Dr Damian Sutton
Reader in Photography
Department: School of Arts and Education (Art and Design)
Contact
- Telephone: 0208 411 6827
- E-mail: d.sutton@mdx.ac.uk
Qualifications
PhD, University of Glasgow, 2002.
MA Film Studies, University of Southampton, 1997.
BA (Hons) Media Studies, (Leicester Polytechnic) De Montfort University, Leicester, 1993.
NCFEAD(Foundation), Winchester School of Art, 1990.
Professional
SEDA Research Supervision (CLTAD), University of the Arts, London, 2005
Research Interests
NEW! READ ONLINE:
'The Platonic Photographer: The Role of Political Portraiture and the Task of the Photographer as Author', Athens Dialogues e-Journal, 2010
You can also see my presentation on this paper in the 'Stories and Histories' session at the Athens Dialogues conference here.
Look out for these publications:
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Areas of research:
PHOTOGRAPHY: Time; memory; portraiture; embodied and practice-based knowledge; design and commission-based practice; philosophies of photography
CINEMA STUDIES: Production design and art direction; creativity, networking and collaborative practice; film and philosophy
OTHER INTERESTS: Ethical consumption; new media and photography/cinema
Funded Projects
* Principal Investigator: ‘Not Just for Christmas’: Consumption, Popular Culture and Religious Observance – value £14,680. Arts and Humanities Research Council, July 2008-April 2009 (AH/F020031/1).Co-investigator - Dr Karen Wenell, University of Glasgow.This project involved the creation and leadership of a high-level interdisciplinary network around the role of ethical consumption as part of daily life. The network includes over 50 academic and non-academic participants, representing academic and other organizations in the UK, Europe and the US. The project was rated ‘Outstanding’ by the AHRC. Project site- http://www.notjustforchristmas.org
* Principal Investigator : ‘Form Follows Fiction: Designing Fred and Ginger’ – value £9,630. Arts and Humanities Research Council, January-July 2007 (AH/E51068X/1).This project involved the study of production records in Hollywood and Britain for the Astaire-Rogers films of the 1930s. The resulting conclusions have led to further research on the role of networked authorship in cinema and other creative industries.
Books:
Photography, Cinema, Memory: The Crystal-image of Time(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
Deleuze Reframed: A Guide for the Arts Student, co-authored with David Martin-Jones (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008).
The State of the Real: Aesthetics in the Digital Age, edited with Ray McKenzie and Susan Brind (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007).
Articles and chapters:
‘Philosophy, politics and homage in Wisit Sasanatieng’s Fa Thalai Jone (Tears of the Black Tiger)’, in David Martin-Jones and William Brown eds. Deleuze and Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).
'Not Just for Christmas' - working paper, with Karen Wenell, notjustforchristmas.org, January 2010
‘Delay: Notes on Photography as Non-Representational Thinking’, in Sergio Mah ed. PhotoEspaña 2010 catalogue (Madrid: PhotoEspaña).
‘Immanent Images: Photography After Mobility’, in D N Rodowick ed. Afterimages of Gilles Deleuze’s Film Philosophy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
‘Cinema by Design: Hollywood as Network Neighbourhood’, in Guy Julier and Liz Moor ed. Design and Creativity: Policy, Management and Practice(Oxford: Berg, 2009).
‘The Suppleness of Everyday Life’, in John Plunkett and James Lyons eds. Multimedia Histories: From the Magic Lantern to the Internet(Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2007).
‘Rediagnosing A Matter of Life and Death’, Screen, vol. 46, no.1 (2005).
‘The DreamWorks Effect: the case for studying the ideology of production design,’ Screen, vol. 45, no. 4 (2004).
Other writing:
As a critical theorist in photography, cinema and culture I have also contributed to a variety of publications, including the text book Screen Methods (Wallflower, 2005), the encyclopedia Transatlantic Relations: France and the Americas, as well as the journals film-philosophy, Scope, Source, Visual Culture in Britain, and Screen.
Teaching Interests
I currently teach on the History of Art and Design undergraduate programme, as well as supervising PhD students in thesis-led and practice-led doctoral study. I would be very interested to hear from you if your prospective study includes the following: photography practice and theory; philosophy and film/cinema; creative industries research. This can include practice-led and practice-based study, as well as thesis-led study.
In particular, I would very much like to hear from prospective students interested in doctoral projects on the following:
PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIES (inc. Practice-led):
* time and memory, and how they are expressed through photography past and present.
*portraiture and other genres dealing with the photograph as social, political or aesthetic ‘event’.
*notions of the filmic or cinematic.
CINEMA AND FILM STUDIES:
* the role of design in cinema, including production design, merchandising and commodity.
* the changing technology of cinema production and its effect on how films and made, marketed and understood.
Biography
I previously worked at Southampton Solent University and Glasgow School of Art.
As a scholar I am a member of the College Art Association, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and the British Film Institute, and I have given guest lectures and papers at the University of Glasgow, New York University, University of Stirling, Stockholm University, University of the West of Scotland, and at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
In 2003 I chaired the organizing committee of State of the Real, an international conference, and subsequent anthology, which included Prof. Linda Nochlin (NYU) and Prof. Slavoj Žižek (Ljubljana) as keynote speakers. I followed this by chairing the committee for The Past in the Present, for which Prof. Pat Kirkham (Bard, New York) and Prof. Richard Dyer (King’s) provided keynote addresses. In 2009-2010 I have been organizing a panel for the College Art Association annual conference in Chicago.
In 2009 I was appointed for the second time to the Arts and Humanities Research Council as a member of its Peer Review College, reviewing practice-led and other applications to its research grant schemes, and I have also undertaken peer review work for publishers Routledge, Palgrave MacMillan, and the journals Screen, Australian Journal of French Studies and Journal of Classical Sociology. I sit on the editorial board for film-philosophy.
