphere: Cinematic Configurations of ›I‹ and ›We‹« investigates the public sphere in the context of the complex state of contemporary media. More specifically, the conference will focus on the reciprocity between the individual »I«, which can — to simplify matters somewhat — stand for subjectivity, affect, and the individual spectator’s perception, and the social »we« of film as a mass medium, which has frequently been the focus of various utopias and theories at the intersection of politics and aesthetics since the 1920s. Mit Unterstützung des ICI BerlinThe event, like all events at the ICI Berlin, is open to the public, free of charge. The audience is presumed to consent to a possible recording on the part of the ICI Berlin. If you would like to attend the event yet might require assistance, please contact Event Management., Einstellungen der Öffentlichkeit: Filmische Konfigurationen von »Ich« und »Wir«, conference, ICI Berlin, 23–25 April 2009