Matthias Maria Wittmann is a media theorist, writer, and curator, who lives between Basel, Grenoble, and Vienna. He received his PhD in Media Studies in 2013 on the topic MnemoCine: The Construction of Memory in the Experience of Film (diaphanes, 2016). From 2009 to 2019, he researched and taught at the Department for Media Studies at the University of Basel, focusing on film, screenology, media mnemographies, and transcultural aesthetics. He was co-principal investigator (PI) of the research project Afterimages of Revolution and War: Traumaand Memoryscapes in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, 2016–2019). The project resulted in the book Counter Memories in Iranian Cinema, ed. with Ute Holl (Edinburgh University Press, 2021). In 2021, he was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna (Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Studies). As a writer, he has been given grants and studios by Atelier Mondial, Landis & Gyr, and FILMEXPLORER. He has recently completed two books on the octopus: Die Gesellschaft des Tentakels / The Society of the Tentacle (Matthes & Seitz, 2021) and Oktopia (Büchergilde Gutenberg, 2023). Currently, he is developing an introductory book about transculturality (Junius, forthcoming 2027) and an experimental essay with the title “Salto Desorientale.”