ERC Starting Grant 2026
ectype — a copy without an original
ECTOCINEMA
New Topologies of Cinematic Time
Dr Daniel Chávez Heras
King's College London · 60 months
RESEARCH CHALLENGE
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From recorded to predicted temporalities...

Grandma's Reading Glass, G.A. Smith (1900)
1900
Sora Showcase, B. Desai (2024)
2024

...a computational model of cinematic time.

INNOVATION
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What if time had a different shape?

Timeline — time as dimension
Timeline
Time-mesh — time as topology
Time-Mesh
IMPACT
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Rethinking
screen archives
Reshaping
editing interfaces
Redrawing
disciplinary boundaries

From film and video analytics, to growing synthetic screen cultures in the lab.

ERC Starting Grant 2026
ECTOCINEMA
New Topologies of Cinematic Time
End of presentation
TEAM
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Research team organigram
METHODOLOGY
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Research methodology diagram
FRAMESENSE
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
FrameSense CLI
FrameSense data model
SCULPTING TIME WITH COMPUTERS EXPERIMENTS
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Sculpting Time experiment 1
SCULPTING TIME WITH COMPUTERS EXPERIMENTS
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Sculpting Time experiment 2
SCULPTING TIME WITH COMPUTERS EXPERIMENTS
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Sculpting Time experiment 3
SCULPTING TIME WITH COMPUTERS EXPERIMENTS
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Sculpting Time experiment 4
THEORY FRAMEWORK
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
Mary Ann Doane — The Emergence of Cinematic Time
Baron, Miller, Tallant — Out of Time
Daniel Chávez Heras
RESOURCES
ADDITIONAL SLIDES
€1.84M ERC Total
Personnel 58.5% €1,078k
Dry Lab (KDL + HPC) 18.6% €342k
Indirect costs 16.3% €300k
Travel, publications & other 6.6% €122k
Personnel allocation · 60 months
Y1
Y2
Y3
Y4
Y5
PI
PM
PDR 1
PDR 2
RA
100% FTE
80% FTE
60% FTE
50% FTE