Dr Gareth Polmeer

Gareth's philosophical interests are in considering aspects of meaning, knowledge and modernity. His work has variously explored how the form of the work of art, or the relation of metaphysics and aesthetics, frames particular questions on being. His recent work reflects upon imaginative perception and poetic experience within digital contexts, and to the question of meaning and time in the transitoriness of electronic media. This has developed with particular focuses on digital abstraction in his practical work, and writings on poetic expression, ontology and logic.  

Gareth is currently co-organising a philosophy workshop, for which he will also give a paper, at the University of Cambridge, to take place in 2019. In 2018 he co-organised and gave a paper at the workshop ‘Absolute Knowing and Presuppositionless Science: Hegel’s Phenomenology and Logic’ at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, supported by The Mind Association, The Aristotelian Society and the Royal College of Art, and in 2017 co-organised and read a paper at the workshop ‘Hegel’s Logic and His System’ at St John’s College, University of Oxford, supported by the Hegel Society of Great Britain. He has read papers on Hegel and German philosophy relating to digital aesthetics and contemporary art and design at the Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Conference at the British Computer Society, the German Research Seminar at King’s College London, University College London, and the Association of Art Historians Conference.

He has recently completed writings on meaning, being and digital art, and is currently preparing a series of essays exploring the relation of essence and appearance in digital aesthetics. This includes forthcoming essays on theories of time connected to digital culture, and reflections on ontology and nature in contemporary digital media. He is also developing a series of papers and essays on Hegel, examining the relation between time and eternity, Hegel’s philosophy of art, and how these themes connect to the digital age.

Polmeer is a member of the organising committee and a submissions reviewer for the annual Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Conference (EVA). He recently co-organised and co-curated the exhibition Event Two in collaboration with EVA, CAS, FLUX and Lumen Arts Projects, a fiftieth anniversary exhibition of historical and contemporary computer art and a series of related events, in connection to the 1969 Event One CAS exhibition at the RCA. He has co-organised and co-chaired symposia at the British Computer Society on digital aesthetics, ‘Coded Communication: Digital Senses and Aesthetics, Merging Art and Life’ in 2017 and ‘States of Being: Art and Identity in Digital Space and Time’ in 2018. He is currently co-organising a 2020 symposium at the BCS, on Art and AI. He has reviewed for the journal Leonardo's peer review panel, a part of the International Society for Art Science and Technology (ISAST), and is a member of the Computer Arts Society (CAS).

As an artist, Polmeer has exhibited works widely, both nationally and internationally, working with digital projection, abstraction and colour. Works have been exhibited in galleries, cinemas and festivals. Exhibitions in recent years include Alternate Frames at Cineinfinito (Spain), Contact: A Festival of New Experimental Film and Video at Apiary Studios (UK), Four Modes of Anti-Image: Recent Film and Video from the UK at the State Hermitage Museum (Russia) and Durational Video at Northwest Film Forum (USA). He has written essays and reviews of his own work and others’ works in books, journals and catalogues. Recent works include the video/light projections Triple/Double/Distance (2017), Double/Distance (2016), and Field/Variation (2014). These works explore various processes of composition and layering, extending transient phenomena into detailed forms of light and movement. The landscape work Sea (2011) has been widely exhibited, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK), Northwest Film Forum (USA), Royal Geographical Society Conference (UK), and the State Hermitage Museum (Russia). His video work has featured in texts on contemporary artists’ film and video, including the Senses of Cinema essay ‘Negative Light: Contemporary British Experimental Film and Video’, and the artists’ film and video journal Sequence essay ‘Routes to Physical Optics’ surveying contemporary practice. He has written on artists’ film and video in publications such as Millennium Film Journal, and on his own work in Leonardo journal.

Polmeer’s broader research interests include landscape and the philosophy of nature, urbanism and theories of space and place, experimental film and video, animation and illustration and graphic design. He has worked as a lecturer in the studio and theoretical/contextual studies across a number of universities for many years in the fields of Fine Art and Visual Communication.

Dr Polmeer is a member of the organising committee and a submissions reviewer for the annual Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Conference (EVA). He has twice co-organised and co-chaired the EVA pre-conference symposium. He has reviewed for the Leonardo peer review panel, the journal of the International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST), is a member of the Computer Arts Society (CAS), a member of the Hegel Society of Great Britain (HSGB), and is affiliated with London and Oxford Hegel Reading Groups. Recent collaborations for Event Two with EVA, CAS, FLUX and Lumen Arts Projects, and related events with the V&A. He is an Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).