Emma Finn (RCA) - 2020-21 Students

Mating Snails, Police Birds and Air that Kills: The Misfires of Humans using Nature for Transmission

5G is the latest in a long history of humans seeking transmission power to communicate but also move data, people and objects. My research explores the histories of how humans have used nature’s transmission forces. While media studies reexamine once useful dead media, there is little research into what is left outside of obsolescence: failed, misfired attempts. These misfires demand study as they foretell urgent issues including how to co-exist with the non-human. I will examine three such misfires and foreshadows- snail telegraph (internet), miasma (5G), bird police (animal police units).

As a filmmaker/artist, I engage in practice-led research to generate theoretical fictions. Theoretical fictions are not films which are merely informed by theory but rather theory becomes an intrinsic part of the “plot,” a mover and shaker in the universe created by the artist on screen. This allows the research to find new expressions and escape systematic knowledge parameters, opening up to irrational transmissions.