The Global Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Michael's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
About Michael
Michael Punt is a Professor of Art and Technology at the University of Plymouth, an Honorary Professor at University College London, and Editor-in-Chief of Leonardo Reviews.
He is the founding convenor of the Transtechnology Research Group which has a constituency of more than 20 international doctoral, post-doctoral and visiting researchers who use a range of practice and theory-based methods. Topics currently being researched concern the historical and philosophical aspects of nineteenth century media and contemporary digital technology, cinema and the technological imaginary, cognitive aspects of industrial design, affective interaction and instrumentation, spatial awareness in scientific representation, sustainable new materials for artefact engineering, simulation in clinical training, and applied clinical simulation in ODAs. He has directed over 30 PhD completions.
Michael Punt has practiced and exhibited internationally as a sculptor and film maker and taught in Art Schools and Universities continuously from 1969. In 1992 he was awarded a 4-year bursary from the University of Amsterdam and brought, historical research begun in 1989 at UEA and his film practice to bear on a new history of early cinema. Subsequently this research was applied to a wider consideration of the cognitive determinants of technological form in audio visual media and this informs his current research. He has jointly produced two books, made 16 films and published over 100 articles on cinema history and digital technology in key journals. Between 1996 and 2000 he was a monthly columnist for Skrien, the Dutch journal of audiovisual media, commenting on the interaction between the internet and cinema as it was developing. His research has been supported by funding from the AHRC, and the EU through HERA and Marie Curie. His current research brings art practice and historical criticism into a unified publishing platform.
He is a panel member and reviewer for a number of national funding bodies including those in Austria, Canada, Portugal and the European Commission. He is Head of the FWF PEEK Board that awards funding for Arts led research in any discipline. For ten years he was a member of the AHRC PRC and supported the Council in a number of training and advisory capacities and was a member of the Strategic Reviewer Group, RiR, and UK JHEP advisory board on cultural heritage. He is currently a member of the UKRI FLF College Panel. His current academic functions at Plymouth are supporting doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, supporting the research strategy and leading interdisciplinary research projects.
His current academic functions at Plymouth are supporting doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, supporting the research strategy and leading interdisciplinary research projects cocerned with health provision and technology. His most recent art-works and writings are published in the Place (an art magazine published by artists)which can be found at: (https://www.place-plateforme.com/presentation/index.html ).
Supervised Research Degrees
Professor Bill Seaman, Thesis: Recombinant Poetics; Emergent Meaning as Examined and Explored within a Specific Generative Virtual Environment (1999).Dr Jonathan Bedworth, Thesis: AL Programming for Musical Composition (2001).
Dr Martha Blassnigg. The Cinema and its Spectatorship: The Spiritual Dimension of the ‘Human Apparatus’ (UoW 2007).
Dr David MacConville. On The Evolution of Heavenly Spheres. 2013.
Professor Chris Speed. A Social Dimension for Digital Architectural Practice (2007).
Dr Stephen Thompson. Industrial Design Discourses (2008).
Dr Martyn Woodward. Sensual Communication: Toward and Embodied Model of Visual Communication. (ESF)
Dr John Vines. Aging Futures: Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products. (AHRC) (2010)
Dr Hannah Drayson, Gestalt Biometrics and their Applications; Instrumentation, Objectivity and Poetics. (EPSRC) (2011)
Dr Joanna Griffin, Changing Space: The Social and Experiential Culture of Spacecraft and the Public Domain (AHRC) (2014).
Dr Rita Cachao, The Mis-en-abyme of Space: Towards an artistic methodology to approach the ontology of space as a methodological tool. (FTC. 2015)
Dr Taslima Begum, (Transtechnology Research). Design and Post Colonialism. (UoW. 2015)
Dr Marcio Rocha. New routes to Human Computer Interaction: Reconciling the Artificial with Human Nature. (2015) (CAPES)
Dr Claudy Op den Kamp. Copyright Law and the Re-Use of Archival Footage. (2015) (UoP)
Dr Phil Ellis. Reenacting Television History. ( UoP 2017).
Amanda Egbe. Mphil. Notions on Radical Image Archive Practice. (UoP, 2016)
Dr Edith Doove. Curation and the Inframince. (2017)
Dr Eugenia Stamboliev. Animatronic Robot Morality and Ethics. (UoP 2017)
Dr Abigail Jackson. Autism and Performance Approaches. (2019. AHRC).
Dr Guy Edmonds. Early Cinema and the Cognitive Impact of Digital Projection (EU 2020)
Dr Agi Haines. Ides Exchange Understanding the Human Object. (UoP 2021)
Dr Jacqui Knight. The Contact Sheet as a Conduit to Creativity. (UoP 2021)
Dr Heidi Morstang. Intuitive Interventions: Constructing Documentary Cinematic Narratives. (UoP)
Teaching
Technology and Culture- Art and technology- Science and technology as a history of ideas
- Popular interpretations of science in the late nineteenth century
Film Studies and Cinema History
- Early cinema and technology
- Early film form
- Cinema history and theory
Technology and Historiography
- Interpretations of nineteenth century ideas in science and technology
Contact Michael
Room 321B, 22 Portland Square, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
+44 1752 586264
michael.punt@plymouth.ac.uk
