Michał Matuszewski

Reaserch

Selected publications

  • Matuszewski, M. (2025). “On Water, Tardigrades and Gills: Aleksandra Jaskólska and the ‘Hydrofeminism’ of Polish Educational Films.”
    Kwartalnik Filmowy, 131, pp. 103–126. doi: 10.36744/kf.4506.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2022). “Can One Be a Cow? Why VR Is Not an Empathy Machine.”
    Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture, no. 33, online.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2020). “Essayist with a Camera: The Avant-Garde Work of Chris Marker.”
    In: Histories of Avant-Garde Film, eds. Ł. Ronduda, G. Sitek, Fundacja Okonakino, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Korporacja ha!art, Warsaw–Kraków, pp. 309–319.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2020). “Let Us Hurry to Love the Dog: Cinema as Mourning.”
    In: Reborn Dogs. New Interpretations of Art and the Non-Human, ed. M. Swacha, Stowarzyszenie PublishArt, Gdańsk, pp. 15–24.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2020). “(Meta)zoological Cinema.”
    Ekrany, 2/2020, pp. 26–29.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2020). “(Un)living Images: Spectrality and Embodiment of Cinematic Animals.”
    Kwartalnik Filmowy, 111/2020, pp. 71–86. https://doi.org/10.36744/kf.385
  • Matuszewski, M. (2019). “Practice-Based Research: Cinema as Method.”
    Ekrany, 5/2019, pp. 26–29.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2018). “Vomit Reality: Virtual Reality as a Medium of Disequilibrium.”
    In: Cutting Bodies, eds. A. Kmak, P. Kwiatkowska, M. Szewczyk, Mammal, Warsaw, pp. 287–297.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2018). “On the Nakedness and Frustration of Oculus: Strategies of Presentation and the Position of the Viewer in Spherical Cinema.”
    In: New Cinephilia: Spaces and Affects, eds. P. Kwiatkowska, K. Kosińska, Mammal, Warsaw, pp. 129–150.
  • Matuszewski, M. (2018). “From a Projectionist’s Diary, or How I Learned to Love the Digital.”
    Pleograf, 1/2018. http://akademiapolskiegofilmu.pl/pl/historia-polskiego-filmu/pleograf/cialo/11
  • Matuszewski, M. (2017). “Cinema (for) Animals.”
    Ekrany, 6/2017, pp. 12–17. http://ekrany.org.pl/kino_wspolczesne/kino-dla-zwierzat/

Selected conferences and talks

  • “Life is Movement, Yet Cinema is Death: The Biological Films of Karol Marczak in the Archives of Poland’s Educational Film Studio.”
    Paper at: CULIVIAN – Animals in Literary and Visual Cultures 8. 3rd CULIVIAN Seminar: Teaching Animal Ethics through Film, University of Valencia, 10–11 March 2025.
  • “Video Essays as a Teaching Tool for Film Animal Studies.”
    Paper at: CULIVIAN – Animals in Literary and Visual Cultures 8. 3rd CULIVIAN Seminar: Teaching Animal Ethics through Film, University of Valencia, 10–11 March 2025.
  • “¿La caza sin sangre? La mirada de cazador en los documentales de naturaleza de Włodzimierz Puchalski en la Polonia de posguerra.”
    Paper at: Segundo Congreso Internacional de Estudios Críticos Animales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) & Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Críticos Animales (ILECA), online, 12 July 2025.
  • “Polish Biological Films from the Educational Film Studio (WFO) as a Missing Link in a History of Essay Film / Visual-Based Research.”
    Paper at: Useful Film under State Socialism, National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest, 21–22 October 2022.
  • “Between Care and Exploitation – Wildlife Preservation Discourse in Polish Nature Films of Włodzimierz Puchalski.”
    Paper at: Care – NECS 2023 Conference, University of Oslo, 13–17 June 2023.
  • “‘Life is Movement’, Yet Cinema Is Death: The Biological Films of Karol Marczak.”
    Paper at: IV Congress of Film and Media Scholars: Narratives – Theories, Strategies, Contexts, under the auspices of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies.
  • Co-organiser and co-facilitator of the workshop “Animal Film and Education Across Disciplines: A Collaborative Workshop on Interspecies Learning and Teaching.”
    At: THE FACTUAL ANIMAL: Audiovisual Representations of Real Other-than-Human Animals, University of Valencia, 29 November – 1 December 2023.
  • “Between Care and Exploitation: Wildlife Films by Włodzimierz Puchalski.”
    Paper at: Polish Cinema: Encounters with Philosophy & Critical Theory, online symposium organised by the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Indiana University Bloomington, 20 January 2024.
  • “Tardigrades at the End of the World: Eco-Emergencies and Polish Science Films of the 1960s.”
    Paper at: Emergencies – NECS 2024 Conference, Izmir University of Economics, 27–29 June 2024.
  • “Life is Movement, Cinema is Death: Attention, Technology, and the ‘Meaning of Life’ in Polish Biological Films.”
    Lecture and film program at: 2024 eikones Summer School: Attention in Animal Ethics and Aesthetics, University of Basel, 4–6 September 2024.
  • “Affective Interspecies Communication: Animals Between Cinema and Art.”
    Paper at: 3rd Congress of Film and Media Scholars: Spaces. Practices. Articulations, University of Łódź, 2019.
  • Panelist: “Are Film Festivals the Place for 360° and Virtual Reality?”
    International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2019.
  • Workshop co-organiser: “It’s All About Telling a Story. Artistic, Curatorial, Scholarly Perspectives in Dialogue.”
    NECS 2019 Conference: Structures and Voices: Storytelling in Post-Digital Times, University of Gdańsk.
  • “(Meta)zoological Cinema.”
    Paper at: ZOO(logical?) Zoos in the Perspectives of the Humanities, Social and Natural Sciences, University of Warsaw, 2019.
  • “Posthuman Cinema: Animals and Experimental Film.”
    Paper at: 9th Łódź Philosophical Workshop: Humanism–Posthumanism, University of Łódź, 2019.
  • “The Rat as Subject: Rats in the City and the Ethics of Documentary.”
    Paper at: Spaces of Posthumanism and Ecology, Adam Mickiewicz University, 2018.
  • “VR and the Body.”
    Paper at: Balancing Togetherness Conference, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, 2017.
  • “Real Bodies in Virtual Reality: The VR Viewer’s Body.”
    Paper at: Cutting Bodies: Moving Images Conference, University of Warsaw, 2017.
  • “On the Nakedness and Frustration of Oculus! The Viewer’s Position and Presentation Strategies in Spherical Films.”
    Paper at: 2nd Congress of Film and Media Scholars: Discourses of Visibility, 2016.
  • “The Victim as Analyst: Who Tells What to Whom in Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt?”
    Paper at: Psychoanalysis, Culture, Interpretation conference, University of Warsaw, 2008.

Research and teaching projects

  • Principal Investigator, NCN PRELUDIUM 22 grant Polish Nature Film 1945–2005.
  • Researcher, project New Forms and Technologies of Narrative (Łódź Film School, Regional Initiative of Excellence).
  • Researcher, NPRH project Forgotten Links in the History of Polish Audiovisual Culture (University of Łódź).
  • Member, Film Animal Studies research group (NECS).
  • Participant, research group Useful Film Under State Socialism.

Selected public lectures and workshops

“Time-Lapse: Science Film and Cinemicroscopy.”
Co-led workshop, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 29 November 2024.

“Animating Life and Death and the Hunter’s Gaze.”
Lecture and seminar, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, 24 April 2024.