2021 Sylvia Naish Lecture Competition Winner Announced

Friday 16 April 2021

Laura Lux is the winner of this year’s Sylvia Naish Competition. Entitled ‘Science and the Cinematic Machine’, the lecture will be given online on Monday, 24 May, at 4pm.

In her lecture, Lux will re-visit the iconic moment in West German political film, when in NICHTlöschbares Feuer (1968/69), German essay filmmaker extinguished a cigarette on his arm to demonstrate the torturous effects of Napalm on Vietnamese war victims as a transgressive gesture against the world of science and technology integrated within a critique of the representation and dissemination of Vietnam war images in TV media. The lecture will explore how Farocki attends to the documentary image as a scientific form of vision and exposes the ideology behind factual representation on TV. Considering Farocki’s influence on debates around representation in Brechtian film practices, it will explore how his plea for a more pluralistic media landscape in 1968 stays relevant in light of the rise in documentary activism today.

Laura Lux holds a 1st Class Honours degree in German with English Literature and an MA in Film Studies, both from King’s College London, where she is currently registered as a PhD student.

The lecture series was launched in memory of Sylvia Naish, an accomplished linguist and translator, and benefactor of the former Institute of Germanic Studies. The annual competition is open to research students registered for higher degrees at universities in the UK. Read more about the competition.

Attendance at the lecture is open to anyone interested. Advance online registration is essential:  https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/24289. Booking closes on 23 May 2021.