Slought is pleased to announce "The Human Body as Generic Form," a lecture by film scholar Gertrud Koch about representations of the human body in animation, film and video, on Thursday, November 15, 2018 from 5:30-7:00pm. This event is co-presented with Temple Film and Media Arts, and the Cinema Studies Program and Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, and has been organized by Nora Alter, who will also moderate the conversation to follow.

Koch's lecture explores how the human body functions as a generic form in animation and technically produced effects in film and video aesthetics. Rather than interpreting this as the annihilation of the human and its replacement by technology, she argues instead that this represents a model of cooperation with technology and a new aesthetic practice, a techné. Building upon the work of French philosopher Gilbert Simondon and others, Koch argues that this approach requires a different approach to conceptualizing technology and the machine. Koch will also reflect in her lecture on when and how technical objects become aesthetic, and, with reference to Immanuel Kant's writings on aesthetic experience, how they animate the spectator.

Gertrud Koch is senior professor in film studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and visiting professor at Brown University. Her research areas include critical theory, aesthetic theory, and film and media theory.