Ulrik Schmidt
Roskilde University Denmark
Ulrik Schmidt is associate professor in Performance Design and Visual Culture at Roskilde University, Denmark, working in the intersection between media philosophy, contemporary art, sound studies, architecture and audiovisual aesthetics. Schmidt’s overall research interests are centered around exploring the material conditions and framing mechanisms that guide sensory experience and the production of subjectivity in modern culture. On this background, he seeks to develop a critical, theoretical framework for analyzing the design of our contemporary environment and its philosophical, sociocultural and political implications in light of general processes of aestheticization and mediatization. He is the author of two books: The Aesthetics of Minimalism (2007, in Danish) – a comparative study of the aesthetic principles in minimal art and music in the 1960s and 1970s – and The Ambient: Sensation, Mediatization, Environment (2013, in Danish). In the latter, Schmidt analyzes ‘the ambient’ as a leading aesthetic principle in art and culture from the early 19th century to the present. On this background, the book develops a theoretical framework for understanding how cultural practice is increasingly shaped by ambient modes of perception due to a widespread tendency in art, technology, audiovisual culture and urban design to stage specific ‘sensations of being surrounded’. Furthermore, Schmidt has published in English and Danish on various topics including sonic atmosphere; synthetic materiality; format aesthetics; topology and architecture; Phil Spector and sonic mediatization; ubiquituous computing; abstract film; Buster Keaton and material comedy; surrealist documentary film; and environmental performance. He is currently co-editing the book Media Aesthetics (forthcoming, 2020).