Ghosts and Guests in the Machine: Animism and Technology

Film is historically based on animating single shots into moving images – therefore one can look as film as a technic of animation beyond animation as a genre of film. With this comes the impression of liveliness that is the result of the cinematographic animation of the spectator. We animate machines, machines animate us. This simple reciprocity grounds the basic relationship between hands, tools, instruments, machines etc. and the human body as senso-motoric perceptive player. Leaving the dualism that came with the concept of mind as  ‘ghost in the machine’ of a physical, mechanical body or the master narrative of machines as the alien who intrudes a human world and body I will explore specific cases of technologically produced and enhanced art works how the interplay between machines and humans may point to a technoaesthetic that offers a wider horizon on this interaction.

Prof. Dr. Gertrud Koch. Professor Emerita for Cinema Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, visiting professor at Brown University (2013-2023), and served as Professor II at Oslo University. Currently visiting professor at Leuphana-Universität in Lüneburg and at Princeton University. Numerous stays as a research fellow and visiting professor (NYU, Columbia, Berkeley, Tel Aviv University, Getty Research Center in Los Angeles et al.) She was the director of the research center Aesthetic Experience in the Sign of the Entanglement of the Arts “ in Berlin from 2006-2014.

She is author of numeorus monographies, including Herbert Marcuse zur Einführung (zus.mit Hauke Brunkhorst), Hamburg 1987; “Was ich erbeute, sind Bilder”. Zur filmischen Repräsentation der Geschlechterdifferenz, Frankfurt a.M. 1988; Die Einstellung ist die Einstellung. Zur visuellen Konstruktion des Judentums, Frankfurt a.M. 1992; Siegfried Kracauer zur Einführung, Hamburg 1996, english edition from Pricneton University Press; Breaking Bad, Berlin 2015, english edition: Breaking Out, Breaking Bad, Breaking even, Dipahanes 2017; Die Wiederkehr der Illusion. Film und die Künste, der Gegenwart, Berlin 2016; Zwischen Raubtier und Chamäleon. Texte zu Film, Medien, Kunst und Kultur, hg. von Judith Keilbach und Thomas Morsch, München 2016.

Co-editor and on the board of numerous German and international reviews (October, Constellation,  Philosophy & Social Criticism, Cinema&Cie, New Benjamin Studies, Journal for Adorno Studies, et al.)