The 22nd Annual Society for Animation Studies Conference

Call for Papers - Animation Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS - Animation Studies

Society for Animation Studies members are invited to submit conference papers from conferences they participated in, especially SAS conferences past and present in the growing subject area of animation studies. Non-members are welcome to submit papers, but must join the society before an accepted paper can be published. (Membership details available at animationstudies.org).

All papers are subject to peer review and presentation; acceptance of a paper at a conference is not a guarantee of publication. If a paper is accepted for a conference but not presented it can still be considered, subject to agreement by the editorial board.
Papers will be blind refereed where possible and comments collated and returned to the author by the editor.

The journal editions run on an annual basis with papers accepted throughout the year but the volume closed on calendar year end. In order to simplify the refereeing and submission, papers will be accepted at deadlines throughout the year. We invite authors to submit papers in spring and late summer/early autumn.

We strongly encourage the submission of past papers in order to establish a useful archive of work which members can access. We also encourage the submission of links to other publications or bibliographic citations where conference papers have been published elsewhere.
Papers are not limited to word length, though it is expected that the paper will not exceed that of the presentation, or a reasonable approximation of it. Authors may edit their conference presentations, but the text must provide a reasonable representation of the material presented at the conference.

Images are welcomed but authors must seek permissions to reproduce them in the journal. Rights owners must be identified in the caption, in the manner specified by the rights owner in a release form signed by that individual. Articles are published under Creative Commons regulations, which allows the author to retain copyright but allows free distribution of the work for educational purposes. Creative Commons is in line with progressive online publishing practices.
The Harvard Referencing system will be used. All papers should be submitted in Microsoft Word document files (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Please submit images in low resolution, web-ready formats.

Email your essay, including a cover page stating your name, your institutional affiliation (now and at the time of the paper presentation), the name of the paper, the conference at which it was published, the date of presentation (or conference dates), four to seven keywords pertaining to the article, a one- to two-sentence blurb, and any significant information related to the editing of the paper. Please also provide contact information suitable for publication with the paper.

Deadline for papers is Thursday 19th August. Submit all proposals to Dr Nichola Dobson, Editor at journal@animationstudies.org or nichola_dobson@yahoo.co.uk


http://animationstudies.org

http://journal.animationstudies.org

Bookseller

Another quick update to inform delegates that there will be a bookstall by Blackwell's at the conference over the weekend.

They will be bringing a range of books to buy and you can browse their website here.

Edinburgh Weather

Just a quick update on the weather. At the moment the longish range forecasts are mixed between showers and sun. Typically we've had really lovely weather for the last few weeks!

I would recommend you prepare with sunglasses and an umbrella/rain jacket just in case of either/both!

You can check this forecast if you like...its usually quite good.

See you soon

Schedule Changes - Sunday

Please note that the schedule on Sunday has changed ever so slightly. We are starting 10 minutes earlier in the morning so we can extend the lunch & AGM session. It's not too early for a Sunday morning but you might have to behave a bit at the party!

Sunday 11th July

Food, Drink & Sights

We like our maps! We've put together a live Google map showing recommended bars, restaurants, cafes, and coffee shops around Edinburgh College of Art. We've tried to pick locally run establishments where possible and also places that we think delegates will enjoy, including pubs with good selections of real ales, and whiskys.

Obviously there's no getting away from chains - so if you're desperate for a fix of Starbucks for some reason you won't have to look too hard. Edinburgh likes its bars, so most of them also serve food. Check out the descriptions in the larger map for a few more details, such as the great selection of food from our friends at the Filmhouse cafe bar.


View Animation Evolution 2010 - Food,Drink & Sights in a larger map

The map also shows some sights that attendees may like to visit (not during conference hours, obviously). Some of these are near ECA, like the Grassmarket and Royal Mile, while others require a bit more effort, such as climbing to the top of Arthur's Seat or Calton Hill. Perhaps save that for the Monday morning!

Map of Venues and Local Area

We've produced a map that shows the locations of the conference venues, as well as the accommodation that can be booked through the conference website, and some selected local transport links. Hopefully this will help delegates plan their visit. This map will be reproduced in the conference programme, and the delegate pack will also include a city centre pocket map.

(click on the map for a larger version)

Conference Venues
1. Edinburgh College of Art
2. Filmhouse Cinema
3. The Rutland – The One Below
4. The Counting House

Accommodation
5. Hotel Novotel
6. Premier Inn
7. Mercure Point Hotel
8. Apex City Hotel
9. Fountain Court Apartments – Harris
10. Fountain Court Apartments – Morrison
11. Fountain Court Apartments – Grove
12. Fountain Court Apartments – EQ-2

Transport
13. Edinburgh Waverley Train Station (Taxi Rank Inside Station)
14. Air Link Bus Stop (Direct Buses to and from Edinburgh International Airport)
15. * Bus Stop for No. 45, 23 and 27 – to Edinburgh College of Art
16. * Bus Stop for No. 45, 23 and 27 – from Edinburgh College of Art
17. + Bus Stop for No. 45, 23 and 27 – to City Centre, and No. 35 from Edinburgh International Airport
18. + Bus Stop for No. 45, 23 and 27 – from City Centre, and No. 35 to Edinburgh International Airport

* Due to ongoing roadworks in Edinburgh for the new tram system, some bus routes are being diverted. At the moment bus stops 15 and 16 above are currently not in use, and services are diverted along Waverley Bridge adjacent to Waverley Train Station and the Air Link terminal. However, by the time of the conference it is expected that the bus routes will have returned to normal.

+ Lothian Buses Number 35 runs direct from Edinburgh Airport to Edinburgh College or Art. The 35 is a normal city bus that departs every 15 minutes, takes approximately 50 minutes, and has limited luggage space, Attendees may prefer to travel on the Air Link bus, which has departures from the airport to the city centre every 10 minutes and takes about 30 minutes to travel to the city centre. Combined travel time is similar for both options.

Map image © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA. For more information please visit the websites www.openstreetmap.org and www.creativecommons.org.

Guest tickets for social events

We know that several delegates and speakers are traveling with partners/guests/spouses who are not attending the conference, so we have arranged a special guest ticket for all of the social events so they can join us in the evenings. (assuming they want to)

Tickets cost £25 and will allow the guest access to the screening at the Filmhouse and the reception at the Rutland on Friday night, and the party at the Counting House on Saturday night. The tickets must be ordered in advance (for numbers) by Friday 2nd July at the latest and are limited to guests of registered attendees only.
Tickets must be paid for in cash and can be paid for and collected from the conference registration desk.

You can order them by contacting me at animationevolution@animationstudies.org

see you soon!
Nichola Dobson
Conference Chair

Final Reminder: Animation Deviation

13 July 2010
 Bower Ashton Campus, University of the West of England, Bristol

The final programme and full information for this one day symposium at Bower Ashton Campus, Uni of the West of England, Bristol, is now up on the Animation Deviation website: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/sca/research/animation_deviation.shtml

Participants include significant animation theorists, experimental filmmakers, and new media artists and researchers in the UK and internationally.

Keynote speakers are

Alan Cholodenko - University of Sydney
Editor of The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation and The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation 


Nicky Hamlyn - University for the Creative Arts 
Film-maker and author of Film, Art, Phenomena.


Esther Leslie - Birkbeck College, London 
Author of Hollywood Flatlands, Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant Garde; Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism; Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry and Walter Benjamin.


Other presenters include Birgitta Hosea, Paul Wells, Susan Sloan, and Rose Bond.
Registration fee is £10. Book and pay via the symposium website. Cash only will be accepted on the day if places are still available.

Vicky Smith and Patrick Crogan,
Film Studies Research Group,
University of the West of England

Scottish Animation Network – Retrospective

Friday 9th July 17.30
The Filmhouse, 88 Lothian Road


To herald the beginning of the 22nd Annual Society for Animation Studies, hosted in Scotland for the first time, the Scottish Animation Network proudly presents a retrospective of the best and most diverse Scottish animation. The selection represents the range of talent and production facilities that have been nurtured in Scotland over many years. Featuring short films, TV commissions, advertising and the avant-garde, these short subjects will make you laugh, cry, reflect, cheer, applaud and if you happen to hail from Scotland, they will also make you proud.

In short, this screening has something for everyone to enjoy and celebrates everything that the animation sector in Scotland has to offer. This special compilation of films is to be shown at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse.

The screening will be followed by a drinks reception at The One Below, The Rutland Hotel, just a few minutes walk away. The reception from 19.00-21.00 is sponsored by Scottish Development International and will give delegates the chance to chat to some of the filmmakers in a relaxed setting.

Information for Speakers

Though you are welcome to bring your own laptops there will be PCs supplied for your presentation, which you can bring on CD/DVD or USB stick.

If you are using powerpoint or similar, where possible please email your presentation to the conference chair in advance (by Monday 5th July at the latest); if doing so please also bring backups on USB/disc.

All presenters note that while we will do our utmost to meet AV needs, we cannot guarantee the equipment so please have a backup plan for your paper presentation.

The technical specs for the rooms are as follows:

Lecture Theatre:
PC, with office 2007 (powerpoint etc), Internet access (on ECA PC), leads for own laptop, Mac connectors, data projector, powered speakers, Region 2 DVD player, Pal VHS player, Europe region Bluray player.

J05:
Laptop (PC) with office 2007, mac/laptop connectors, powered speakers, Internet access (on ECA PC), data projector

Board Room:
Laptop (PC) with office 2007, mac/laptop connectors, powered speakers, Internet access (on ECA PC), data projector (DVD players can be provided for J05 and Board Room but we must know in advance)

All rooms will be made available 15 minutes prior to your session; please use this time to set up and test any equipment, in order to avoid any delays in session times.

Please note that as the conference schedule is so busy we will be trying to keep to time as strictly as possible.

Convergence Panel

Saturday 10th July
11 - 12.30 (lecture theatre)


Animation is facing new opportunities and challenges in a number of areas including technology, education, exhibition and industrial changes. The nature of animation is questioned as live action increasingly embraces CG while the games industry is often at the forefront of digital animation techniques. With all of this in mind this panel will examine the nature of convergence of the animation industry with games, discuss new avenues of exhibition while querying the challenges of traditional broadcasting, and discuss the impact of these changes on the next generation of animators. In the midst of this, theorist increasingly battle apparent changes in the very definition of the form when the newest Hollywood releases rely heavily on digital effects, without acknowledging their animatedness.


Confirmed Panellists:
Gregor White – Abertay University (Chair)
Helen Jackson – Binary Fable animation studios.
Martin Fisher – Visible Ink
Dr Caroline Ruddell – Queen Mary’s University College


With support from the University of Abertay Dundee

Delegate offer from publisher SAGE

Some of you may already be aware of the Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, published by SAGE and edited by SAS member Suzanne Buchan.

The kind folks at SAGE have offered our conference delegates free online access from today until 30 September.

You can link to the free trial here

Paul Wells - Closing Keynote

Paul Wells has provided an abstract of his closing keynote paper to get you in the mood:

Another Fine Messi : Animation, Sport and Theorising Fascination

As the Society for Animation Studies Conference collides with the World Cup Football Finals, animation and top class sporting action once more vie for attention, each provoking the other to find out what brings them together – both the epitome of consciously created motion for a specific, pre-determined purpose, both a language of expression for a particular gaze.

Football’s own ‘professor’, Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger, recently described Barcelona forward, Lionel Messi’s dazzling performance against his team in the Champions League quarter finals, as that of a ‘Playstation’ player. This is not the first time that animated figures have been cited as a way of thinking about sporting practices, ranging inevitably from critiques predicated on ‘cartoon’ humour through to acknowledgements of the relationship between animated choreographies and the lyrical beauty of sporting activity.

Perhaps more importantly, and less recognised is that sport has been intrinsically bound up with animation right from its outset. Arguably, Arthur Melbourne Cooper’s animated matches playing volleyball and cricket in films made in 1896 are the first extant animated films per se, and inaugurate a history of sporting animation which plays itself out, for example, through British topical cartoons, Goofy’s sporting response to the radicalism of Warner Bros’ and MGM shorts, Anime’s preoccupation with baseball and sci-fi, arthouse engagements with sport and memory, and the gender-sensitive sporting representations in global advertising.

This paper will address this history, seeking to determine how execution and expression in animation and sport come together, and may be theorised by seeking out the fundamentals and fascinations of ‘the sporting animus’, and how this in turn may provide tools by which to articulate why animation and sport are so similar, attractive, intense and emotionally provocative.

Bus Deals

An update to the travel information has been added. Edinburgh Convention Bureau have negotiated special rates on the Airlink buses and on Edinburgh Bus Tours.

Please follow this
link to book your print at home tickets.

Though the schedule is packed, if you have extra time you might want to check out one of the tours, but no skiving off!

More information coming soon....

McLaren Legacy Panel

Friday 9th July
9.15 - 10.45 (lecture theatre)


With a view to the centenary of Scotland’s most famous animator in 2014, the panel will examine his legacy in Scotland and throughout the world. The panel will discuss the extent to which McLaren’s name is known and promoted in his homeland within the industry and in education. The NFB rightly hails his contribution to their success but does Scotland? Does his work still inspire new animators? How important is his nationality within his legacy and how important is his legacy within his nation’s industry?


Confirmed panelists:
Dr Jonathan Murray – Edinburgh College of Art (Chair)
Karl Magee – University Archivist, University of Stirling.
Iain Gardner – Independent animator
Elizabeth Hobbs - Spellbound Animations, 2005 EIFF McLaren award winner

With support from the University of Stirling

Schedule

Animation Evolution
The 22nd Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference
9-11th July 2010

Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland

The conference will take place at Edinburgh College of Art located at Lauriston Place, Edinburgh. All session rooms will be clearly marked and registration will take place in the foyer of the main building.

There is a special event planned on Friday evening after the panel sessions: details can be found here. After which there will be a drink reception at The One Below, The Rutland Hotel (1-3 Rutland Street), sponsored by the SDI.

The schedule includes several coffee breaks throughout the weekend, all refreshments provided. Lunch on all three days is also included in the delegate rate. Sunday's lunch break will also include the SAS AGM.

On Saturday night delegates are invited to the conference party at The Counting House, 38/6 West Nicolson Street, where a buffet will be served (there will also be an opportunity for those interested to watch the World Cup runners up match).

Please note that the schedule is subject to change.

Friday 9th July

Saturday 10th July

Sunday 11th July

Friday 9th July

8.00 - 9.00 Registration

9.00 - 9.15 Welcome (Lecture Theatre)

9.15 - 10.45 Roundtable Session – Norman McLaren Legacy (Lecture Theatre)


10.45-11.15 Coffee Break


11.15 – 12.55 Paper Sessions
Urbanimation- Representations of the City (Lecture Theatre)
• “Never forget who you are and where you are from”: Persepolis as urban memoir (Paul Ward, (Chair) Arts University College Bournemouth)
• In the City: Animating 21st Century Britain (Van Norris, University of Portsmouth)
• Urban Nightmares: Anime City Spaces (Caroline Ruddell, St Mary’s University College)
• Indexing a Dystopian Future in Metropia (Bella Honess Roe, University of Surrey)

Biographies (Room J05) - Chair: Robert Musburger, Musburger Media Services
• Chris Marker: animator and avatar (Edwin Carels, University College Ghent)
• Experimental Animation and Visual Effects: Illusive Applications of Innovative Visions (Pamela Turner, Virginia Commonwealth University)
• Drawing Upon the Unconscious: Text and Image in two animated films by Robert Breer and William Kentridge (Mirriam Harris, Unitec New Zealand)

Applications in Cognitive science (Board Room) - Chair: Kirsten Thompson, Wayne State University
• Cross-modal verification, weak synaesthesia, and the case of visual music (Paul Taberham, Kent University)
• Animating unique brain states: The Animated documentary and “psychorealism” (Samantha Moore, University of Wolverhampton)
• Animation Therapy (Joan Ashworth & Helen Mason, Royal College of Art, London)
• Reading the Rorschach (Caroline Parsons, University of Wales, Newport)

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch Break

14.00 – 15.15 Paper Sessions
National Movements (Board Room) - Chair: Tony Tarantini, Sheridan College
• Beyond Outsourcing: Indian Animation Education and Transnational Aesthetic Exchange (Timothy Jones, University of Southern California)
• Tradigital Mythmaking – New Asian Design Ideas for Animation (Hannes Rall, Nanyang Technological University Singapore)

Histories (Room J05) - Chair: Rebecca Coyle, Southern Cross University
• The Lightning Cartoon: Animation from Music Hall to Cinema (Malcolm Cook, Birkbeck College, University of London)
• Walt-to-Walt Oswald (Tom Klein, Loyola Marymount University)
• Going to the Dogs (David Williams, University of Teeside, Retired)

Literature and Narrative (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Dan North, University of Exeter
• Morel_Morello_Morella: The Metamorphosis of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ Invention in a (Re)Animated Universe (Maria Lorenzo Hernandez, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia)
• An Analysis of the significance of human-animal conflict in Princess Mononoke (Amy Ratelle, Ryerson University)
• Yeats, Joyce and Animation’s Field of Transformations (Tom Walsh, Arts University College, Bournemouth)

15.15 – 15.45 Coffee Break

15.45 – 17.00 Paper Sessions
Genre studies (Room J05) - Chair: Gan Sheuo Hui
• Insomniac Nightmares (Richard Leskosky, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• Shiver me timber: Animating gay porn (Adam de Beer, University of Cape Town)

Live action and digital cinema (Lecture Theatre)- Chair: Helen Jackson, Binary Fable
• Crossing Boundaries: Communities of Practise in Animation and Live-Action Filmmaking (Harvey Deneroff, SCAD and Victoria Deneroff, Georgia College and State University)
• Animation Scriptwriting and Transmedia Tension (Brian Fagence, University of Glamorgan)
• Etch-a-sketching in 3D: Technological Optimization and Technophobia in Pixar’s Toy Story and Monsters Inc. (Colleen Montgomery, University of British Columbia)

National Histories (Board Room) - Chair: Timo Linsenmaier
• Subversive Strategies in Soviet animation of Brezhnev period: Andrei Khrzhanovky’s “In the World of Fables” (Irina Chiaburu, Jacobs University, Bremen)
• The Appearance of Genre Characteristics in Hungarian Animated Films (Zoltan Varga, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
• Art in Transition: Bulgarian Animation after the fall of the Berlin Wall (Nadezhda Marinchevska, Institute of Art Studies, Sofia)

17.30 – 19.00 Scottish Animation Network - Retrospective Screening

19.00 – 21.00 Evening drinks reception - The One Below, The Rutland Hotel

Saturday 10th July

Saturday 10th July

9.00 - 9.30 Registration

9.30 - 10.30 Keynote – Clare Kitson (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Paul Ward, Arts University College, Bournemouth

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee Break


11.00 - 12.30 Roundtable Session - Convergence (Lecture Theatre)

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 14.45 Paper Sessions
Gaming and Virtual Realities (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Birgitta Hosea, Central St Martins College of Art & Design
• Animation and Augmented Reality (Erwin Feyersinger, University of Innsbruck)
• Contextualising dynamic emotional facial expression animation (Robin Sloan, Abertay University)
• The lively user: The Nintendo Wii system and the (re)animation of the player (Patrick Crogan, University of the West of England, Bristol)

Character and Performance (Room J05) - Chair: Van Norris, University of Portsmouth
• Actors in Sin City’s Animated Fantasy: Avatars, Aliens or Cinematic Dead-ends? (Pierre Floquet, IPB, Bordeaux University)
• Heavenly Voices and Bestial Bodies: Issues of Performance and Representation in Celebrity Voice-acting (Rebecca Miller Asherie, New York University)
• Avatar, “e-motion capture”, and the shifting industry rhetoric around performance/animation hybrids (Lisa Bode, University of Queensland)

14.50 – 16.05 Paper Sessions
Audiences and Interactivity (Room J05) - Chair: Pam Turner, Virginia Commonwealth University
• New Opportunities for Real-time Simulation in Animation (Mark Chavez and Liu Lin Yi)
• Not just for Kids: engaging an online adult audience with animation (Helen Jackson, Binary Fable Studios)
• From the first to the fifth screen: the evolution of narrative animation across contemporary screens (Deborah Szapiro, University of Technology, Sydney)

Interdisciplinary approaches (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: David Williams, (Retired) Teeside University
• Textile and Animation Theory: Who Needs it? (Jessica Hemmings, Edinburgh College of Art)
• Art, Animation and the Collaborative Process (Heather Holian, University of North Carolina)
• Blending Media: Expanding Animation in Contemporary and Interdisciplinary Research Fields (Suzanne Buchan, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham)

16.05 – 16.35 Coffee Break

16.35 – 17.50 Paper Sessions
Pedagogy and online learning, theory & practise (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Tom Klein, Loyola Marymount University
• Watch and Listen! The Website (Gunnar Strom, Volda University)
• Point and Click and Learn: Not Just Educational Benefits of Adventure PC Games/Animated Films of Czech Independent Game Development Studio Amanita Design (Eliska Decka, Charles University, Prague)
• Utilizing investigations in neuroscience to aid teaching first-time animation students (Steve Weymouth, University of New South Wales)

National Identities (Board Room) - Chair: Paul Ward, Arts University College, Bournemouth
• Animation Re-Orientation: Animation Forum West Midlands, G(local)isation and the Creation of Regional Network Communities in the New Digital Age (Kerry Gough, Birmingham City University)
• The Golden Ages of Animation: Diverse Origins in Canada and the U.S (Lynne Perras, Calgary University)
• The Israeli Animation of Jewish Tradition in “The Animated Haggadah” (Raz Greenberg, Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

CG Aesthetics (Room J05) - Chair: Pierre Floquet, IPB, Bordeaux University
• Animation Proliferation: is animation destined to be the dominant mode of expression and production for the Film and Television Industry? (Tony Tarantini, Sheridan Institute of Technology)
• There Be Dragons: Animated Visual Tropes and Fantasy Aesthetics in Mainstream Live Action Cinema (Jane Shadbolt, University of Newcastle, Australia)
• On the edge of the uncanny cliff: motion capture and animation in recent 3-D computer-generated photorealistic films. (Gregory Bennet, AUT University, New Zealand)

20.00 – 24.00 Conference party, The Counting House (buffet included)

Sunday 11th July

Sunday 11th July

9.20 – 10.35 Paper Sessions
Theory & Methodology
(Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Caroline Ruddell, St Mary's University College
• “The Three Ps in Coraline: Postfeminist, Psychoanalytic and Postmodernist approaches to the Animated Film” (Estefania Martinez, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale)

• Lines of convergence: the rhetoric, materiality and disciplinarity of the line in defining ‘animation’ (Richard Stamp, Bath Spa University)
• Filmic Consciousness, Gendering Spacetime, and the Rupture of Animation (Mark Bartlett, Open University)

New Media
(Room J05) - Chair: Miriam Harris, Unitec, New Zealand
• Animation as New Media: or Ontological Quest for Animation Media Epistemology (Hee Holmen, IT University of Copenhagen)

• Subversive or Submissive? User-Produced Flash Cartoons and Television Animation (Michael Daubs, University of Western Ontario)


Animating Iran: History, identity and the socially motivated animation (Board Room)
• History in Black and White: personal story, petty history and political manifesto in Marjaneh Satrapi’s Persepolis comic books and its animated version (Fatemeh Hosseini-shakib (Chair), Tehran Art University)
• An animated mirror: Preliminary Thoughts on Iranian Socially Oriented Animation (Reza Yousefzadeh-Tabasi)
• Mutually Inclusive: an investigation into the history of animation-documentary interaction in Iran (Rokhsareh Ghaem-Maghami)

10.35 – 11.05 Coffee Break


11.05 – 12.45 Paper Sessions

Techniques (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Harvey Deneroff, SCAD
• Liquid Color in Animation: Chromatic Paradoxes of Form and Abstraction (Kirsten Thompson, Wayne State University, Michigan)
• Unseen Hands: The Work of Stop Motion (Alice Gambrell, University of Southern California)

• Drawing Animation (Birgitta Hosea, Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London
• Bunraku’s Exploded View of Performance (Dan North, University of Exeter)


At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death (Room J05)
• An Eclipsed Birth meets an Eclipsed Death (Janeann Dill, University of Alabama)
• It's Raining Coyotes: Death and/in the Chase (Michael Dow, New York University/ North Eastern University)
• The Lifeworld of Wall-E: A New Generation (Freida Riggs, Independent Scholar)
• (The) Death (of) the Animator, or: The Felicity of Felix, Part III: Death and the Death of Death (Alan Cholodenko, (Chair) University of Sydney)

Representation
(Board Room) - Chair: Amy Ratelle, Ryerson University
• "We're Asian, More expected of us!" Representation, The Model Minority and Whiteness on King of the Hill (Alison Loader, Concordia University, Montreal)
• The Transformation of the Teenage Image in Oshii Mamoru’s Sky Crawlers (Gan Sheuo Hui, Kyoto University)

• “Masculinity Between Animation and Live Action, or, SpongeBob v. Hasselhoff” (Shannon Brownlee, Dalhousie University, Halifax)

• Animating Disability:Screening and discussion (Shira Avni, Concordia University Montreal)


12.45 – 14.15 Lunch (to include SAS AGM)


14.15 – 15.55 Paper Sessions

Music and Sound
(Room J05) - Chair: Richard Leskosky, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• The Role of the Minimalist Musical Aesthetic in the Line Films of Norman McLaren (Aimee Mollaghan, University of Glasgow)
• Silence,Sound and Music: theories of animated listening (Ross Winning, University of Wolverhampton)

• Selling reality: the role of sound in creating narrative reality within animated film and visual effect sequences (Peter Hodges, University of Glamorgan)

• AUDIOMATION: Animation Film Music in the Brave New Era (Rebecca Coyle, Southern Cross University, Australia)

Cross Platforms (Board Room) - Chair: Maria Lorenzo Hernandez, Universidad Politecnica De Valencia
• The Darwinian rise of Urban Kinetics (Carol MacGillivray, Thames Valley University)
• Expanded Cinema in animation (Martina Bramkamp, Kingston University & London College of Communication)

• The Experimental Cross-over (James Snazell, Edge Hill University)


Documentary (Lecture Theatre)
- Chair: Bella Honess Roe, University of Surrey
• Who’s Out There: Halas, the Relevance of Oral Traditions and the Animated Documentary (Charles daCosta, SCAD)
• “Reenactment, the Fantasmatic, and the Animated Documentary” (Steve Fore, City University of Hong Kong)
• The Animated Documentary as Masking – When Exposure and Disguise Converge (Nea Erlich, University of Edinburgh)

• “I don't know anything about it”: Waltz With Bashir and Slaughterhouse-Five (Jeff Marker, Gainesville State College)

15.55 – 16.25 Coffee Break


16.25 – 17.25 Keynote – Paul Wells (Lecture Theatre) - Chair: Van Norris, University of Portsmouth

17.25 – 17.55 Closing remarks & goodbyes (Lecture Theatre)

Tom Walsh

Yeats, Joyce and Animation’s Field of Transformations.

Abstract: Through an analysis of Tim Booth’s short films, this paper will discuss the potential for the animated form to embody Keiji Nishitani’s ‘field of transformations’. His films The Prisoner (1983) and Ulys (2000), adaptations of Yeats’ The Lake Isle of Inisfree and Joyce’s Ulysses respectively, mark moments of rupture in Irish culture and identity, and through a use of the plasmatic animated image, describe both the animated text’s relationship to literary sources and the contingent nature of language, history and identity itself.

Biographical Statement:
Thomas Walsh graduated from the Diploma in Animation Production Course at Ballyfermot Senior College in 1994, and worked as a Special Effects artist for Screen Animation Ireland on the feature productions The Pebble and the Penguin (1994) and All Dogs go to Heaven II (1995), and afterwards for the Walt Disney Feature Animation Studio on The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997) and Tarzan (1999). He has recently completed a PhD on the relationship between a contemporary Irish animation industry and postcolonialism at Loughborough University School of Art and Design, and has contributed an article on special effects animation in Paul Wells’ book Fundamentals of Animation (2006). Ongoing research creates critical linkages between animation practice and formations of national and personal identity arising from postcolonial studies.

He is currently a Senior Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Animation degree course at the Arts University College at Bournemouth in the UK.

Rokhsareh Ghaem-Maghami

Mutually Inclusive: an investigation into the history of animation-documentary interaction in Iran
(preconstituted panel: Animating Iran: History, identity and the socially-motivated animation)

Abstract
: Rokhsareh will be presenting a paper on the history of uses and interactions between the documentary and animation medium in Iran, focusing on some early examples of animated documentary. The paper attempts to provide a comprehensive investigation into the ‘functions’ of animated documentary in a 30 year period in Iran and the way it has undergone transformation during recent decades and eventually its current status within the emerging discourses of Iranian animation.

Iranian documentary filmmakers association, IRIDFA and Iranian House of Cinema have supported this trip and research.


Biographical statement:
Rokhsareh Ghaem-Maghami, is a documentary filmmaker and a researcher in film/animation aesthetics. Her MA dissertation has been published in Persian as a book, named: Animated Documentary, a New Way to Express (2008). Cyanosis (2007) is her first documentary. Complete with 10 minutes of animation sequences, the film illustrates how a poor street painter’s animated paintings shed light on his inner life, dreams, nightmares and memories. The film has been screened in more than 50 festivals all around the world and won more than 14 prestigious awards.

Reza Yousefzadeh-Tabasi

An animated mirror: Preliminary Thoughts on Iranian Socially Oriented Animation
(preconstituted panel: Animating Iran: History, identity and the socially-motivated animation)


Abstract:
This paper is a continuation of the paper which was presented last year at The Persistence of Animation conference on Eastern European animation. It is a part of Reza’s practice-based PhD research on animation’s potentialities for mediating social realities in restrictive contexts. Reza is currently researching on aspects of Iranian social realist cinema.

Biographical statement:
Reza Yousefzadeh-Tabasi is a PhD candidate in University for the Creative Arts at Farnham, UK. His research interests include realism in animation, Eastern European animation and Iranian social realist cinema. This paper is a continuation of the paper which was presented last year at The Persistence of Animation conference on Eastern European animation. It is a part of Reza’s practice-based PhD research on animation’s potentialities for mediating social realities in restrictive contexts. Reza is currently researching on aspects of Iranian social realist cinema.

Fatemeh Hosseini-shakib

History in Black and White: personal story, petty history and political manifesto in Marjaneh Satrapi’s Persepolis comic books and its animated version.
(preconstituted panel: Animating Iran: History, identity and the socially-motivated animation)

Abstract:
This pa
per will be discussing Marjaneh Satrapi’s Persepolis (2008) and the original comic books from the viewpoint of an ‘insider’ Iranian who also has the experience of an ‘outsider’ having lived in the so called ‘Western world’ for some years. Exploring the implications and pitfalls of the ‘means’ of narrating history in the two different mediums, it calls attention to the vulnerability of ‘petty histories’ of individuals (Hutcheon, 1989) when transferred or rather transcended into the big-screen as a feature-length film with a totally different/diverse range of audiences/expectations.

Biographical statement: Having completed her PhD in animation studies in the UK (UCA, Farnham) recently, Fatemeh Hosseini-shakib is currently lecturing animation theory/aesthetics in the Faculty of Cinema and Theatre of Tehran Art University, Iran. Her current research interests include the question of representation and realism (and its hybrid nature) in the works of Aardman studio, traditional 3D/puppet animation, medium specificity thesis regarding the interpenetrating relationship of cinema and animation, as well as ‘Iranian Animation’ and its emerging forms and institutions, and finally animation as a tangible element of modernity in the non-western worlds.

Animating Iran: History, identity and the socially-motivated animation

Preconstituted panel

The panel is a collective attempt at presenting a range of topics within Iranian animation discourses in relation to its not-very-long history. Focusing on sociopolitical questions regarding Iranian identity, history and social changes and problems, the panel offers a diversity of approaches and aspects of what maybe called socially oriented/motivated animation in Iran.


Panellists:
Fatemeh Hosseini-shakib (chair), Reza Yousefzadeh-Tabasi, Rokhsareh Ghaem-Maghami (see individual entries for details on each presentation)

Caroline Parsons

Reading the Rorschach

Abstract:
In this paper I shall propose that animated characters act as ink splots in a psychological test – that is that spectatorship relies on the wilful projection of consciousness onto an animated character. I would like to explore the notion that animation spectatorship relies on the human desire to anthropomorphise in order to create an emotional connection or attachment between the viewing human and the viewed object.


Biographical statement:
Arriving late to the medium of animation, Caroline Parsons worked in the industry through the 1990’s as a freelance compositor, at a time when digital non-linear editing technology was rapidly expanding to become a dominant mode of production. She joined Newport School of Art, Media and Design in 1998 and became the co-ordinator of the undergraduate programme. In this role, she has worked tirelessly to establish the programme as a leading animation education provider, and these efforts were rewarded in 2006 when the programme was given Skillset accreditation. She has since then taken on the co-ordination of the MA Animation programme. Two years into a Ph.D, her research interests centre around the impact of new technology on film spectatorship. Photorealistic digitally created or enhanced bodies, for example, mean that the viewer is no longer able to differentiate between Live action and Cartoon, between the real and the imaginary.

Tony Tarantini

Animation Proliferation: is animation destined to be the dominant mode of expression and production for the Film and Television Industry?

Abtract:
Thi
s paper discusses Computer Generated Animation (CGA) and its persistent proliferation of the Film and Television Industry. In an increasingly post-human age overflowing with cybernetic systems, virtual interactive interfaces, and multiple digital identities, modern man is increasingly dependent on and transformed by the ubiquitous new technology. This symbiotic relationship has altered our innate narrative and voyeuristic needs thereby changing who we are as spectators and resulting in increasingly shifting cyber-audience that demands innovative cinematic approaches. It is within this discourse of emergent modes of entertainment that I analyse and evaluate the contemporary use, cultural effects, and possible trajectory of the CGA medium.

Biographical statement:
Tony Tarantini is a veteran of the animation industry. As an artist, he has contributed to animated TV series and features that include: Babar the Elephant, Pippi Longstockings, Rupert the Bear, Franklin the Turtle, American Tail, George Shrinks, Magi Nation, and Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus. In addition, Tony has worked extensively in curriculum design and teaches in the Animation Program (Bachelor of Applied Arts) at the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada. This paper contributes to his critical inquiry of animation practice and pedagogy - areas of research to which he is deeply committed.

Jane Shadbolt

There Be Dragons : Animated Visual Tropes and Fantasy Aesthetics in Mainstream Live Action Cinema.

Abstract:
While d
igital effects have the potential to create infinite constructed environments they have also spawned a disproportionate amount of dragons, orcs, fairies and aliens, all following a familiar aesthetic template. If CGI can be considered a design tool and technique, it comes equipped, as do all tools and techniques, with a particular aesthetic. This paper examines popular animated visual tropes in mainstream genre live action film with a focus on James Cameron’s recent spectacular, Avatar and, in particular, the extent to which CGI technique shapes the aesthetic of contemporary visual effects in mainstream cinema.

Biographical statement: Jane Shadbolt is a stopmotion animator and designer. She is currently directing the short stopmotion animation The Cartographer, and is interested in spectacular cinema in miniature. She is a Lecturer in Visual Communications at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Pamela Turner

Experimental Animation and Visual Effects; Illusive Applications of Innovative Visions

Abstract:
T
he relationship between animation and visual effects, as seen in the early resurgence of visual effects in 1970s Hollywood, will be examined through the contributions of five artists; John Whitney, Sr., Adam Beckett, Jordan Belson, Chris Casady, and Dennis Pies. This renaissance was prompted largely by the need for effects artists for the production of “The Star Wars”. There had been a lull in the need for visual effects after the 1950s and when pre-production began in 1975 the remaining experts had retired. Directors turned to experimental animators who were familiar with innovating new techniques and exploring alternative visions.

Biographical statement: As Adam Beckett’s biographer, my research has taken me from the fine arts arena into the unlikely world of Hollywood visual effects. Recently, I co-hosted a screening of Beckett’s work, an event held by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Committee to honor his creative contributions to the industry. In addition to writing and research, I teach animation studio as an associate professor in the Kinetic Imaging department at Virginia Commonwealth University, and have made two award-winning animations. I oversee the Adam Beckett Project at The iotaCenter, in Los Angeles.

Charles daCosta

Who’s Out There: Halas, the Relevance of Oral Traditions and the Animated Documentary

Abstract:
Conve
rsations with the late John Halas impressed on me that production of good animation should not be determined by marketing and industrial demands. Rather it should be about the capture of ideas, development of thought and the projection of ideologies. Inspired by Halas, I argue that while the ability of animation to educate is well understood, the relevance of critically empowering artists – during training - is largely ignored. This however must be central to animators’ education. This could be addressed through programs in which liberal studies are integral. The design and implementation of courses that require the accurate documentation of non-technical thought processes preceding, as well as occurring during and after production must be promoted. The proliferation of affordable digital tools makes capture of these new oral histories possible.

Biographical statement: Charles daCosta is an animation history professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design. A multi-instrumentalist, he is passionate about stop-motion. Charles’s scholarly work focuses on the nexus between theory and practice in animation. Previously he taught Animation at the University of Westminster, Media and University for the Creative Arts, Farnham; Cultural Studies at the Kingston University and Animation Studies at Morley College, south London. He also taught Film and Post-Colonial Studies at the London Center of Samford University, Birmingham, Ala. Charles previously served the University of Reading as its New Media Manager, and was a project manager for the European Commission's MEDIA initiative prior to that position. In addition, daCosta has worked as a cameraman and photographer for a UNESCO expedition in the South Pole; and on several educational animation projects in Europe, Africa and South America. He is currently developing a series of history-centered animated shorts.

Alice Gambrell

Unseen Hands: The Work of Stop Motion

Abstract
: This paper focuses on how the work of the animator’s hands is evoked (in implicit and explicit ways) in older and more recent examples of stop motion film. I concentrate on representations of work process in Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Henry Selick’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, arguing that both films enfold their celebrations of richly material hand-work within far more ambivalent considerations of the political economy of cinematic production and distribution.

Biographical statement: I teach in the English Department at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. I am currently completing a book titled Writing is Work in which I analyze hands-on, below-the-line labor practices -- including editing, clerical work, typography, and print production -- that support the making of literary texts. Although the primary material in my study is largely text-based, prior studies of industrial practice and labor history in cinema more generally and in animation in particular have been absolutely crucial to my conceptualization of the larger project. In the course of my research my attention has been drawn repeatedly to media that combine older and newer technologies; these include stop motion animation. My proposed conference paper is a version of a longer essay that I have written on stop motion aesthetics and evocations of work process.

Joan Ashworth & Helen Mason

Animation Therapy

Abstract:
Animation Therapy is concerned with using animation as a therapeutic tool. It was discovered that animation had the potential to be adapted to compliment a range of therapeutic approaches developing new tools for use by the professional therapist and ways of working for animators who are interested in developing animation in health work. This meeting of two worlds has enabled new therapeutic opportunities and tools to be developed as well as investigating new ways of working together across non-traditional boundaries. We will discuss some of the findings so far, and show 2 films developed for use in this therapeutic practice.

Biographica
l statement: Occupational Therapist Helen Mason and Professor Joan Ashworth will co present this paper. Ashworth has been involved with Animation since 1979 as a filmmaker and teacher with a mission to find the more serious side of animation. Mason, an experienced HPC registered therapist has been using animation in her clinical practice for five yrs and initiated the Animation Therapy project. Ashworth and Mason have explored the astonishing benefits of using animation in therapy, and discovered some key parallels between specific therapeutic tools/approaches , and stages of expertise and complexity in animation. The project is partially supported by NESTA.

Carol MacGillivray

The Darwinian rise of Urban Kinetics

Abstract:
Exp
loring the implications of an apparent new genre in animation; kinetic models that conceptualise change in space/time and address audiences outside of broadcast media. This paper asks; has a change in audience wrought a new formalism for animation? Drawing on examples of the author’s own work and analysing kinetic and ‘outsider’ animation, the paper reveals how new media and conceptualisations of kinetic expression are changing the landscape of the animation discipline. Like traditional animation, Urban Kinetics has the signature of making the impossible possible; that ‘wow’ factor and appeal that is so eagerly sought by advertisers. Is it animation’s future?

Biographical statement: Carol started her career as a film editor and animator working in claymation and later CGI. An interest in combining theoretical research with practice has led Carol to undertake a PhD in Arts and Computational Technology at Goldsmiths University. This paper combines theory with art practice drawing on Carol’s recent kinetic artworks featured at London’s Kinetica Exhibition and her PhD research into the Psychology of Kinetic Perception. Carol’s paper, ‘How Psychophysical Perception of Motion and Image relates to Animation Practice’ was runner-up for the S.A.S. McLaren/Lambart Essay Award in 2008.

Gunnar Strøm

Watch and Listen! – The Website

Abstract:
A
t the conference in Atlanta I presented the research project ’Watch and Listen! - Audiovisual language stimulation in schools and kindergartens’ which at that time was in its initial phase. Now a website with audiovisual texts like animated shorts and simple games are in development: http://www.nynorsksenteret.no/lesformeg/. The website will be tested in primary schools and kindergartens in Norway this spring. At the conference I will present the website, the first results from these tests and frame it in language stimulation and film phenomenology theory.


Biographical statement: Gunnar Strøm, (born 1955 in Trondheim, Norway). Associated Professor at Volda University College, Norway. Has published widely on animation, documentary and music video. Former Vice President and Secretary General of ASIFA. Has programmed for and been on juries at festivals worldwide.

Gan Sheuo Hui

The Transformation of the Teenage Image in Oshii Mamoru’s Sky Crawlers

Abstract:
In t
his paper I examine Oshii Mamoru’s unusual portrayal of teenage characters in his recent work Sky Crawlers (2008). Oshii contrasts the adult life styles and responsibilities of these military aviators with their youth in ways that question the meaning of both childhood and adulthood. Oshii’s approach in this work will be compared to other teenager protagonists in Japanese animation, including those employed by Miyazaki Hayao. My presentation will explore how Oshii’s Sky Crawlers treats images of teenagers and their bodies in a manner that moves away from the usual treatment in anime that often employs exaggerated liveliness and romance conventions.

Biographical Statement: I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) affiliated with Kyoto University. This paper is part of the larger book project that analyzes many of the leading figures in the anime/animation world of Japan. The goal of this book is to produce a combination of essays on these animators together with original interviews, to provide a critical and analytical investigation of the complexity and diversity of Japanese animation. Discussions of famous figures like Miyazaki Hayao and Oshii Mamoru are included along side analyses of other prominent animators, who have often been neglected by the mass media despite their significant careers and contributions.

Lisa Bode

Avatar, “e-motion capture”, and the shifting industry rhetoric around performance/animation hybrids

Abstract:
Lo
oking at the chatter surrounding James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) and Beowulf (Zemeckis, 2008) among other films, this paper examines how and why industry rhetoric framing hybrid screen characters has shifted from discussing the labour of animators and VFX technicians to emphasising the labour of actors, and the discursive reassertion of the index.

Biographical statement:
Lisa Bode is Lecturer in Film and Television
Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research is primarily concerned with the shifting discursive and ontological relationships between animation and screen acting in CGI heavy cinema, and their impact on film meaning, affect and reception. She has published articles in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Cinema Journal (forthcoming).

Zoltán Varga

The Appearance of Genre Characteristics in Hungarian Animated Films

Abstract
: In Hungarian cinema if we see the animated film in the point of view of popular film culture, we can find those genres which are mainly missing in the Hungarian live-action cinema. From crime genres through science fiction to horror, there are remarkable genre tendencies in Hungarian animated films. I am going to introduce Captain of the Forest (Az erdo kapitánya) as detective/cop movie, Egon & Dönci as space-travelling science fiction, while Cat City (Macskafogó, directed by Béla Ternovszky, 1986) shows a quite daring, entertaining and rexflexive mixture of several genres including spy film, war film and vampire movie.

Biographical statement: Zoltán Varga is currently a Ph.D. Student of Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. His research areas are: popular film culture, genre theory, history of genres, animated film (theory and history). His earlier publications include essays based on animation related material – in Hungarian: about Tim Burton, basic concepts of animated film, connections between live-action film and animation, clay animation; in English: Wordless Worlds? Some Notes on the Verbality in Animated Films through the Use of Verbality in Péter Szoboszlay's Animated Films. In: Ágnes Petho (ed.): Words and Images on the Screen: Language, Literature, Moving Pictures. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. pp. 242-256.

Timothy Jones

Beyond Outsourcing: Indian Animation Education and Transnational Aesthetic Exchange

Abstract:
Ind
ian animation has historically been tied to transnational exchange. This paper examines how the form of this exchange has impacted instructional institutions, and ultimately animators. Building upon outsourcing successes, domestic animators have made strides in local production, supported in part by the National Institute of Design. The first decade of the 21st century has marked a crucial period of expansion, with far-reaching aesthetic and economic and political consequences. Recent NID graduates have played a disproportionate role in generating local animation culture, and their transnational collaborations suggest a growing complexity of the animation industry relating to international antecedents.

Biographical statement: As a Project Administrator at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, I develop cognitive simulations for education that integrate cutting edge computer animation. My theoretical work complements this academic practice. This paper is the first result of a larger research effort addressing animation in South Asia, also including the rise of new media distribution technologies and complex relationships with forces of international cultural exchange. I received my Masters degree in May, 2008 from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, concentrating in animation studies. Accordingly, this paper is also part of an exploratory effort for future dissertation research.