Lars Kristensen

Background

I have an MA (European Civilization) and an MPhil (Slavonic Languages) from the University of Glasgow and in 2010 I completed a PhD (Film Studies) at the University of St. Andrews.

After a couple of years as a post-doc research associate at the University of Central Lancashire, I started my position in 2013 as Senior Lecturer in Media Art, Aesthetics and Narration at the University of Skövde. As part of this position, I teach on a range of course within game development and I am a course administrator on Dramaturgy, Film history and Academic writing. I also supervise and examine thesis dissertation on both graduate and postgraduate levels.

My research focuses on the theory and criticism of moving images, which includes computer games. My approach is analytical and historical, examining both the visual representation and the industry that produces the images. My primary research interest has to a large extend been on Russian and Eastern European cinemas, where I have published on films from Russia, Polen, Estonia, Latvia and Albania and, more broadly, on the condition of postcommunism as reflected in cinema. In this regard, I serve as editorial board member of the journal Studies in Eastern European Cinema and I have given numerous conference papers and organized panels on this topic.

A second strand to my research is on the aesthetics of the bicycle in cinema, which sprang from a long-term interested in the intersection between cinema and the bicycle. Both technologies appear 'complete' at the same time in the 1890s and they require the same level of speed to work as machines – cinema to simulate movement and the bicycle to defy gravity. This is a niche field that is in relatively early stages of development, but it is growing rapidly as amateur filmmaking converges on bicycle aficionado and green ideology, making bicycle cinema a distinct feature of digital economy.

Issues of ideology lead to a third aspect in my research, which centres on Marxism and the moving image. This has led me to develop a research interest in computer games, since game studies places a greater emphasis on technology – on platform, mechanics and computer performance – than more traditional media and film does. My interest is on the ideology of games as conditioned on the interaction with the game machine. Marxist analysis can be useful in this regard to unpick the technological interaction between game and gamer. Currently my research is on interpellation of ideology and the role of critiques in an interactive consumption of digital media.

In 2015, I organized together with colleagues and curators the exhibition Art and Game Obstruction (2015) at Skövde Art Museum, which centred round games and art. The exhibition saw artists, curators and various LARPers interacting with the students, which is something that I would like to develop in the future. The aim is to work cross-disciplinary at the intersection of art and technology and I am currently working together with two contemporary artists, Olle Essvik and Lina Persson, in order to develop an appropriated experimental platform for such a clash of ideas and intensions.

Selected Publications

Edited Collections

Contemporary Cinema and Neoliberal Ideology, Oxford and New York: Routledge 2018 (Co-edited with Ewa Mazierska)

Art and Game Obstruction, Gothenburg: Royal Förlag 2016.

'Albanian Cinema', KinoKultura (special issue No 16), available online http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/16/albania.shtml (Co-editored with Ana Grgić and Ridvan Peshkopia).

Marxism and Film Activism, Berghahn Books, 2015 (Co-editor with Ewa Mazierska).

Book Chapters/Articles

Painful Neutrality: Screening the Extradition of the Balts from Sweden, Baltic Screen Media Review 2018 (co-authored with Christo Burman) (forthcoming)

'Svetlana Baskova's Response to Russian national neoliberalism in For Marx...', in E. Mazierska and L. Kristensen (eds), Contemporary Cinema and Neoliberal Ideology, London and New York: Routledge, 2018.

'Roger Caillois and Marxism: A game studies perspective', Games and Culture 12(4), 2017, pp. 381-400. (co-authored with Ulf Wilhelmsson)

'Bicycle cinema: Machine identity and the Moving Image', Thesis Eleven 138(1), 2017, pp. 65-80.

'Soviet Estonian bicycle film: sport, nation and race narratives', Studies in Eastern European Cinema 8:1, 2016, pp. 62-77. (co-authored with Christo Burman)

'Marxism and computer games: an introduction', Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds 8(2), 2016, pp. 117-130. (co-authored with Graeme Kirkpatrick and Ewa Mazierska)

'Gazing at the Baltic: Tourist Discourse in the Cinema of the Baltic Sea Countries', in Simo Mikkonen and Pekka Suutari (eds), Music, Art and Diplomacy during the Cold War, Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2016 (co-authored with Ewa Mazierska and Eva Näripea).

'"Wanna Be in the New York Times?" Epic History and War City as Global Cinema', in Sander Brouwer (ed.), Contested Interpretations of the Past in Polish, Russian and Ukrainian Film: Screen as Battlefield, Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers, 2016, pp. 21-39.

'Marxist Resistance at Bicycle Speed: Screening the Critical Mass Movement', in E. Mazierska and L. Kristensen (eds), Marxism and Film Activism: Screening Alternative Worlds, Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2015.

'The Deterritorialised Muslim Convert in Post-Communist Eastern European Cinema', Baltic Screen Media Review, vol. 2, 2014 (co-authored with Ewa Mazierska and Eva Näripea).