Blaise Kirschner (they/she) is Professor in Moving Image at the Royal Institute of Art, responsible for year 1-5. In their art practice, Kirschner primarily works in the field of moving image. Kirschner’s video installations and films draw on popular genres, speculative fiction and post-cinematic media to address the fears and fantasies provoked by socio-political, technological, and ecological changes, and how these are encoded in cultural forms. Kirschner recently completed a practise-based PhD at the Royal College of Art, London, and was installed as Professor at the Royal Institute of Art in the autumn semester of 2023.
What is your background?
I have been active in the field of artists’ moving image for over two decades, and my artistic practice, research and teaching have focused on the ways in which the latent and the virtual as much as the manifest and real come to constitute themselves on and off screen.
How would you describe your own practice?
This ongoing inquiry has led me to adopt a range of working methods, derived from cinema, collective filmmaking, and, most recently, computer simulations. Rather than being unified by a singular style or imaging technology, my practice can be described as a process that generates each work anew from the experiences, questions, and events it starts from.
How would you describe your teaching philosophy and approach to learning?
My approach is based on learning by doing, shared artistic research over significant periods of time, and artistic and educational self-organisation within and beyond the academy. In my teaching the filmic apparatus is figured not primarily as a recoding device or vehicle for authorial expression, but as a changing psychosocial technology that is omnipresent in everyday perception, mediating and modulating what is made visible and invisible.
What drew you to the Royal Institute of Art?
I was drawn to the value placed on studio practice and artistic research, and the relative independence with which these are conducted at the Royal Institute of Art. The structure and size of the school promote dialogue and collaboration across study areas and encourage experimentation in different media.
What do you think is special about the Royal Institute of Art?
I look forward to participating in the ways the school forms a part of the larger cultural landscape of the city and beyond, as practical and theoretical learning is often best enabled through concrete collaborations and undertakings, which can accompany students’ artistic development beyond the formal end of their education.
How would you characterize the practice of artists’ moving image?
Current artistic practices in moving image are extremely heterogenous. Lo-fi and high-end productions often sit side by side and use both analog and digital technologies, according to the needs and ends of a specific work. This heterogeneity upends the notion of a progressive evolution of imaging technologies, and instead testifies to a non-linear and mutational entanglement of all forms of (still and moving) image making.
What current expressions in the field interest you the most?
I am most drawn to artistic practices that are in excess of and/or barely legible in relation to the dominant forms of moving image production familiar from entertainment, communication, and control, and (whilst aware of their imbrications with them) strike out for forms of figuration that give rise to imaginaries, alliances, and constellations beyond their purview and intentions.
We are very happy to welcome Blaise Kirschner to the Royal Institute of Art, bringing their knowledge and experience to the role as Professor in Moving Image from 2023. Read more about their work at blaisekirschner.com.
