{"id":16,"date":"2026-04-26T17:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/?page_id=16"},"modified":"2026-04-26T17:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:52:12","slug":"about-the-project","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/?page_id=16","title":{"rendered":"About the Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Elemental Alchemy in Experimental Cinema<\/strong> is a cross-disciplinary postdoctoral research project that explores how experimental and documentary films engage with elemental media, expanding our understanding of cinema\u2019s relationship to nature, deep time, and transformation. Building on prior work on eco-trauma and human\u2013nature entanglements, the project investigates how film can enable experiences of temporalities, spaces, and materialities beyond representation. It proposes an expanded notion of cinematic materiality, approaching film not only as a representational medium but as an elemental process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on elemental media philosophy, new materialism, posthuman phenomenology, and Western esotericism as a historically grounded field of inquiry, the project examines how experimental films engage the classical elements\u2014earth, air, fire, and water\u2014not only as themes but as active participants in cinematic processes. It also incorporates alchemical perspectives on media, considering how elemental forces operate as agents of transformation that reshape perception and experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the analysis of contemporary experimental film, the project develops the concept of elemental thinking<\/em>, which foregrounds the material, processual, and transformative dimensions of cinema. It argues that such works move beyond symbolic representation by grounding metaphor in the physicality of matter, thereby revealing correspondences between material processes, perception, and imagination. In this context, alchemical processes within filmmaking can be understood as bridging matter and metaphor\u2014not merely as a metaphorical framework, but as an operative logic embedded in material practices. Experimental films often engage elemental forces\u2014such as light, heat, moisture, or chemical reactions\u2014directly in the creation of images, at times in collaboration with natural processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstraction plays a crucial role in mediating between material processes and immaterial dimensions of experience, allowing film to function as a site of elemental alchemy through which viewers may encounter geological, elemental, or even cosmic planes of existence. Drawing on phenomenology and embodied spectatorship, the project approaches film as a sensorial and affective encounter in which meaning emerges through lived experience rather than interpretation alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond its process-oriented dimension, the project also considers alchemy as a framework for understanding the viewing experience itself. The films under investigation often operate through affect, haptic perception, and varying degrees of abstraction, opening a space for forms of embodied knowledge that resist full verbalization. In this sense, the encounter between film and viewer may be understood as a transformative process, in which perception, materiality, and imagination become dynamically intertwined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The project is developed within the framework of an FWF ESPRIT postdoctoral fellowship<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elemental Alchemy in Experimental Cinema is a cross-disciplinary postdoctoral research project that explores how experimental and documentary films engage with elemental media, expanding our understanding of cinema\u2019s relationship to nature, deep time, and transformation. Building on prior work on eco-trauma and human\u2013nature entanglements, the project investigates how film can enable experiences of temporalities, spaces, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19,"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elemental-alchemy.uni-ak.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}