Damian Sutton

Before coming to Coventry I taught at The Glasgow School of Art and Middlesex University, where I also led research administration and development. I trained in fine art photography, then media studies, then film studies, and then film-philosophy, and I continue to specialise in teaching historical and critical studies to art, design and media students. 

As a research leader in art, design and media I sit on the Research Strategy Group for the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design, and have acted as a research application reviewer of photography, film and visual culture applications for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the Australian Research Council, The Carnegie Trust, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I sit on the editorial board of Film-Philosophy (OHP).

Time and memory: My principal work has explored the potential for a new philosophy of time and memory in the photograph, based on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson. 

Photography – portraiture, authorship, process: Here I explore creative decision-making, tacit knowledge and authorship in photography practice and reception. This has developed into twin projects – one looking at the masculinization of humanist photography, and another exploring our relationship to the photographic portrait before and after digital through the philosophy of Kant and Levinas.

Creativity in cinema production: After developing an undergraduate short course on cinema design, I began to explore creative decision-making in the film industry. This research focused on production design and design-led approaches to creative industry studies, which was funded by the AHRC to conduct a project – ‘Form Follows Fiction’ – on design decisions in 1930s Hollywood, specifically the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical series.

I am also interested in research collaborations on the following topics: mobility and the flâneur; Christmas and popular culture; ethics in art and design practice. I would welcome enquiries seeking to work together in any of the above areas.