Professor Ken McMullen

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Ken McMullen
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Teaching and learning
Research
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About

Professor of Film at KSA incorporating contemporary philosophical perspectives. Previously Professor of Film at University of the Arts London (1997-2012). Additionally has regularly been a visiting Professor to institutions across Europe, the United States, China and India. Subjects are drawn from collaborations in Contemporary Philosophy, Art/Science, Fine Art and International Cinema. 

Produced and directed over fifty motion picture works including major international feature films which have had significant worldwide distribution. These feature films have been selected for category 'A' List festivals including Cannes, Berlin, San Sebastian, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Dehli and New York.  The films have won many international prizes and has been awarded the Prize for Outstanding Work in Art and Science, Beijing.  

Honoree of the American Film Institute, The Art Film Institute Moscow and the Kanatica Film Directors Association of India. Continue working in new directions in both feature film and fine art along with series of documentaries. and other research vehicles. 

"As a research professor teaching students is of paramount importance to me. The passing on of contemporary knowledge, gained through research underscored by my own ongoing creative encounters is a professorial duty. Engagement with students is a two way exchange being both interactive  and experimental with the intention of helping students towards their 'integration', 'maturation' and their own uniquely individual approaches to creative work". 

Academic responsibilities

Professor

Qualifications

  • BA Fine Art
  • HDFA Slade, University College London
  • Honoree American Film Institute 1991
  • Honoree Moscow Art/Film Institute 1989
  • Honoree Karntica Film Directors Association India 1994
  • BAFTA Full voting member

Teaching and learning

My teaching centres around a primary lecture series. These lectures are  open to Film, Photography, Fine Art, Music Composition students. Additionally occasional public lectures for Kingston University. 

MA/BA Lecture series title... 'GHOSTS, CINEMA & ARTISTIC PRACTICE' ... a series of twelve 3 hour lectures with comprehensive projection material. Followed by group discussions. The lecture series is an on-going investigation into the prevailing cultural climate. The lectures are adapted to incorporate students concerns of the moment. We explore and show complex means of production and the contradictions and resistances these bring up. 

Additionally tutorials and seminars based around this lecture series and arising from the students' own productions.  

Arranging and accompanying student groups on visits include galleries, theatres and relevant film industry locations. 

Placement opportunities when available and suitable for advanced students.

Undergraduate courses taught

Postgraduate courses taught

Research

My research has included collaborations with CERN (Geneva), SLAC (Stanford University, California), College International de Philosophie (Paris), MoMA (PS1, New York), MoMA (San Francisco), Museum of Contemporary Art (Beijing) amongst others. Each of the projects that I engage in always explores and questions developing means of production, the context in which these productions take place and new directions in dramatic transference.The research element of my work always requires engagement with original ideas and processes, often in collaboration with other disciplines in search for new synthesis. In advancing these projects, screenplays and visual sketches go through many stages. A hit rate of approximately 1 in 2 of the screenplays finally go into production. Discarded elements can often find their way into other projects in what is a process of re-integration and revision. This may indeed involve a change of medium and approach.I find that work that is carried out with intensity and authentic research is rarely wasted. Something always happens when we loose ourselves honestly, energetically, in the work.

Selected filmography from over 50 films and motion picture works:

The Immortal Mortal (currently in production)

The Philosopher's Hamlet (2018-2020 currently in post-production) 

Murder in the Garden of Figs (2016-2019 awaiting cinema release)

OXI: An Act of Resistance, (2014)

An Organization of Dreams, (2009)

Arrows of Time, (2007)

Art, Poetry and Particle Physics, (2004)

Pioneers in Art and Science: Metzger, (2004)

Signatures of the Invisible,(six films, 2001-2006)

Lumin de Lumine, (2001)

Stories , 1997

Oedipus Flabbergasted (1994)

Five Works with Jacque Derrida, (1993-1996)

1871, (1990)

Partition, (1987)

Zina, (1985)

Being and Doing, (1984)

Ghost Dance, (1983)

Resistance (1981)

The Shaman's Arrow (1979

Stories (1977)

Being and Doing (1975-80) With Performance Artist Stuart Brisley

Collaborations with Kantor and Cricot 2 Theatre, Poland 1974

Lovelies and Dowdies (1974)

Correspondence and 3 works with Joseph Beuys 1973 

Room to Move (City Symphony Los Angeles) 1971

Areas of specialism

  • Cinema
  • Fine Art
  • Contemporary European Philosophy and its relationship to other cultural contexts
  • Speculations in High Energy Physics (Directed a program at CERN and at SLAC 2000-2010
  • Fusions between Analogue and Digital cultural forms