ABOUT MY RESEARCH
Alongside my creative work, I’m an Associate Lecturer in Communication at Western Sydney University. I’ve previously taught at AFTRS, University of Technology Sydney and NIDA. My research examines how emerging technologies utilise aspects of the cinematic form in innovative and transformative ways. In my book, I focus on this transformation in the genre of horror cinema, examining how aspects of cinema translate to new media forms such as streaming video, video games and virtual reality. My other research interests include television, immersive and interactive storytelling, the practice and artform of screenwriting, affect and embodiment, Deleuzian cinema theory, and the ethical possibilities of cinema. I have also published on the works of David Lynch, Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick.
BOOKS
Affective Intensitites and Evolving Horror Forms: From Found Footage to Virtual Reality
Edinburgh University Press
Horror cinema is a genre that is undergoing constant evolution, from the sub-genre of ‘found footage’ to post-cinematic new media forms such as YouTube horror, horror video games and cinematic virtual reality horror. By investigating how these new forms alter the dynamics of spectatorship, this book charts how cinema’s affective capacities have shifted in relation to these modifications in the forms of cinematic horror. It applies a rich theoretical synthesis of phenomenological and Deleuzian approaches to a number of case studies, including films like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity and Creep, as well as video games such as Alien: Isolation.
Other Publications
Edited Book Chapters
2024 ‘David’s Dreams of Doubles: Lynch and the Doppelgänger’ in Doppelgänger Gothic (ed. Simon Bacon), Palgrave Macmillan (accepted and forthcoming).
2024 ‘It is happening again”: Repetition and Replay in the Works of David Lynch’ in A Critical Companion to David Lynch (ed. Andrew Winters), Lexington Press (Accepted and Forthcoming).
2021 ‘Tom Cruise as Father and Son’ in Starring Tom Cruise (ed. Sean Redmond), Wayne State Press.
2020 ‘Here and There: Malick’s Cinema and McGilchrist’s ‘Divided Brain’’ in A Critical Companion to Terrence Malick (ed. Joshua Sikora), Lexington.
2020 ‘Ghosts of Future Past: Spatial and Temporal Intersections in The Haunting of Hill House’ in The Streaming of Hill House (ed. Kevin J. Wetmore), McFarland and Co.
2019 ‘Fear and Wonder: The Lived Body Experience of Spielberg’s Cinema’ in A Critical Companion to Steven Spielberg (eds. Antonio Sanna and Adam Barkman), Lexington.
2019 ‘Kafka’s Crime Film: Twin Peaks: The Return and the Brotherhood of Lynch and Kafka’ in Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks: The Return (ed. Antonio Sanna), Palgrave.
Journal Articles
2019 ‘Under the Skin of the World: The Multiversal Spaces of Twin Peaks: The Return,’ in Supernatural Studies.
2018 ‘Inhabiting the Image of Collisions: Virtual Reality Cinema as a Medium of Ethical Experience,’ in Fusion Journal.
2016 ‘Always Watching: The Interface of Horror and Digital Cinema in Marble Hornets’ in Global Media Journal Australia Edition, June 2016.
Magazine Articles/Commissions
2024 ‘The Blair Witch Project at 25: How one film changed the horror genre as we know it.’ The Conversation, July 14 2024, https://theconversation.com/the-blair-witch-project-at-25-how-one-film-changed-the-horror-genre-as-we-know-it-233104
2024 ‘Reality Bites at 30: Why the Gen X classic still stands up today.’ The Conversation, February 12 2024, https://theconversation.com/reality-bites-at-30-why-the-gen-x-classic-still-stands-up-today-223185
2023 ‘The Pleasure and Pain of Cinephilia: What happened when I watched Groundhog Day every day for a year.’ The Conversation, February 2 2023, https://theconversation.com/the-pleasure-and-pain-of-cinephilia-what-happened-when-i-watched-groundhog-day-every-day-for-a-year-198668
2017 ‘Why we should ‘Beware the Slenderman’: how users created the Boogieman of the Internet.’ The Conversation, January 24 2017, https://theconversation.com/beware-the-slenderman-how-users-created-the-boogieman-of-the-internet-71338
2016 ‘VR Cinema is here – and audiences are in the driver’s seat.’ The Conversation, December 28 2016. https://theconversation.com/vr-cinema-is-here-and-audiences-are-in-the-drivers-seat-66677