Zach Horton

is a second year PhD student in English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a writer, director, and producer of independent films. His research interests include human-computer interface, navigation between the analog and the digital, theories and representation of information, alchemy, autopoietic conceptions of life, complexity, and scale.

He has an MFA in Film Directing from the American Film Institute Conservatory, studied Philosophy and Creative Writing at Oxford University, and earned his BA in both Media Arts and Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He was the 2002 recipient of the national Cary Grant Film Award for his short film work. In 2006 he was the filmmaker-in-residence at the Idyllwild Arts Academy. In 2009, after four years of work, he completed his "Disaster Trilogy," three feature-length films that examine middle-class American culture during the first years of the new millennium. More information about his past film projects can be found on the Films page of this site.

Academic Projects

Collaborative Media Commons: www.cmcommons.org

The CMC seeks to integrate traditional academic theory-based work with collaborative art creation, blurring the lines between narrative and theory, ideas and media objects, and ultimately the academy and the public.

Academic Affiliations

Center for Nanotechnology and Society, Innovate Group: innovate.ucsb.edu

Zach is part of the Innovation Group, which studies competing paradigms of innovation in the USA.

Transcriptions: lcm.english.ucsb.edu

HASTAC: www.hastac.org

Zach is a HASTAC scholar for 2010-11

Film Grants and Awards

2005 Silver Bear (Festival of Nations, Austria, for short film, Salamander)
2004 Goldman Sachs & Co. Grant (for short film, Salamander)
2002 Chancellors Research Scholarship, UCSD (short film, After The End)
2002 Cary Grant Film Award (Princess Grace Foundation)
2002 Princess Grace Undergraduate Scholarship
2002 Telluride Film Festival, TFF Student Symposium 2002, member
2002 US Grants, grant to fund film Three Steps to Implosion
2001 US Grants, grant to fund film Ghosts
2000 Caledonian Society, Muir College, UCSD (honors society)

Selected Filmography