Eirini Nikopoulou

I am a dedicated cinema, philosophy of film, AI personalisation, critical data, ethics and spectatorship Doctoral researcher with a professional background in film criticism, curation and programming for exhibition concepts and practices, ranging from international film festivals to independent, community-led, volunteer-run cinemas. In 2018, I completed my Masters’ Degree at the Digital Humanities Department, King’s College London, achieving a distinction for my dissertation on audience formations and spectators’ engagement in object-based media ecosystems.

In my doctoral research I explore critically the figuration of the spectator, her agency and conceptualisations of the cinematic image in the context of a data-intensive, aesthetico-political milieu of personalisation. Interdisciplinary in nature, my study draws on film theory and philosophy of film, aesthetics, post-humanities and critical data studies in order to consider the effects of personalised algorithmic curation and exhibition processes on emerging notions of the cinematic image and spectatorship.

In 2014 I co-founded and became editor-in-chief of Frame !ndependent, a film criticism initiative bringing quality independent film to the fore through reviews, interviews with filmmakers and long-form analytical pieces about cinema. Frame !ndependent was created out of the need to redefine the way film exhibition and criticism connects with filmmakers, audiences, spaces and professionals in a post-digital, post-exposure context and bridge the gap between independent filmmaking, professional film criticism, traditional and emerging modes of distribution and exhibition.