Vita
Christa Blümlinger, born 1963, is Professor of Cinema and Audiovisual studies at the UFR Arts, Philosophie, Esthétique at Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis. Having studied Communication Sciences and French at Paris-Lodron-Universität-Salzburg (1981–1987), she wrote her dissertation on the possibilities of documentary cinema in Austria after 1945. After working as a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Vienna and Salzburg from 1988 to 1999 and holding several research fellowships (including a research stay at Paris, where she collaborated with CNRS and Paris 3), she became a lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin in 1999. From 2002 to 2010, she was a lecturer at Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle. In 2006, Christa Blümlinger finished her habilitation, Kino aus zweiter Hand. Zur Ästhetik materieller Aneignung im Film und in der Medienkunst (on appropriation in film and media art, published in German in 2009 and in French in 2013), at Freie Universität, where she was a visiting professor in 2008/2009. Her publications include the edition of writings of Harun Farocki (in french) and of Serge Daney (in german) and (in German) books about essay film, media art, avantgarde cinema and film aesthetics. In French, she co-edited Théâtres de la mémoire. Mouvement des images, together with Sylvie Lindeperg, Michèle Lagny et alii, in 2011. In English, she published numerous articles about film aesthetics and media art. Blümlinger has also curated numerous cultural events in Austria, Germany and France, including Diagonale (Salzburg) and Duisburger Filmwoche (Duisburg). Currently, she is Co-director of the inter-universitary research group “Théâtre de la mémoire” (Université Paris 1, Paris 3 and Paris 8) and member of the research unit Esthétique, Sciences et Technologies du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel (ESTCA) (Université Paris 8) where she is leading the group “Mémoire, temporalités, dispositifs“. She is also member of the “Permanent Seminar on History of Film Theories” founded by Francesco Casetti (Yale University) and Jane Gaines (Columbia University), an international network of film scholars exploring systematically the field of film and media theories.
Dated from 2013
IKKM Research Project
Temporal modulation through moving images This research project investigates the poetic potential of specifically time-related figures in cinema as an epistemological, as well as an emotional, tool. Thus, cinema can not only be seen as "time machine", but in the words of Jean Epstein, as "machine to think time", a machine which is able to give a perspective on space and time. Temporal modulation will be essential in this context. The cinematographic link between stillness and movement, between discontinuity and continuity brings along a radical transformation of perception. The project tries to understand the aesthetic framework of a certain number of modern and contemporary essay and fiction films and media art pieces that underline processes of acceleration and deceleration. The question of the articulation of the present (and of presence), the very idea of the moment in relation to the movement, will be essential. Suddenness, understood as an expression and a sign of discontinuity and non-identity, "as whatever resists aesthetic integration" (Karl-Heinz Bohrer), will be one of the aspects of this investigation, as being opposed to forms of fluidity, understood as integration of elements in space and time, related to representation. The specific setting or "dispositif" of the images will be one of the key questions in this context.
Publications
Monographs
Kino aus zweiter Hand. Zur Ästhetik materieller Aneignung im Film und in der Medienkunst, Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2009.
Edited Books
with Sylvie Lindeperg, Michèle Lagny, François Niney und Sylvie Rollet: Théâtres de la Mémoire, Mouvement des Images, Théorème N° 14, Paris: PSN, 2011.
Le Cinéma Autrichien, Austriaca. N°64/ juin 2007, PURH, 2008.
with Karl Sierek: Das Gesicht im Zeitalter des bewegten Bildes, Wien: Sonderzahl, 2002.
Harun Farocki, Reconnaître et poursuivre. (Texts collected and introduced by Christa Blümlinger, followed by a commented filmographie). Quetigny: THTY, 2002.
Daney, Serge, Von der Welt ins Bild. Augenzeugenberichte eines Cinephilen. (Texts developed, introduced et co-translated into German by Christa Blümlinger). Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2000.
Articles
„Le défi de la performance pour l'image en mouvement (à propos de Mara Mattuschka)“. In: Elena Biserna and Precious Brown (eds.): Cinéma, Architecture, Dispositif. Campanotto Editore, Pasian di Prato, 2011, p. 294-301.
„Les cartes postales chez Agnès Varda“. In: Laurent Guido/Olivier Lugnon (eds.): Fixe/animé, croisements de la photographie et du cinéma au XXe siècle, Lausanne 2010, p. 311-326 (English translation forthcoming).
„Wie die Kunst an Filme erinnert“. In: Barbara Engelbach (ed.): Bilder in Bewegung, Künstler & Video/Film 1958-2010. Köln: Museum Ludwig/ Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, catalogue, 2010, p. 177-184.
„Mémoire de travail et travail de mémoire: Vertov/Farocki“. In: Philippe Despoix and Joanne Lamoureux (eds.): Travailler (Harun Farocki), Intermédialités N°11/2008. Montréal: CRI, 2009, p. 53-68.
„Signaturen der Leinwand. Figuren des Selbst bei Jean-Luc Godard“. In: Renate Hof (ed.): Inszenierte Erfahrung, Gender und Genre in Tagebuch, Autobiographie, Essay, Berlin: Stauffenberg, 2008, p. 293-310.
„Unmögliche Beziehungen“. In: Gertrud Koch und Paula Diehl (eds.): Inszenierung der Politik – der Körper als Medium. München: Fink, 2007, p. 97-105.