Digital Attention Loops

Max Bergmann  (Vienna Shorts)

Online, attention moves in different directions, often in disorienting patterns. How does cinema reflect and react to these technological changes? This lecture will trace different cinematic strategies in a variety of examples from the 21st century. Films may incorporatecomputing technologies, interfaces, and glitches into the film frame, or adapt their narratives to the non-linear logic of the Internet. By analyzing the films in their wider contexts, we will address how film is positioning itself in an increasingly networked world.

Max Bergmann is a film scholar and the artistic director of the international short film festival Vienna Shorts, where he previously worked as curator and head of cooperations. In his recent PhD dissertation in Film and Media Studies, he focused on non-linear narration, Internet culture, and digitalization in 21st-century cinema.

Film program:

Maat, Fox Maxy, 30', US, 2020, HD video
Weird Absurd Whatever, Zeynep Dadak, Çiçek Kahraman, 7', TR, DE, 2025, HD video
First, Micaela Durand, Daniel Chew, 12', US, 2019, HD video
The Wind, Miranda Javid, 4', US, 2020, HD video
m h y t n I x, Karin Ferrari, 22', AT, 2020, HD video