Home

Elemental Alchemy in Experimental Cinema

Elemental Alchemy in Experimental Cinema is a postdoctoral research project that brings together alchemy, Western esoteric thought, eco-philosophy, and elemental media theory in the context of experimental film. It explores how cinema engages elemental processes—earth, air, fire, and water—to reconfigure perception and open experiences of deep time and more-than-human worlds. Drawing on phenomenology and embodied spectatorship, the project approaches film as a sensorial and affective encounter in which filmmakers can be understood as alchemists, transforming both material elements and the viewer’s perception. In this sense, experimental cinema emerges as a site of enchantment, where viewers become enmeshed in a dynamic web of elemental and even cosmic correspondences.

Bori Máté, Postdoctoral Researcher