Dr Susan Schuppli

Research Fellow in, and Project Cooridinator of, ERC funded project: Forensic Architecture,  Centre for Research Architecture

Academic qualifications

PhD Cultural Studies & Research Architecture (Goldsmiths, University of London) 2009

Whitney Independent Study Program 1996

MFA Visual Art (University of California San Diego) 1995

BA Fine & Performing Arts (Simon Fraser University) 1991

Presentations and exhibitions

Intensities and Lines of Flight:
Deleuze and Guattari and the Arts, Macintosh Gallery/Kings College, ON (2012)

Conflict & the Legacy of War, Museum London, London, ON (2011)

Krimiseries: Evidence, Narrative and the Forensic Imagination, Museum London, ON (2010)

Letter to Leopold, Brussels Biennale, Belgium (2008)

For Reasons of State, Whitney ISP, The Kitchen, New York, NY (2008)

Poetics of Erasure, Simon Fraser University Gallery, Vancouver, BC (2008)

Conflicted/Inflicted: Dictionary of War, Stadelschule Museum, Frankfurt (2006)

Pick Up! Art Gallery of Hamilton, ON (2003)

Probing into the Distance, Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener, ON (2003)

Domicile: Work from the Permanent Collection, Kamloops Art Gallery, BC (2003)

Signal and Noise, Video In, Vancouver, BC (2002)

Phony, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, AB (2001)

Take Two, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON (2001)

Snapshot, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD (2001)

Frequent Flyers, Artspace, Sydney, Australia (2000)

Feedback, University Art Gallery, State University of New York at Stonybrook, NY (2000)

Civil Disturbances: REPOhistory & New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, NY (1998)

Slow Pressure, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC (1997)

In Transit 2, The Swiss Institute, New York, NY (1996)

Never Walk Alone, The Photographer’s Gallery, London (1996)

Urban Fictions, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, BC (1996)

Boomtown: Random Acts of Public Art, San Diego, CA (1995)

Benchmarks, The Association for Non-Commercial Culture, Vancouver, BC (1994)

Perambulations, Washington State Art in Public Places Program, Seattle, WA (1994)

Grants & awards

2009 Social Studies & Humanities Research Council Travel Grant, (also 2008, 2007, 2005)

2008 Canada Council Travel Grant in Visual Arts (also 2000, 1997, 1994)

2006/09 Overseas Research Scholarship Award Scheme

2004 Ontario Arts Council Project Grant (also 2001)

2003 SSHRC Interdisciplinary Team Grant (Principal A. Purdy)

2003 Canada Council B Grant in Visual Arts (also 2000, 1998, 1995)

1997 Project Grant, Pro Helvetia, Switzerland

1997 National Endowment for the Arts Award, USA

1997 Van Lier Foundation Grant, New York

Professional activities

The Photo-Lexic Research Team, Tel Aviv, Israel (directed by Ariella Azoulay)

Site Magazine: Journal for Contemporary Art, Architecture, Cinema, and Philosophy, Stockholm, Sweden (editorial board)

Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media, R.M.I.T. Melbourne, Australia (editorial board)

Papers presented

“Tricked-out Space in Michael Haneke’s Caché.” Neo-Baroque, University of Liverpool (2010)

“Atomic Fever and the Archive.” Distinguished Speaker, Fine Arts UBC, Vancouver

“Entanglement as Medial Practice.” ATACD, University of Barcelona, Spain (2009)

“Soviet Defectors.” UAAC, Edmonton, AB

“Deformed Media Space.” Ubiquitous Media, University of Tokyo, Japan (2007)

“Load Space.” Spatial Dramaturgies, University of Frankfurt, Germany

Theorising Affect, Social/Spatial Theory Research Ctr., Durham University

“Archiving Silence.” Siting the Document, “Archival Aphasia”, Queen Mary University (2006)

“Reinventing Machinic Life." Evolutions, University of Edinburgh

“From Here to Eternity.” Cultural Fictions II, Goldsmiths, University of London

“Heterotopia and the City.” First Worlds, Third Spaces, International American Studies Association, Ottawa, ON

“Re-Wiring the City: Technology in Public Places.” CAFKA, ON (2003)

“Expo 67.” History of the Future, IAMHIST Conference, University of Leicester

Endnote Speaker: Matrilineage Conference, Syracuse University, New York (2002)           

“The Art of Public Nuisance.” Geographies of Governance, Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener, ON

Research interests

ENTANGLED MATTERS: Analogue Futures & Political Pasts (dissertation)

Theorised as an “ontology of the output” this research project conceptually repurposed media machines in order to activate new or alternate entanglements between historical media artefacts and events. Although the particular circumstances that produced these materials may have changed, the dissertation asked why these analogue media artefacts might still be a ‘matter of concern’. What is their relevance for problematizing debates within media philosophy today and by extension the politics that underscore the operations of the digital? Does the analogue as I intuit have the capacity to release history and propose alternate pathways through time? Overall this research was propelled by the political stakes of futurity articulated, in my case, by machinic inscriptions of historical events. This inquiry consisted of a close [forensic] analysis of the technical organization of media machines and their artefacts, which in turn allowed me to make a series of conceptual moves that could re-open questions of history and thus also re-activate the political registers latent in the recorded image or sound-event.

FORENSIC IMAGINATION: Evidence, Testimony, and the Material Witness 

Forensic Imagination is a conceptual provocation and adaptive mode of investigation that is specifically directed towards a critical and practical engagement with material culture. As such the practice of forensics and the concept of imagination are brought together to create a space wherein scientific and cultural practices meet to pose questions about what can be established as a potential fact and what can be envisioned as a propositional fiction. How might non-empirical things such as creative works also provide useful knowledges about the world? Can a redistribution that manifests itself in the form of transactions between facts and fictions be operative in the world and visible as attributes of its material reality?  This research takes its cues from philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers who urges us to let the material speak rather than to impose answers onto matter. “We must accept the possibility that it is not man but the material that ‘asks’ the questions, that has a story to tell, which one has to learn to unravel.” 

Selected publications

"The Most Dangerous Film in the World." Tickle Your Catastrophe. Ed. Frederik Le Roy, Nele Wynants, Dominiek Hoens, Robrecht Vanderbeeken. Ghent: NGE (Dutch Aesthetics Society), Ghent University, the KASK (Ghent Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and Vooruit, 2010. 130-45.

Weizman, Eyal, et al. "Forensic Architecture." Post-Traumatic Urbanism: Architectural Design. Ed. Charles Rice, Adrian Lahoud, Anthony Burke. Vol. 80: Wiley, 2010. 58-63.

"Improvised Explosive Designs: The Film-Set as Mlitary Set-Up." Borderlands Special issue on Ambivalent Architectures: Violence, Visualization, Memorialization 9 2 (2010): 1-18.

"Reading Radiological Film." Site: A Journal for Contemporary Art, Architecture, Cinema, and Philosophy Guest edited by Karl Lydén: Documentary narratives & non-fictional narrativity in film and art 28 (2009).

"Picturing New Worlds: Propositional Aesthetics & Political Imaginaries." Art & Democracy. Ed. Riordan, John. New York: Projects-Projects, 2008.

"Of Moths and Machines." Cosmos & History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 4: What is Life? 1-2 (2008): 286-306.

"Curse of the Mummy: Oral Affliction or Archival Aphasia." Memory Studies 2 2 (2008): 167-86.

Fallet Med De Förlorade 18 ½ Minuterna /the Case [Study] of the Missing 18-1/2 Minutes." Site: A Journal for Contemporary Art, Architecture, Cinema, and Philosophy 18-19 28 (2007).

Guest editor. "Special Issue on Expo 67." BlackFlash 2 22 (Winter 2004/05).

"Book Review of Picturing Place: Photography and the Geographical Imagination." The Canadian Geographer 48: 4 (2004): 505-06.