Goldsmiths - University of London

Nicole Wolf

Teaching

Depending upon annual arrangements I teach ‘The Moving Image’ (BA Level 2), ‘Images in Conflict’ (BA Level 3) and 'Dissonant Images. Questions of Evidence' (MA Special Subject), as well as occasional lectures on MA and PhD programs.

Areas of supervision

I welcome dissertation proposals on any aspect of historical and contemporary political cinemas, on relations between critique and the moving image, on documentary mode and experimental film and art practices, on new constituencies and evolving questions within current international film, art and political networks and alliances; research that engages in critical interrogations of the audio-visual within and of conflict and research taking up contemporary challenges for postcolonial theory, feminist theory, anthropology of art and aesthetics, film/ art and ethnography. I also supervise practice-based research.

Research interests

My current research interests derive from my academic training in anthropology, film studies and postcolonial theory as well as my film curatorial and earlier filmmaking practice. Many theoretical questions concerning documentary mode and experimental filmmaking have been inspired by my extensive and continuing research in India, which was recently extended to Pakistan and is developing into a new focus on relations between the audio visual and the constitution of border and militarised zones, such as Kashmir. My interest in the productivity of individual and collective filmmaking practice, in the moving image and how it becomes public through activist, cinema or gallery spaces, often leads to a rethinking of the political, the real, documentation, archiving, witnessing, historicity and more broadly the question of what might constitute critical intervention and evidence narratives in particular art, film and socio-political contexts. Feminist theory and politics as well as a search for new internationalist poetics, thinking from and with earlier revolutionary cinema, have been intertwined with a constant endeavour to trace multiple histories of political and experimental filmmaking. I have completed a series of film programs including "Moving Politics. Cinemas from India" (co-curated; invited by Deutsche Guggenheim and Arsenal. Institute for film and video art, Berlin, 2010), "Persistence Resistance. Documentary practices from India" (a co-curated one week film festival which brought "Persistence Resistance" from Delhi to London, 2011) and a film program travelling with Green Cardamom's research and exhibition project "Lines of Control" - "No Man's Land/ Everybody's Land" which interrogates constructions of borders, ongoing partitions and conflicts and forms of occupation through ways of narrating which tackle hegemonic presentations of violence and crises. Currently I am completing my book with the working title “Make it Real. Feminist thought and documentary politics in India” and am developing a follow up research project that brings together my interest in Kashmir, narrations of conflict, the poetics and politics of evidence and forms of justice.

Selected publications

Recent Publications:

Edited Journals:

“Indian Documentary Studies: Contours of a Field”, Special Issue of ‘Bioscope. South Asian Screen Studies’, Volume 3, Number 1, January 2012. Co-edited with Bhaskar Sarkar. 

Selected articles:

“From the history of documentary film to documentary studies: Emergencies, Movements and Dissonant Images”. Chapter in preparation for Routledge Handbook on Indian Cinema, edited by K. Moti Gokulsing & Wimal Dissanayake. Forthcoming.

“I am the very beautiful city. Conversations with Bombay, documented”. In: Kaushik Bhaumik, Madhusree Dutta & Rohan Shivkumar (eds.) Cinema City. Mumbai: Majlis. Forthcoming spring 2012.

“Of birds, rivers and sunstrokes on shellac records – witnessing documentary alliances”, in: Rogoff Irit, Deepa Naik (eds.) Translating the Image. Cologne: Walther Koenig. Forthcoming.

“Conversations on locating conflict.” (Co-authored with Nanna Heidenreich), in: Narula, Sengupta, Bagchi, Sundaram (eds), sarai Reader 08: Fear, New Delhi 2010. Online: http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/08-fear. ISBN: 978-81-905853-2-3.

‘Weg in Berlin – Aber echt! Dokumentarisch-fiktionale Randnotizen’/‘Away in Berlin – Really! Documentary-fictional Side Notes’, in: Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Florian Wüst (ed.), Wer sagt denn, dass Beton nicht brennt, hast Du’s probiert? Film im West-Berlin der 80er Jahre/ Who says concrete doesn’t burn, have you tried? West Berlin Film in the ’80s, Berlin: b_books 2008, p. 36-47/ p. 50-60. ISBN 978-3-933557-90-2.

“Lovers of Life for Heterogeneous Time” in: Identity Theft: Cultural Colonisation and Contemporary Art (ed.) Jonathan Harris, University of Liverpool and Critical Forum Tate Liverpool. 2008. ISBN  978184631102.

“The import and export of knowledge in conversations or: where is my subject?” In: Angelika Fitz, Merle Kröger, Alexandra Schneider, Dorothee Wenner (eds.) 2005. Import Export. Cultural Transfer. India, Germany, Austria. Pathas Verlag GmbH, Berlin. Distribution in India: Katha, New Delhi. ISBN 3-86601-910-6. P. 216 - 224 (Engl), 370 - 376 (German)

"‘Portraits of Belonging’ - Eindrücke zu Repräsentationsspielräumen und Diskursen von unabhängigen Dokumentarfilmemacherinnen in Indien”. Frauen und Film 2002, Frankfurt/ Main. pp. 99-114.

“Choice as Concept. New Narratives in Images and Discourses of Independent Women Filmmakers in India”. Exhibition Catalogue: First Story/ Women Building New Narratives for the 21st Century. Porto 2001. p 1/14-14/14.

Selected curatorial practices: 

No man’s land / Everybody’s land. Film program invited by London based gallery Green Cardamom on the occasion of their travelling research and exhibition project "Lines of Control".

* Screening events addressing 60 years after the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent at the Royal Geographical Society (London) during summer 2007.

* Three day film program with panels and film conversations, at The 2nd Floor, Karachi (Pakistan), January 2009. See: http://www.t2f.biz/no-mans-land/

* Film series at Cornell Cinema (US), March 2012. http://cinema.cornell.edu/series_EarlySpring2012/no_mans_land.html

Persistence Resistance. Documentary Practices in India. A one-week film festival with conversations, panels and seminars, bringing Magic Lantern’s annual documentary film festival Persistence Resistance from New Delhi to London. Concept with Gargi Sen and co-curated with academics and practitioners from five London universities; November 2011. http://magiclanternfoundation.org/persistence-resistance-in-london/

Moving Politics. Cinemas from India. Film program with talks and film conversations at Arsenal. Institute for Film and Video Art. Co-curated with Dorothee Wenner. On the occasion of “Being Singular Plural. Moving Images from India.” Exhibition at Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin. June to October 2010.

Experimentations from India. Curated film program and Cinema talk in collaboration with Shai Heredia. Forum Expanded/ Berlin Film Festival. February 2008

Video Mumbai. Curatorial project for Video as urban condition video pool archive and exhibition at Lentos Kunstmuseum/ Museum of Modern Art Linz, 19th April to 27th May 2007.

Documenta XI. Consultancy for Film and Video in India for curators Ute Meta Bauer and Mark Nash. 2001/2002, Kassel, Germany.

Choice as Concept. New Narratives in Images and Discourses of Independent Women Filmmakers in India. Concept and Realisation of Video- and Work-lounge for First Story/ Women Building New Narratives for the 21st Century. Curator Ute Meta Bauer. Porto 2001.

Film and video art reviews:

Resonance/ Nachhall. In: Catalogue for the 42^nd Forum, Berlin Film Festival, 9-19 February 2012. http://revision-film.eu/

The Time of Us. Shelly Silver’s ‘Here.His’. In: Argos. Center for Art and Media Publication, January 2011, Brussels.  

Of bird watchers and other incidental proceedings. In: Catalogue for 40th Forum, Berlin Film Festival, 11-21 February 2010, p. 130-133. www.dertagdesspatzen.de

Experimental Support Structures for Moving Images – Experimenta. The International Festival for Moving Image Art in India 2009, Bangalore. In: Afterall, online edition, March 2010.

The promise of withholding. In: Bani Abidi: Videos, Photographs & Drawings. Anita Dawood (ed). London: Green Cardamom, 2009, 92 pages, Hardback, p. 36-38. ISBN: 9780955177958

To be haunted. The Halfmoon Files. In: Catalogue for the 37th International Forum of New Cinema, Berlin Film Festival, 6-15 February 2006, p. 161-164. www.halfmoonfiles.de

Transitional Zones: Nicole Wolf Interviews Tejal Shah, n.paradoxa: International Feminist Art Journal, Issue: Out of Order, Volume 12, 2003, pp. 59 – 67.

Online: http://www.ktpress.co.uk