Robert Rapoport

Robert Rapoport is an educator and researcher working on the history and social implications of the algorithmic assembly of moving images. Bridging media theory, design research, and science and technology studies, his current project uses 20th-century montage theory as a lens on reasoning models, and asks what the implications for interface design might be, and what kind of teaching might follow.

He did his postdoctoral research at the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University Lüneburg, in collaboration with the actor Bernd Grawert and the Thalia Theater, Hamburg. The project explored how detection algorithms might work in cybernetic conversation with method acting. He has taught across disciplines at the University of Oxford, the University of St. Gallen, and Leuphana, where he built the "Critical Montage" curriculum around the question: what literacies might help students metabolize automated video feeds?

He holds a B.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, where his dissertation, "The Iterative Frame," treated algorithmic video editing as an interface for social feedback. His work has been presented at venues including the Ashmolean Museum, the ICA, the Science History Institute, and the Stiftung Niedersachsen.