"The Horror in Us" videos of lecture series, Dec 2024, Flutgraben Berlin

Over the past few weeks, I have presented a series of lectures specifically targeted to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These lectures tackle subjects that, from my perspective, relate directly to characteristics of the invasion - looking at how women have dealt previously with war, how things have unfolded socially in a post World War 2 context, and how violence and trauma function through the shared cathartic experience.

These lectures drew on key theorists of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s such as Laura Mulvey, Linda Williams, Michel Foucault, Carol Clover, and Giorgio Agamben. These theorists are key for understanding both screen spectatorship and the ideologies surrounding it.

Hollywood cinema - which is the field of reference for the lectures - is not the only source at which we might conceive of these events. But it does offer us some useful signposts for what is happening and what will happen - in the sense that the contingencies of spectatorship act as a mirror for the power dynamic of a broader society. Given the current reliance on the screen as a communication tool through social media, Hollywood history is also a useful portal to other times and places, where we might reflect on our own times using a shared language of filmmaking. 

The examples I chose over the lecture series are each drawn from post-war contexts that had large effects on the cinema coming out of Hollywood: Slasher films (Vietnam War and specifically the involvement of the US), Weepies (World War 2), and Superhuman cinema (US Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan). These invite reflection on the contemporary context, and especially, how the politics of the viewing experience influenced by militarisation affect phenomena like contemporary trends in pornography or online misogyny.

The full lectures are available underneath, together with their corresponding short promo clips. Each lecture lasts approximately 60 minutes, together with a 30-minute Q+A with the live audience.

During the lectures, I was proud to work together with my colleagues from Cultural Workers Studio, who supported me through the process as well as offering me useful feedback, particuarly my colleagues Hanna Liashenko and Anita Kopylenko. As well, I would like to thank Public in Private for offering us their beautiful hidden performance studio in Flutgraben - the perfect location for such clandestine activities.

Week 1/3: "Re-Watching the Final Girl"

Week 2/3: "Post WW2 “Weepies”, trauma, & porn"

Week 3/3: "Re-historising Online Misogyny: some Superhuman Responses"

Looking forward to developing more of these lectures in 2025!

You can keep in touch with these video presentations on the YouTube channel or over at the public instagram page.

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Series of Livestreamed Lectures: "The Horror in Us", Launch of Instagram Page

My experience of the social media platform Instagram over the last 2.5 years has not been filled with unequivocal joy. I understand that I should get with the times a little bit - "no-one reads long-form criticism anymore" "people communcate mostly with images and experience now", and so on, but I admit I was resistant for a long time. To me, there's nothing like - and will never be anything like - sitting down to read a piece of long-form criticism from someone who really cares about the subject enough to give it their full attention and reflection. Also, there's something self-aggrandising about the platform (and social media genreally) that doesn't fit with the intention of criticism: part of the act of criticism is staying invisible and putting the focus on the artist and their work, which doesn't sit well in the age of personal hyper-branding.

So in launching an Instagram page this week, my intentions are very much to fit my own sqaure peg into that round hole, without, I guess, over-reacting to the age of the influencer. My plan with it is to offer that most difficult of things, "access", as people have very legitimate reasons why they might sideline their critical reading: time and money pressures, lack of attention due to other demands, and simple discomfort at sitting down for an hour with ideas they fear they will not understand. I hope to be able to offer more byte-sized parts of discourse for those without the luxury to spend hours reading and dissecting a text (although in my opinion, it's time well-spent).

 

In conceiving this trio of lectures, I have been greatly influenced by my colleagues at Cultural Workers Studio - both their support, which motivates me - and the specific nature of their plight. While the 2022 Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine gets a lot of press, it can be a little lacking in other types of attention. There have been a few dedicated events and support for an exchange of ideas around those events in 2022, but I observe a lack of reflection on a cultural level on what I view as a seismic shift in philosophy represented by the last few years. Far from being given adequate attention, these matters seem to have been put into a category where they are viewed as uncomfortable or too difficult.