Prof Sean Cubitt
Professor of Media and Communications
Director, Program in Media and Communications
Qualifications
MA (Cambridge) PhD (Liverpool John Moores)
Biography
Sean Cubitt was born in Lincolnshire of Irish parents. He studied at Queens' College Cambridge and McGill University, Montreal. In the 1980s he worked freelance in art schools, community arts, journalism, the Open University and as National Organiser for the Society for Education in Film and Television. He spent the 1990s in Liverpool, where he became Professor of Media Arts at Liverpool John Moores University, and was involved in developing the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT). In 2000, he moved to New Zealand with wife Alison and dog Zebedee, where he was Professor of Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato. In 2002 he was appointed Honorary Professor of the University of Dundee. He now holds dual nationality with New Zealand and the UK. In July 2006 we moved to Melbourne.
- Printable CV [pdf]
- Online Writings
- Webworks
- Home and Away Pages
- Sean Cubitt's blog
- Homepage and archive of online writings
Current research
History and philosophy of media; media ethics; media democracy; genealogies of media technology; urban screens.
Public Screens and the transformation of public space
ARC Discovery Grant award for 2007-9
Co-chief investigator with Drs Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis
Rewind: History of British video art
2001-7 AHRB funded research project with the University of Dundee; lead author and advisory board; http://imaging.tvi.dundee.ac.uk/partridge/www/steve_pages_sun/rewind.htm
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Global Audience Study
2002-6 ESRC-funded project with the University of Aberystwyth and international partners; lead researcher for New Zealand and coordinating committee.
Knowledge transfer
- 2006 Performance Based Research Fund, Social Sciences and Other Cultural Studies panel member (New Zealand)
- 2006 (continuing) Editor-in-Chief, Leonardo Book Series, Leonardo/ISAST and MIT Press
- 2006 (continuing) Assessor, Council for the Humanities of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
- 2006 - (continuing) College of Reviewers for the Canada Research Chairs Program, SSHRC, Canada
- 2006 (continuing) Advisory Board, MediaArtHistory.org
- 2005 (continuing) Advisory Board, Rogers Communications Centre, Ryerson University, Toronto
- 2005 - 7 Humanities Panel, Marsden Fund, Royal Society of New Zealand
- 2003 Performance Based Research Fund, Social Sciences and Other Cultural Studies panel member.
- 2000 (continuing) Assessor, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
- 1999 - 2001 Founding member and elected board member, Association of Internet Researchers, International
- 1997 (continuing) Assessor, Arts and Humanities Research Board, / Council UK
Editorial boards
- 1984 - Screen (SEFT/Oxford University Press, refereed); Editorial Board 1984-89
- 1983 - 4 Camerawork (Independent)
- 1993 - Third Text (Taylor & Francis, refereed)
- 1997 - International Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage, refereed)
- 1998 - Futures.(Elsevier, refereed)
- 1998 - Time and Society (Sage, refereed)
- 1998 - Digital Review Panel, Leonardo. (MIT Press, refereed)
- 1999 - Visual Communication (Sage, refereed)
- 2003 - International advisory board, "Contemporary Cinema" (Rodopi book series)
- 2003 - New Review of Film and Television Studies (Routledge, refereed)
- 2003 - International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics (Intellect, refereed)
- 2003 - Cultural Politics (Berg, refereed); Editorial Board 2006 -
- 2003 - ::fibreculture:: journal (Online, refereed)
- 2004 - Vectors (Annenberg Centre, University of Southern California; online, refereed)
- 2004 - Public (York University, Canada; refereed)
- 2005 - Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Sage, refereed)
Teaching
- 100-204 Media and Communications Theory
- 100-506 Media Ethics
- 100-507 Global Media Governance
Full subject descriptions are available on the University of Melbourne Handbook.
Teaching and research appointments
- 2000 - 2006 Professor of Screen and Media Studies, University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand.
- 1989 - 2000 Professor of Media Arts (from 1st September 2000); Reader in Video and Media Studies (1994-2000); Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies (1989-1994) Liverpool John Moores University (previously Liverpool Polytechnic)
- 1990 - 3 Visiting Lecturer in Experimental Media, Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.
- 1989 - 94 Open University Summer School Tutor, A315 Modern Art and Modernism; A316 Modern Art: Practices and Debates
- 1988 - 9 Associate Lecturer (0.5), Film Department, West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham.
- 1988 - 9 Associate Lecturer (0.5), Department of Art History and Related Studies, Middlesex Polytechnic.
- 1984 - 9 National Organiser, Society for Education in Film and Television (SEFT), London.
- 1983 - 4 and 1986 - 9 Visiting Lecturer in Cultural Studies, Central School of Art (later Central St Martins School of Art and Design), London Institute.
Publications
In-press
- Sean Cubitt, Thierry Jutel, Barry King and Harriet Margolis (eds), How to Study the Event Movie: The Lord of the Rings - A Case Study, Manchester University Press/Palgrave, 2008.
- 'Infernal Affairs and the Ethics of Complex Narrative' by Allan Cameron and Sean Cubitt in Warren Buckland (ed) Complex Narratives in Contemporary World Cinema, Blackwell, Oxford, 2007.
- 'Digital Aesthetics' in Glen Creeber and Royston Martin (eds) Digital Culture, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 2007.'
- Internet Aesthetics' in The International Handbook of Internet Research, eds Jeremy Hunsinger, Matt Allen and Lisbeth Klastrup, Springer, 2007
- 'New Light' in Jill Bennett and Anna Munster (eds) Transforming Aesthetics, Universty Presses of New England. 2007.
- 'Realising Middle Earth: Production Design and Film Technology' in Sean Cubitt, Barry King, Thierry Jutel and Harriet Margolis (eds), How to Study the Event Film: The Lord of the Rings – A Case Study, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2008.
- 'The Limits of Human Progress', translation of Gilbert Simondon 'Les limites du progrès humain', Cultural Politics, 2007/8.
- 'Cinema of Attractions: Review Essay' (of Wanda Strauwen, The Cinema of Attractions reloaded),Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2007
- 'Media Art Futures' in Futures, special issue on the future of art, 2007
- 'Virtual Dialectics and Technological Aesthetics' in Cultural Politics, special issue on technologicalaesthetics, 2007
Books
- EcoMedia, Contemporary Cinema series, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2005
- The Cinema Effect, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2004.
- Simulation and Social Theory, Theory, Culture & Society/Sage, London and New York, 2001.
- Digital Aesthetics, Theory, Culture & Society/ Sage, London and New York, 1998.
- Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture, Communications and Culture/Macmillan, London, 1993; published simultaneously in New York by St Martin's Press.
- Timeshift: On Video Culture, Comedia/Routledge, London and New York, 1991.
Other monographs
- Rasheed Araeen, Sean Cubitt and Ziauddin Sardar (eds), The Third Text Reader on Art, Culture and Theory, Contuinuum, New York/ Athlone, London, 2002.
- Ziauddin Sardar and Sean Cubitt (eds), Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema, Pluto, London, 2002.
Book chapters
- Projection: Vanishing and Becoming" in Oliver Grau (ed), MediaArtHistories, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2007, 407-422.
- 'The Fading of the Elves: Ecology, Eco-Catastrophe, Technopoly, and Bio-Security' in Ernest Mathijs and Murray Pomerance (eds), From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2006, 65-80.
- 'Tactical Media' in Katharine Sarikakis and Daya K Thussu (eds) The Ideology of the Internet. New Jersey: Hampton Press. 2006, 35-46.
- ''Consumer Discipline and the Work of Audiencing' in R.L Rutsky and Sande Cohen (eds), Consumption in an Age of Information, Berg, London and New York, 2005, 79-95
- 'Citizens, Consumers and Migrants' in Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis (eds), Empires, Ruins and Networks, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2005, 304-19.
- 'From Internationalism to Transnations: networked art and activism' in Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark, (eds), At A Distance: PreCursors to Art and Activism on the Internet, MIT Press, Cambridge MA / University of Technology, Sydney, 2005.
- 'Spreadsheets, Sitemaps and Search Engines: Why Narrative is Marginal to Multimedia and Networked Communication, and Why Marginality is More Vital then Universality' in Martin Rieser and Andrea Zapp (eds), New Screen Media: Cinema/Art/Narrative, BFI, London, 2002, 1-13.
- 'Delicatessen or Eco-Apocalypse' in Sean Cubitt and Ziauddin Sardar (eds), Aliens R Us: Postcolonialism and Science Fiction, Pluto Press, London, 2002, 18-33.
- 'The Colour of Time: Introduction' to Malcolm LeGrice, Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age, BFI, London, 2001, vii-xvi.
- 'Hypermetrics: The Co-Evolution of Voice and Machine from Typewriter to Hypertext' (revised version of online publication in trAce.freebase (http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame/freebase/free2/sean/hypermetrics.html), May 1997 in Brandon LaBelle (ed), Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language, Errant Bodies Press, Los Angeles, Spring 2001, 118-131.
- 'Cybertime: Towards and Aesthetics of Mutation and Evolution' in Penny Florence and Nicolas Foster (eds) (2000), Differential Aesthetics: Art Practices, Philosophy and Feminist Understandings, Ashgate, Aldershot, 247-259.
- 'Multimedia' in Thom Swiss and Andrew Herman (eds), The Web Unspun, New York University Press, New York, 2000, 162-186.
- '"Maybellene": Meaning and the Listening Subject', reprinted from Popular Music 4, in Richard Middleton (ed), Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music, Oxford University Press, 2000, 141-59 .
- 'Shit Happens: Numerology, Destiny and Control', paper presented at the World Wide Web and Contemporary Theory conference, 6-7 November 1998, Drake University, Iowa; in Andrew Herman and Thomas Swiss (eds) (2000), The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory, Routledge, New York, 127-144.
- 'Paul Virilio and New Media' (reprinted from Theory, Culture and Society), in Armitage, John (ed) (2000), Paul Virilio: From Modernism to Hypermodernism and Beyond, Sage, London, 127-142.
- 'Fountains and Grottos: Installation and the Neobaroque' in Erika Suderberg (ed), Space, Site and Intervention: Issues in Installation and Site-Specific Art, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2000, 84-99.
Journal articles
- 'Immersed in Time' in Visual Communications, v.6 n.2, 220-229, 2007
- 'Grayscale Video and the Shift to Color', Art Journal v.65 n.3, Fall, 40-53, 2006.
- 'Library', and 'Analogue and Digital, Theory, Culture & Society 2006 23: 2/3, , 581-590 & 250-251
- 'TV News Titles Picturing the Planet', JumpCut, 48, Winter 2006; online at http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/CubittGlobe/.
- 'Democratic Materials' in Public, n. 31: Digital Poetics and Politics, 2006 (CD-ROM publication, 25 pages) ; online at http://www.digipopo.org/content/democratic-materials.
- 'Distribution and Media Flows' in Cultural Politics 2005, v.1 n.2, June, 193-214.
- Bevin Yeatman and Sean Cubitt, 'Critical and Creative Media Studies and the Embedded Learning Environment', New Review of Film and Television Studies, v.3 n.1, May 2005, 1-14.
- "Media Democracy: First Steps", Art Inquiry/ Recherches sur les arts, Vol V (XIV), special issue on Cyberarts, Cybercultures, Cybersocieties, Lodz, 2004, 17-32.
- 'The Triumph and Demise of the Global Audience' in Art Inquiry/Recherches sur les arts, Vol IV (XIII), special issue on Globalization and Art, Lodz, 2003, 37-48.
- 'Digital Hybridisation: A Technology, an Aesthetic', translation of Edmond Couchot, 'L'hybridation numérique', in Convergence, v.8 n.4, special issue What is Intermedia?, 2002, 19-27.
- 'Visual and Audiovisual: From Image to Moving Image' in Visual Culture, v.1 n.3, 2002, 359-68.
- 'As (the paper formerly known as good vibrations: time as special effect)' in Public 24, 2002, 'Being On Time', 15-36.
- 'To Transitory Peace' in International Journal of Cultural Studies, v.5 n.1, February 2002, 11-20.
- 'Phalke, Méliès and Special Effects Today' in Wide Angle, "Digitality and the Memory of Cinema" (v.21, n.1, January) ed Timothy Murray, 2001, 114-130.
- 'Media Arts and Criticism at the Millennium' in Art Inquiry: Recherches sur les arts Volume I (X), The Condition of Art at the Turn of the Century, Lodz, Poland, 2000, 9-16.
- 'The Virtual Disembodied: A Crisis in Posthumanism', International Journal of Cultural Studies, v. 3 n. 2, April 2000, 123-30.
- 'The Distinctiveness of Digital Criticism', Screen special millennial issue, v.41 n.1, Spring 2000, 86-92.
Catalogue essays
- Fire and Water', catalogue essay for Von Funken zum Pixel, Martin-Gropius bau, Berlin, September, 2007, in press.
- 'The Memory of Water', catalogue essay on Aniwaniwa by Brett Graham and Rachael Rakena, Te Manawa Gallery, Palmerston North/ Venice Bienale. 2006/7 in press
- 'The Landscape Disturbance' in Silicon Fen, Film Video Umbrella / Norwich School of Art, 2006 in press
- 'Virtual Migrants' in Exhale, catalogue for the collaborative group Virtual Migrants, Manchester, 2006 in press.
- 'Analogue: Pioneering Video from the UK' in ANALOGUE: Pioneering Video from the UK, Canada and Poland (1968-88), Chris Megh-Andrews and Catherine Elwes (eds), EDAU, Preston, accompanying touring exhibition including Centre for Contemporary Art Warsaw, V-Tape Toronto, Tate Britain, 2006
- 'David Hall', commissioned by Lux, London; http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/david_hall/essay(1).html 2005
- 'Projection' in Janine Randerson, National Film Archive, Wellington, 2005.
- 'Cities at the edge of time' in Stella Brennan 0––––––10, Starkwhite/Creative New Zealand, Auckland, 2005, 39-53.
- 'Project' in Gina Czarnecki, Moving Image centre, Auckland, 2005, np.
- 'The Correspondences' in Andrew Stones, Film Video Umbrella, London, 2004, 51-9.
- 'Deposition' in Richard Davies; The Falling of the Monumental, Pratt, London (on the occasion of Richard Davies showing in the Royal Ascademy Print Show), 2004
- 'Object lessons' in Dryden Goodwin, Film and Video Umbrella, London, 2003.
- 'The War on Terra' in futureScreen 02: data terra, 2002, d:Lux media arts, Sydney, 15-19.
- 'contemporary dimensions', essay for Interior Horizons – art on the verge of architecture and design, curated by Liz Leydon, 2002, Te Tuhi / The Mark, Pakuranga, Auckland, 3-6.
- 'Sacrifice a Piece of the Past for the Whole of the Future -1989: Last gasp of the Analog Image' in FACTORS1: David Hall, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool, 2002.
- 'Encyclical' in Alan Currall: Encyclopaedia and other works, Film and Video Umbrella, London, 2000.
Reviews
- Jeffrey Shaw & Peter Weibel (eds). Future cinema in Screening the Past, n.18, August 2005, http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/reviews/rev_18/SCbr18a.html
- Jay David Bolter & Diane Gromala. Windows and mirrors: interaction design, digital art and the mythof transparency, in Screening the Past, n. 17, December 2004, http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/stp17/newreviews/rev_17/SCbr17a.html
- The Digital Sublime by Vincent Mosco, Leonardo Electronic Reviews November 2004; http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/nov2004/digital_cubitt.html
- Information is Alive edited by Joke Brouwer, Arjen Mulder and Susan Charlton, Theory, Culture &Society, v. 21, n.2, 143-5, 2004.
- Prefiguring Cyberspace: An Intellectual History edited by Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson and Alessio Cavallaro in Screening the Past (online), no. 16, May 2004. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/reviews/rev_16/SCbr16a.html
- Review Essay: The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design; Towards a Philosophy of Photography; Writings; and The Freedom of the Migrant: Objections to Nationalism by Vilém Flusser in Leonardo Digital Reviews, April 2004; reprinted in Leonardo 32/2, (in press)
- Art in the Telematic Embrace by Roy Ascott, Leonardo Digital Reviews, November 2003, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/nov2003/cubitt_ascott.html
- Crepuscular Dawn by Paul Virilio and Sylvère Lottringer, Leonardo Digital Reviews, October 2003, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/oct2003/Crepus_cubitt.html
- Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents edited by Tom McDonough, Leonardo Digital Reviews, April 2003, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/apr2003/Guy_cubitt.html
- World Spectators by Kaja Silverman, Leonardo Digital Reviews, August 2002 http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/aug2002/SILVERMAN_cubitt.html; reprinted in Leonardo- Volume 36, Number 1, February 2003, pp. 77-79
- Good Vibrations: review of James Lastra, Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity in film-philosophy Vol. 6 No. 3, March 2001, http://www.filmphilosophy/com/vol6-2002/n3cubitt
- The Liberating Power of Symbols: Philosophical Essays and The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays by Jürgen Habermas, Leonardo Digital Reviews, December 2001, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/dec2001/bk_HABERMAS_cubit.html; reprinted in Leonardo - Volume 35, Number 3, June 2002, pp. 334-335
- Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Leonardo Digital Reviews, September 2001, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/sep2001/bk_PRLOOKING_cubitt.html; reprinted in Leonardo - Volume 35,Number 2, April 2002, pp. 211-212
- The Language of New Media by Lev Manovich, Leonardo Digital Reviews, August 2001, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/aug2001/bk_NEWMED_cubitt.html
- Review of Interface Culture by Steven Johnson in Futures, v, 33 n.5, June 2001, 443-5.
- Art and Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Pierre Francastel, Leonardo Digital Reviews, June 2001, http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/jun2001/bk_ARTTECH_cubitt.html; reprinted in Leonardo - Volume 35, Number 1, February 2002, pp. 104-105
- Marcel Duchamp by Dawn Ades, Neil Cox and David Hopkins, Leonardo Digital Reviews, March 2001 http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/mar2001/bk_DUCHAMP_cubitt.html; reprinted in Leonardo - Volume 35, Number 1, February 2002, pp. 99-100
- From Handel to Hendrix: The Composer in the Public Sphere by Michael Chanan, Leonardo Digital Reviews, October 2000 http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/oct2000/bk_HANDEL_cub.html; reprinted in Leonardo - Volume 34, Number 2, April 2001, pp. 163-164
- Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change edited by Vivian Sobchack Leonardo Digital Reviews, Aug 2000
Other publications
- 'Special Effects' and 'Virtual Reality' in The Blackwell International Encyclopedia of Communication, ed Wolfgang Donsbach, forthcoming 2007.
- 'Special Effects' and 'Richard Taylor' in The Schirmer Encyclopedia of Cinema, ed Barry Keith Grant, Scribners, New York, forthcoming 2006.
- 'Cybernetics', 'Cyberspace', 'Donna J Haraway', 'Hegemony', 'Materialism', and 'Virtuality' entires in The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology, general editor Bryan S Turner, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
- 'Peter Watkins' and 'Culloden' entries in Encyclopedia of Documentary, Ian Aitken (ed), Routledge, New York, 2005
- 'Media History' and 'Cinema' entries in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Editor in Chief: Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Scribners, New York, 2004.
- 'David Attenborough', 'John McGrath' and 'Peter Watkins' revised entries in Horace Newcomb (ed), The Encyclopedia of Television, 2nd edition, Routledge, New York, 2004.
- 'Simulation', 'Situationism' and 'Guy Debord', entries for Encyclopedia of Social Theory, George Ritzer ed, Sage, London, 2004, vol 1 186-189; vol 2 704-5, 706-8.