Research

My research focuses on historical and contemporary forms of experimental filmmaking. I’ve published a number of articles and book chapters on the French avant-garde, contemporary experimental film aesthetics, and the relationship between film and poetry, as well as interviews with practitioners. My current research is concerned with the impact of technological change on experimental filmmaking and the aesthetics and politics of obsolescence.

Biography

I received my PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2007 and taught on the Film Studies programme there before becoming Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the AHRC funded project ‘Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text and Cognition’ at the University of Kent. I joined the Department at Aberystwyth in 2011. Since 2008 I have also been Experimental Film Programmer for Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Teaching

Module co-ordinator:

FM10120 Studying Film

FM24420 Case Studies in Contemporary Art Cinema

FM34520 Experimental Cinema

TFM6730 Research Methods and Traditions in Film Studies

Lecturer:

FM30120 Analysing Film, TV and Media

FM30220 Key Film and Media Practices

TFM3420 Film and Representation

Publications

Books

K. Knowles (2009), A Cinematic Artist: The Films of Man Ray, Peter Lang. Second edition 2012.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

K. Knowles (under review), ‘Performing Language, Animating Poetry: Kinetic Text in Experimental Film’

K. Knowles and M. Beugnet (forthcoming in 2013), ‘The Politics and Poetics of Obsolescence: Handmade Film in the Era of the Digital,’ Moving Image Review and Art Journal 2(2).

K. Knowles (2013), ‘Travels with a Camera: Speed and Embodiment in Early French Avant-Garde Film,’ Studies in French Cinema 12(3), pp. 17-31.

K. Knowles, A. K. Schaffner, U. Weger and A. Roberts (2012), ‘Reading Space in Visual Poetry: New Cognitive Perspectives’, Writing Technologies 4, pp. 75-106.

K. Knowles (2012), ‘Patterns of Duality – Between/Beyond Dada and Surrealism: Man Ray’s Emak Bakia,’ in E. Adamowicz and E. Robertson (eds), Dada and Beyond, Vol. 2: Dada and Its Legacies, Rodopi, pp. 77-88.

K. Knowles (2011), ‘From Mallarmé to Mallet-Stevens: Reading Architectural Space in Man Ray’s Les Mystères du Château du Dé,’ French Studies 65(4), pp. 459-70.

K. Knowles (2010), ‘From Studio to Street: The Urban Photography of Man Ray,’ History of Photography, 34(1), pp. 29-42.

Articles in Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

K. Knowles (2012), ‘Tacita Dean Film’ (Review) Millennium Film Journal 56 (Fall), pp. 4-6.

K. Knowles (2012), ‘Better Viewed on the Wall of an Art Gallery?’ Millennium Film Journal 55 (Spring), pp. 40-45.

K. Knowles (2011), ‘Interview with Pip Chodorov,’ Sequence 2, pp. 24-29

K. Knowles (2010), ‘“I’m Trying to Paint with Light: An Interview with Peter Rose,’ Millennium Film Journal 53 (Fall), pp. 28-38.

K. Knowles (2009), ‘Imagism,’ ‘The British Avant-garde,’ ‘The Canadian Avant-Garde,’ and ‘Andy Warhol’s Factory,’ in H. van den Berg and W. Fähnders (eds), Metzler Lexikon Avantgarde, Metzler Verlag, pp. 95-96; 128-31; 144-45; 165-67.

K. Knowles (2008), ‘René Clair and Francis Picabia’s film Entr’acte,’ Tate Etc. 12 (Spring), p. 75.