On July 2nd 2025 the CATNEMI project presented Katerina Korola as part of the ZeM Lecute series. Korola gave insights into her research on the atmospheres of industrial photography.
Looking upon the photography series of the Filmfabrik Wolfen by Wolfgang G. Schröter , Korola follows the question how photography reflects on its own toxicity in the production process.
With dazzling colours and interesting insights in the production of photography and motion picture film stock in the former GDR, Korola shared her approach on archive research and also seldom looked on gender perspectives of the GDR „working-advertisement.“
Katerina Korola is an Assistant Professor of German Media at the University of Minnesota and a NOMIS Fellow at the eikones Center for the Theory and History of the Image at the University of Basel. She is completing her first monograph, Picturing the Air: Photography and the Industrial Atmosphere, which tells a history of air pollution as a photographic problem.
On June 5th CATNEMI was proud to present Rebecca Sheehan at the ZeM who gave a lecture on „Atmospheres of Thrownness in Experimental Black Cinema: Torque, Ecstasy, and Glitching“ in which she uses Martin Heidegger’s concept of Geworfenheit to give an impression of what filmmaker Arthur Jafa describes as “black-objects-thrown-into-a-white-world,” a description of the personal experience of being a black artist in a predominantly white art world and a thesis central to much of his work and its “attention to the atmosphere and energy of objects.”
Also, Rebecca Sheehan talked about the “glitching” of flex dancer Storyboard P to be considered, specifically in Kahlil Joseph’s Until the Quiet Comes (2013). Here, embodied “glitching” can be thought of as a way of “being beside oneself,” in the ecstatic sense, or of embodying a “thrownness” from a course of being or thought, the moment continuous movement and thought is thrown off course.
Rebecca Sheehan is a Professor of Cinema Studies in the Department of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University, Fullerton. Her book, American Avant-Garde Cinema’s Philosophy of the In-Between (Oxford University Press, 2020) addresses the intersections between post-WWII American Avant-Garde cinema and the emerging field of Film-Philosophy. She is currently working on her second monograph, Cinema’s Laocoön: Film, Sculpture, and the Virtual, which examines how sculpture and cinema have historically interfaced, paying particular attention to sculpture’s role in Gilles Deleuze’s conception of the virtual in the “time-image,” and looking at the relationship between sculpture and virtual reality.
For more information, see her California State University website.
Find more detailed information at the ZeM-Website: https://www.zem-brandenburg.de/veranstaltungen/zem-lecture-atmospheres-of-thrownness-in-experimental-black-cinema-torque-ecstasy-and-glitching/
10/15&16/24
On October 15th & 16th 2024, the CATNEMI project gave its first workshop on the topic of Atmosphere and Mediality at Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. Among the guests, discussing various aspects of the field, were Inga Pollmann (UNC Chapel Hill), who gave insights in the atmospheric qualities of early hunting photography, Daniel Yacavone (Phillips-Universität Marburg), discussing Mikel Dufrenes‘ theory of the expressed and the represented world and comparing it to cinematic worldmaking, and also Tomáš Jirsa (Palacký University Olomouc), showing and discussing atmospheric spaces of certain music videos with the workshop participants.
The CATNEMI team was also very happy to welcome our upcoming doctoral candidate, Jamie Lee Moser, as a presenter at the workshop with her presentation on „The Political Dimensions of Contemporary Cinematic and Media Art Spaces as Dividual Atmospheres.“
CATNEMI postdoctoral researcher Daniel D’Amore introduced us to the concept of Dwelling time and its atmospheric impact, emanated by TV screens in various forms. Finally, CATNEMI’s PI, Steffen Hven, gave an input on Walter Benjamin’s concept of the medium of perception (Medium der Wahrnehmung) and how we can rethink it in a cinematic context.
All presentations and inputs were followed by productive discussions, including thoughts from our guests at the table, Michael Wedel and Jens Eder from the Filmuniversität among them.
The Workshop came to an end on October 16th with a screening of VINTERBRØDRE (DK 2017; Hlynur Pálmason) and a final discussion, touching on the snow- and chalk-white pictures of the film and also on future projects and publications. Stay tuned!
05/22/24: Prof. Tomáš Jirsa (Palacký University Olomouc) visited a course on Media-Aesthetics, joint-venture between Dr. Maike Reinerth and CATNEMI, at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF and gave a guest lecture on the atmosphere of music videos. Find a detailed event report here: www.filmuniversitaet.de
03/18/24: CATNEMI’s PI Steffen Hven presents the project at the SCMS conference in Boston with his presentation on „Sh*thole Color Grading and the Critique of Cinema’s Atmospheric Operations“, in which he lays focus on Hollywood stereotypes in atmospheric operations www.filmuniversitaet.de
12/07/23: Lecture: Professor Robert Sinnerbrink on the topic of “Affect, Mood, and Atmosphere: A Contribution to Cinematic Aesthetics” @ZeM Potsdam – see a recording of the full event here
more information on the event (in German): www.filmuniversitaet.de
