Distant Present: The Radical Art and Ideas of Peter Watkins (forthcoming, Verso)
Awarded the 2015 Art Writers Grant (Book) from Creative Capital/The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. A monograph on the contribution that Peter Watkins’s output from the 1950s through the present has made on contemporary media theory and collaborative critical practice. The book demonstrates that Watkins’s processes prefigure those of moving-image documentary works in contemporary art and gallery contexts, and argues for Watkins’s crucial place within an aesthetically rigorous, broad, and international set of thinkers and artists working in diverse disciplines and backgrounds.
Keywords in Subversive Film/Media Aesthetics, by Robert Stam with Richard Porton and Leo Goldsmith (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
An essay-lexicon of radical aesthetic strategies in politically engaged artistic practice, covering consecrated terms (Brechtian distanciation, Situationist détournement), less-well known concepts (cinematrix, audiotopia), and a substantial number of coinages and neologisms (hybrid authorship, sublime detritus). The afterword, “Aesthetic/Political Innovation in the Digital Age,” was co-authored by Goldsmith and Stam.
Book Chapters
“The Artists’ Hands: Tactility and Telepathy in Gianikian & Ricci Lucchi’s Films” in The Films of Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, ed. Alo Paistik and Jonathan Larcher. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming 2025)
“Stratman’s Sonic Subscapes” in Geologic Listening, ed. Sukhdev Sandhu and Deborah Stratman. (Ridgewood, NY: UnionDocs, 2024)
“Ins and Outtakes: An Interview” (with Peggy Ahwesh) in Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film, ed. Alix Beeston and Stefan Solomon. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023)
“Ghostly Matter: Filipa César’s Films and Videos” in Reframing Portuguese Cinema in the 21st Century, Volume 1, ed. Daniel Ribas & Paulo Cunha. (Lisbon: agenda, 2020), 197-208.
“The Desertification of Discourse: Punishment Park” (with Rachael Rakes) in Outsider Films on America, ed. Shanay Jhaveri. (Huddinge, Sweden: The Shoestring Publisher, 2019)
“The Body is a Fact” in Valérie Massadian, ed. Maura Edmond and John Edmond. (Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Film Festival, 2019)
“Us and Them: War of the Worlds” in Steven Spielberg, eds. Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert (Astoria: Museum of the Moving Image/Reverse Shot, 2017), 203-210.
“The Prince Variations: American Boy” in Martin Scorsese: He is Cinema, eds. Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert (Astoria: Museum of the Moving Image/Reverse Shot, 2016), 71-78.
“Google and the Triangulation of Images” in For Machine Use Only: Contemplations of Algorithmic Epistemology, ed. Mohammad Salemy (Gwangju, South Korea/Grand Rapids, MI: Gwangju Biennale/&&&, 2016), 33-34.
“The Lost Dream Language: Nicolas Provost’s Films” in Nicolas Provost: Dream Machine (Tielt: Lannoo, 2015), 7-13.
“Myths Unmade: Scenes from the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar” in The 60th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, ed. Anita Reher (New York: The Flaherty Film Seminar, 2014), 64-69.
“History, Tragedy, and Farce: ‘The President’s Last Bang’ in the Film Festival Circuit” in Cinema, Globalizaçãoe, Interculturalidade, eds. Andréa França and Denilson Lopes (Chapecó, Brazil: Argos, 2010), 289-306.
“Blissfully Yours” in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, ed. James Quandt (Vienna, Austria: Austrian Film Museum, 2009), 220-221.
“Lunacy” in Jan Svankmajer, ed. Mpampis Aktsoglou (Athens, Greece: Synchronoi Orizontes/ Thessaloniki Film Festival, 2006), 84.
Journal Essays
“IN FOCUS: Sci-Fi Doc: Between Speculation and Non-fiction,” special section co-edited with Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa, JCMS 64.3 (Spring 2025; forthcoming).
“Theories of the Earth: Surface and Extraction in Landscape Documentary,” World Records (Fall 2018).
“Peter Watkins’s Futuresports,” INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media 7-8 (2016-2017). Co-authored with Rachael Rakes.
“Introduction: Uncertain Spaces,” fireflies 5: Angela Schanelec (2017), 8-15
“A MOVIE BY…: Appropriation, Authorship, and the Ecologies of the Moving Image,” First Monday (November 2016).
“Scratch’s Third Body: Video Talks Back to Television,” VIEW: Journal of European Television History and Culture 4.8 (Fall 2015).
Journal Reviews
“The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity, by Jeffrey Sconce,” book review, Film Quarterly (Fall 2019).
“Codes of conflux: Collaborations between human and computer in MoMA’s Thinking Machines,” exhibition review, NECSUS: Journal of the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (Fall 2018).
“Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium,” book review, Film Quarterly 68.1 (Fall 2014), 83-85.
“Wunderkino 2.0: On the Varieties of Cinematic Experience,” conference review, The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 13.2 (Fall 2013), 127-129.
“La Rabbia, directed Pier Paolo Pasolini & Giovanino Guareschi,” DVD review, The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 12.1 (Spring 2012), 156-158.
Critical Writing
“Ferrari,” 4Columns (December 2023).
“The Best Short Films of 2023,” Film Comment (December 2023).
“Black Gold: Dry Ground Burning,” Film Comment (April 2023).
“Beau Is Afraid,” 4Columns (April 2023).
“Space Ways: 2023 Cosmic Rays Film Festival,” Film Comment (April 2023).
“Ahed’s Knee,” 4Columns (March 2022).
“Scenes From a Marriage,” 4Columns (September 2021).
“All Light, Everywhere,” 4Columns (June 2021).
“Labyrinth of Passion: Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream,” Reverse Shot (February 2021).
“Bacurau,” 4Columns (March 2020).
“Prison Images,” 4Columns (June 2019).
“Cici Wu’s ‘Unfinished Return,’” art-agenda (June 2019).
“Democratic Duty: Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park,” Vertical Features (May 2019).
“Transit,” 4Columns (February 2019).
“Angela’s Diaries—Two Filmmakers: A Biographical, Fragmentary Film Is Also the Last for a Filmmaking Couple,” Hyperallergic (February 2019).
“True to Form: International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2018,” The Brooklyn Rail (February 2019).
“Burning,” 4Columns (October 2018).
“Hollow Earth,” catalog essay, On Earth, Structure, and Sadness (London: Serpentine Gallery, 2018).
“Gürcan Keltek: Out of Darkness,” festival program essay, Viennale (October 2018).
“Flightpaths: Mati Diop’s Big in Vietnam,” commissioned program essay, The Machine that Kills Bad People, Institute of Contemporary Art (September 2018).
“Crises of Perfection: Wavelengths Shorts,” Cinema Scope (September 2018).
“Swiss Watch: The 71st Locarno Film Festival,” Artforum (August 2018).
“Exploring ‘Imperfect Cinema’ in a Lithuanian Idyll,” Frieze (August 2018).
“À la Mode: The 2018 Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille,” Artforum (July 2018).
“Canyon Cinema 50,” 4Columns (April 2018).
“Get Real: The fortieth edition of ‘Cinéma du Réel’ at the Centre Pompidou,” Artforum (April 2018).
“Memories of Utopia: Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Collages de France’ Models,” art-agenda (March 2018).
“Tropical Melodies: Stephanie Barber’s In the Jungle is a Singular Floral Fantasy,” Village Voice (17 February 2018).
“Wang Bing’s Bitter Money Observes a Chinese Garment Factory,” Village Voice (16 January 2018).
“Aftermaths and Undergrounds: The 4th Porto/Post/Doc,” Artforum (December 2017).
“Reality Stars: ‘The Non-Actor’ Surveys Amateur Performance in the Movies,” Village Voice (25 November 2017).
“Dara Birnbaum’s ‘Psalm 29(30),’” art-agenda (June 2017).
“The Wanderer: Eduardo Williams’s The Human Surge,” Cinema Scope 67 (Fall 2016), 16-18.
“Rivers of Darkness and the Russell of Language,” with Michael Sicinski, Fireflies 4 (2016), 32-37.
“Carolee Schneemann’s ‘Further Evidence – Exhibit A & B,’” art-agenda (December 2016).
“Be Kind, Rewind: Alt-Media Pioneers Ant Farm Crack Open Their Time Capsules,” Village Voice (October 2016), 37.
“Moving Targets: The 2016 Festival del Film Locarno,” Artforum (September 2016).
“Uneasy Entanglements: Films and Videos by Peggy Ahwesh,” Experimental Response Cinema program notes (March 2016).
“of the North: une idée du Nord,” 24 Images 176 (February-April 2016), 17-20.
“Pat O’Neill’s ‘Let’s Make a Sandwich’,” art-agenda (January 2016).
“Ben Rivers’s The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers,” Cinema Scope 64 (Fall 2015), 12-15.
“The All-Consuming: Scratch Video’s Ambivalent Bodies,” In Media Res (August 2015).
“Dark Passage: Pedro Costa’s Horse Money,” Reverse Shot (July 2015).
“Stan VanDerBeek’s ‘Poemfields’,” art-agenda (June 2015).
“The Alt Auteurs: Deborah Stratman, Jean-Paul Kelly, Basma Alsharif, and Eduardo Williams,” No Tofu (Summer 2015), 28-31.
“Abkhazian Time Machine: Eric Baudelaire’s Letters to Max,” Cinema Scope 61 (Winter 2015), 50-51.
“David Hall, 1937-2014,” Artforum (January 2015).
“Against the Present: Selections from FID Marseille 2014,” The Brooklyn Rail (September 2014), 6-7.
“Flaherty Will Get You Everywhere: the 2014 Flaherty Film Seminar,” Artforum (July 2014).
“Unfinished Conversations: Stuart Hall, John Akomfrah, and Black Audio Film Collective,” ArtForum (February 2014).
“Records, Remnants, and Ruins: Highlights from Doclisboa 2013,” The Brooklyn Rail (December 2013), 65.
“Suspended in Time: Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez’s Manakamana,” Reverse Shot (September 2013).
“Design for Living: Matías Piñeiro and the Art of Seduction,” The Brooklyn Rail (July 2013), 80.
“Found Footage: Cinema Exposed,” book review, Cineaste 38.3 (Summer 2013), 67-68.
“Chronicle of a Disappearance: Leos Carax’s Holy Motors,” The Brooklyn Rail (October 2012), 67.
“The Violence of Sensation: Leviathan,” Reverse Shot (September 2012).
“Hallucinations of the Real: Hybridity and Experimentation at the 2012 Festival del Film Locarno,” The Brooklyn Rail (September 2012), 84-5.
“Fragmented Screens: Archival Appropriation in Arab Experimental Film and Video,” The Brooklyn Rail (November 2011), 90.
“One Image Doesn’t Take the Place of the Previous Image: Harun Farocki’s Images of War (at a Distance) at MoMA,” with Rachael Rakes, The Brooklyn Rail (October 2011), 86.
“History Will Be Televised: Andrei Ujica’s trilogy on power, media, and the end of communism,” Moving Image Source (September 2011).
“Recycling Programs: Rick Prelinger and the meta-archival documentary,” Moving Image Source (August 2011).
“Adventures in Preservation: A Report from the 7th Orphan Film Symposium,” Moving Image Source (June 2010).
“Free Radical: Len Lye’s transcontinental career and his quicksilver art of motion,” Moving Image Source (August 2009).
“The People’s Director: The old new China of Xie Jin (1923-2008),” Moving Image Source (December 2008).
DVD/Blu-ray Booklet Essays
The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, dir. Ben Rivers (ICO Films/UK, 2016).
The Princess of France, dir. Matías Piñeiro (Cinema Guild/USA, 2016).
Interviews & Profiles
“In Conversation: Jodie Mack,” The Brooklyn Rail (October 2018).
“In Conversation: Donal Foreman,” The Brooklyn Rail (July/August 2018).
“In Conversation: Louis Henderson,” The Brooklyn Rail (July/August 2016).
“In Conversation: Adam & Zack Khalil,” The Brooklyn Rail (February 2016).
“In Conversation: Miguel Gomes,” The Brooklyn Rail (December/January 2015).
“In Conversation: Peggy Ahwesh,” The Brooklyn Rail (with Rachael Rakes; March 2015).
“Structures of Feeling: Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez,” The Brooklyn Rail (May 2014).
“1000 Words: Ben Russell & Ben Rivers,” Artforum 52.3 (with Rachael Rakes; November 2013): 274-277.
“Here in the Overdeveloped World: An Interview with McKenzie Wark,” Los Angeles Review of Books (June 2013).
“Chemical Sundowns: Phil Solomon,” The Brooklyn Rail (November 2012).
“Cinema as Event: Light Industry’s Ed Halter,” The Brooklyn Rail (with Rachael Rakes; September 2011).
“The Nightwatchman: Peter Greenaway on Rembrandt, the art of VJing, and the death of cinema,” Moving Image Source (October 2009).
Editorial Work
Exhibition Reviews Editor, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Spring 2017 – 2021.
Catalog Contributor, Whitney Biennial 2017 – 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2017 – 2019.
Film Editor, The Brooklyn Rail, 2011 – 2018.
Program notes contributor, “Christian Petzold: The State We Are In,” Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, NY, November–December 2018.
Festival program contributor, Viennale, Vienna, Austria, October–November 2018.
Guest Art Editor, “Flux Time: Moving-Image Art and the Ends of Cinema,” The Brooklyn Rail (July 2014). Special issue on the convergence of avant-garde cinema and artists’ film/video work in contemporary art.
Assistant Editor, Museum of the Moving Image, edited by Dennis Lim, Museum of the Moving Image, 2011.
Editor & Contributor, Not Coming to a Theater Near You, www.notcoming.com, 2003 – 2014