Dr Andrew Lapworth
Senior Lecturer

Dr Andrew Lapworth

BSc Geography (Bristol)

MSc Society and Space (Bristol)

PhD Human Geography (Bristol)

UNSW Canberra
School of Science

Scholarships of AUD$35,000 are available for PhD students who achieved H1 /High Distinction in their UG program and/or have completed a Masters by Research. If you are interested, contact me at a.lapworth@adfa.edu.au

 

Andrew is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Geography in the School of Science at UNSW Canberra.

He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate education in Geography at the University of Bristol, UK. He was also a Lecturer in Historical and Cultural Geography at the University of Bristol before taking up his post at UNSW Canberra in 2019.

His research interests lie in contemporary cultural geography. Specific areas of interest include:

  • Continental philosophy and social theory (especially the thought of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Gilbert Simondon, Alfred North Whitehead, Friedrich Nietzsche, Baruch Spinoza, Gabriel de Tarde, and Félix Ravaisson).
  • Non-representational, post-humanist, and new materialist theories and their implications for geographical thought and practice. 
  • Art-science collaborations and encounters
  • Cinema and popular visual cultures
  • Human-Technology relations

 

Currently his research is based around three main projects:

 

1. Encounters at the Art-Science Interface

The first agenda is concerned with how people and communities make sense of a world being dramatically reshaped by developments in science and technology, and the role that art and aesthetic experience can play in communicating, and potentially transforming, that experience. It develops out of Andrew's PhD research which addressed the growing interest within and beyond academia in the emerging field of interdisciplinary 'art-science' collaborations, which use the arts to engage with and critique developments in science and their implications for society. This research draws on recent new materialist and non-representational theories to think in more transformative terms about the ethical and political potentials of art-science encounters, spotlighting the new material practices, transversal spaces, and singular forms of life emerging at the contemporary interface of the arts and sciences. Outputs from this agenda to date include articles in Cultural GeographiesTheory, Culture & Societyand Transformations: Journal of Media, Culture, and Technology, as well as a book chapter on 'transversality' in art-science collaborations. His current research project pushes forward on this research agenda through an exploration of the distinct geographies and material practices of the emerging DIYBio/Biohacking movements, in which everyday spaces are transformed into sites of aesthetic experimentation that facilitate community engagement with biotechnologies. Future plans include articles exploring the technical cultures and mentalities (after Simondon) of these movements, drawing on ethnographic research at sites in Europe and Australia.

 

2. Geography, Cinema, and the Politics of Thought

The second agenda is concerned with cinematic geographies. A particular focus here is on theorisations of the politics of cinema and its relation to processes of social and cultural change. Eschewing representational approaches that narrowly define this relation in terms of the reification or subversion of already-existing identities, my work instead frames a transformative cinematic politics in terms of its immanent relation to the material event of thinking. Taking inspiration from the film-philosophies of (among others) Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Andre Bazin, Sergei Eisenstein, and Jean Epstein, he is interested in the capacity of cinematic encounters to express modes of thinking that exceed the human, and which bring about new possibilities of thought that transform our sense and perception of the world. This agenda develops partly out of collaborations with colleagues at Kyoto University looking at the relation of cinema and social change in the context of Japanese cinema. Outputs to date include an article in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies on the immanent cinematic space-times of Yasujiro Ozu and a chapter in the edited collection Why Guattari: Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies, and Politics on micropolitics and the machinic expression of desire in the anime of Satoshi Kon.

 

3. Continental Philosophy and Geographical Thought and Practice

This final research agenda reflects broader interests around the implications of continental and post-continental philosophy for contemporary geographical thought and practice. Here Andrew works in close collaboration with colleagues in the Difference Laboratory - an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional network of scholars from UNSW Canberra, the Australian National University, and the University of Bristol. 

 

 

Phone
+61 2 5114 5586
  • Book Chapters | 2023
    2023, 'Cultural Geographies', in Lees L; Demeritt D (ed.), Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 85 - 89
    Book Chapters | 2019
    2019, 'Guattari and the Micropolitics of Cinema: The Desiring-Machines of Satoshi Kon', in Jellis T; Gerlach J; Dewsbury J-D (ed.), Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics, Routledge, pp. 187 - 201
    Book Chapters | 2017
    2017, 'For a Transversal Art-Science', in Scientist-in-Residence Program: A New Approach to Art-Science, Gluon, Brussels, pp. 9 - 13
  • Journal articles | 2023
    2023, 'Correction: Geophilosophy round table (Subjectivity, (2023), 10.1057/s41286-023-00150-1)', Subjectivity, http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41286-023-00158-7
    Journal articles | 2023
    2023, 'Geophilosophy round table', Subjectivity, http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41286-023-00150-1
    Journal articles | 2022
    2022, 'From ‘world’ to ‘earth’: non-phenomenological subjectivity in Deleuze and Guattari's geophilosophy', Subjectivity, 15, pp. 135 - 151, http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41286-022-00135-6
    Journal articles | 2022
    2022, 'Thinking the unconscious beyond the psychoanalytic subject: Simondon, Murakami, and the transductive forces of the transindividual', Social and Cultural Geography, pp. 1 - 18, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2022.2073469
    Journal articles | 2021
    2021, 'Responsibility Before the World: Cinema, Perspectivism and a Nonhuman Ethics of Individuation', Deleuze and Guattari Studies, 15, pp. 386 - 410
    Journal articles | 2020
    2020, 'A ‘Post-Work’ World: Geographical Engagements with the Future of Work', Political Quarterly, 91, pp. 310 - 316, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12785
    Journal articles | 2020
    2020, 'Gilbert Simondon and the Technical Mentalities and Transindividual Affects of Art-science', Body & Society, 26, pp. 107 - 134, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034x19882750
    Journal articles | 2019
    2019, 'Practising post-humanism in geographical research', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44, pp. 637 - 643, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12322
    Journal articles | 2019
    2019, 'Sensing', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12327
    Journal articles | 2018
    2018, 'Ambient Media: Japanese Atmospheres of the Self', EMOTION SPACE AND SOCIETY, 28, pp. 67 - 68, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2018.05.002
    Journal articles | 2016
    2016, 'Cinema, thought, immanence: Contemplating signs and empty spaces in the films of Ozu', Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, 3, pp. 13 - 31, http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jucs.3.1.13_1
    Journal articles | 2016
    2016, 'Theorizing Bioart Encounters after Gilbert Simondon', Theory, Culture and Society, 33, pp. 123 - 150, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263276415580173
    Journal articles | 2015
    2015, 'Beyond Bifurcation: Thinking the Abstractions of Art-Science after A. N. Whitehead', Transformations: Journal of Media, Culture and Technology, http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Lapworth_Transformations26.pdf
    Journal articles | 2015
    2015, 'Habit, art, and the plasticity of the subject: the ontogenetic shock of the bioart encounter', Cultural Geographies, 22, pp. 85 - 102, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474013491926
    Journal articles | 2014
    2014, 'Deleuze and Race', SOCIAL & CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY, 15, pp. 685 - 686, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2013.858885
    Journal articles | 2013
    2013, 'Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of the Transindividual', MODERN & CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, 21, pp. 392 - 393, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2013.818958
  • Conference Presentations | 2019
    2019, 'Gilbert Simondon and the Transindividual Unconscious', presented at 2019 Institute of Australian Geographers Conference, Hobart, 09 July 2019 - 12 July 2019
    Conference Presentations | 2019
    2019, 'Gilbert Simondon and the Transindividual Unconscious', presented at American Association of Geographers Conference, 2019, Washington DC, 03 April 2019 - 07 July 2019
    Conference Presentations | 2019
    2019, 'The Dream-Machines of Satoshi Kon', presented at Deleuze/Guattari Studies in Asia: 7th International Conference, Tokyo, 21 June 2019 - 23 June 2019
    Conference Presentations | 2018
    2018, 'Beyond Two Cultures: A. N. Whitehead, the bifurcation of nature, and the abstractions of art-science', presented at Media, Culture, and Heritage Seminar Series, Newcastle University, 12 December 2018
    Conference Presentations | 2016
    2016, 'Contemplating City and Cinema after Gilles Deleuze', presented at Deterritorialising Visual Theory and Culture: Anglo-Japanese Encounters, Bristol, UK, 26 July 2016
    Conference Presentations | 2016
    2016, 'Deleuze, cinema, and a nonhuman ethics of individuation', presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, 2016, San Francisco, USA, 29 March 2016 - 02 April 2016
    Conference Presentations | 2014
    2014, 'The screen is also a brain: contemplative subjects and spaces in Ozu', presented at Deleuze Studies in Asia: 2nd International Conference, Osaka, Japan, 06 June 2014 - 08 June 2014
    Conference Presentations | 2014
    2014, 'Thought, cinema, immanence: contemplating signs and empty spaces in the films of Ozu', presented at Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference, 2014, London, UK, 27 August 2014 - 29 August 2014
    Conference Presentations | 2013
    2013, 'A theatre of individuation: theorising bioart encounters after Gilbert Simondon', presented at Sociology Seminar Series, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 28 February 2013
    Conference Presentations | 2013
    2013, 'Theorising bioart encounters after Gilbert Simondon', presented at SymbioticA Seminar Series, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 15 March 2013
    Conference Presentations | 2011
    2011, 'Habit, subjectivity, and the micropolitics of art', presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, 2011, Seattle, USA, 12 April 2011 - 16 April 2011

My Research Supervision

I am currently supervising six students at UNSW:

Kevitiyagala Liyana Arachchila (Kushani) Liyanage - 'Smart Mobilities and the Technical Production of Subjectivity after Gilbert Simondon' 

Sabrina Shanto - 'Harassment and the Emotional Geographies of Fear on Public Transport in Dhaka'

Eliza Arias - 'Development of a Climate Resiliency and Adaptation Framework for the Protection and Management of Coastal Heritage Places along the Southern Victorian and Northern Tasmanian Coastlines'

Deepak Tiwari - 'Deleuze and the Non-Representational Politics of South Asian Cinema'

Lan Yi - 'The Tension and Hybridity of Minorities Identity in Northwest China'

 

I have one recent PhD completion:

George Burdon - 'Making Inaudible Forces Audible: Thinking through Deleuze's Ethics of Expression Towards an Ethics of Experiment Exemplified in the Sonic Arts' (2022)