Animation Evolution

Call for Papers - Animation Studies

2010-07-21T13:49:00.001+01:00

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

2010-07-06T12:12:00.003+01:00

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

2010-07-05T20:35:00.002+01:00

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

2010-06-30T17:57:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-29T22:36:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-29T22:08:00.015+01:00

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

2010-06-22T15:10:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-22T15:08:00.001+01:00

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

2010-06-16T16:59:00.002+01:00

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

2010-06-16T11:17:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-15T17:17:00.002+01:00

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

2010-06-15T15:43:00.004+01:00

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

2010-06-15T09:59:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-09T16:33:00.003+01:00

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

2010-05-28T14:54:00.005+01:00

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

2010-05-05T15:58:00.005+01:00

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

2010-05-05T15:57:00.011+01:00

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

2010-05-05T15:56:00.008+01:00

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

2010-05-05T15:55:00.008+01:00

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

2010-05-04T12:42:00.003+01:00

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

2010-04-22T14:45:00.003+01:00

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

2010-04-22T14:40:00.002+01:00

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

2010-04-22T14:33:00.006+01:00

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 paper 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

2010-04-22T14:30:00.003+01:00

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

2010-04-14T17:25:00.005+01:00

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

2010-04-07T14:45:00.004+01:00

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

Abtract: This 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

2010-03-17T14:41:00.003Z

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

Abstract: While digital 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

2010-03-15T17:43:00.005Z

Experimental Animation and Visual Effects; Illusive Applications of Innovative Visions

Abstract: The 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

2010-03-15T10:06:00.002Z

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

Abstract: Conversations 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

2010-03-10T15:31:00.003Z

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

2010-03-08T17:22:00.006Z

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.

Biographical 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

2010-03-08T15:01:00.004Z

The Darwinian rise of Urban Kinetics

Abstract: Exploring 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

2010-03-05T12:15:00.003Z

Watch and Listen! – The Website

Abstract: At 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

2010-03-05T12:09:00.004Z

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

Abstract: In this 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

2010-03-05T12:01:00.006Z

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

Abstract: Looking 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

2010-03-04T17:58:00.005Z

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

2010-03-04T17:55:00.004Z

Beyond Outsourcing: Indian Animation Education and Transnational Aesthetic Exchange

Abstract: Indian 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.

Heather Holian

2010-03-04T17:45:00.003Z

Art, Animation and the Collaborative Process

Abstract: At last year’s SAS conference I proposed animation was a fine art form and considered the obstacles to such a designation, including the collaborative nature of studio animation. This paper further develops these observations by discussing collaboration within the history of art and animation, and how this model for art making distinguishes animation from other traditional artistic media. The work of individual concept artists will serve as illustrative examples throughout this discussion, which seeks to posit a new, more inclusive definition for (fine) art.

Biographical statement: Heather Holian is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance Art and an established publication record in that field. Recently, Prof. Holian began to pursue research on the Pixar Studios, while teaching “The Art of Disney and Pixar,” a course she designed. Her essay, “An Animated Debate: Studio Animation as Fine Art?” will appear in Blackwell’s forthcoming anthology of animation, edited by Paul Wells. Her proposed paper springs from information recently gathered at the Pixar Studios, and represents part of a book-length project on Pixar artists.

Peter Hodges

2010-03-04T17:27:00.004Z

Selling reality: the role of sound in creating narrative reality within animated film and visual effect sequences.

Abstract: Since the development of the sound film in 1927 the use of sound in animated entertainment has increased in sophistication, complementary with developments in creating the visual image. As filmmaking endlessly strives for increasingly sophisticated imagery, high definition projection and 3D stereoscopic presentation, does this equate to an emphasis of ‘reality’ in sound design for animated features and visual effect sequences? Or is there still the opportunity to celebrate the distinctiveness of this audio-visual medium? This paper discusses the evolution of the animation soundtrack, suggesting areas of consideration to maintain the unique relationship between sound and image in animated film.

Biographical statement: Peter Hodges is Head of Animation at the University of Glamorgan’s Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries. He established the now internationally recognised, Skillset accredited animation programme in 1993 and has lectured for twenty-two years in audio-visual practice, primarily in animation production and sound studies.

Eliška Decká

2010-03-04T15:55:00.004Z

Point and Click and Learn: Not Just Educational Benefits of Adventure PC Games/Animated Films of Czech Independent Game Development Studio Amanita Design

Abstract: This paper primarily examines the educational benefits of adventure PC games, focusing specifically on games produced by Czech company Amanita Design – Samorost, Questionaut and Machinarium (available at www.amanitadesign.net). Those games provide an outstanding example of the ever-closer relation between animation and games, as well as the immense capacity of employment of different elements of comics, visual art, literature etc., in a way that is symptomatic for contemporary trends of animation studies. This paper wants to point out these important overlaps, uncover possibly hidden benefits of these types of PC games and claim their effective use in education.

Biographical statement: Eliška Decká is a Film Studies MA program student at the Film Studies Department, Charles University in Prague. She writes on animation for various Czech journals and contributed to the historically first animation-focused issue of the impacted Czech film studies journal Iluminace. She presented the paper “Autobiographical Elements in Animated Films of Czech Female Directors“ (part of her 3-year research project funded by the Charles University Grant Agency) at the last SAS conference in Atlanta. The current paper continues to employ the methodology of the close author-researcher collaboration with an emphasis on practice aspects of animation studies.

Adam de Beer

2010-03-04T12:41:00.003Z

Shiver me timber: animating gay porn

Abstract: With the exception of the Japanese tradition of Hentai, academic discussion is inhibited when focussing on pornographic imagery and films. This tends to stigmatise and obfuscate the social implications of pornography. It is in the genre of gay pornography that CGI sex is finding an audience with the release of films such as Pirate’s Booty (2009) and Tales from the gods (2010). This paper considers why specifically gay pornography has chosen to include animation as narrative technique and returns to early topographical work by Thomas Waugh (1985) to discuss this move from fantasized public space to fantasy space as backdrop for the sex act.

Biographical statement: Adam de Beer is presently working on his doctorate in film studies in the Centre for Film and Media Studies (CFMS) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in Cape Town, South Africa. He lectures on Video Production and Storytelling for the centre with a focus on animation and gay and lesbian films. His research centres on topics related to his thesis, namely animation, movement in animation and the history of animation in South Africa.

David Williams

2010-03-04T10:42:00.003Z

Going to The Dogs

Abstract: Although the Jerry the Troublesome Tyke animations were extant in the Pathé Pictorial holdings, no one had realized their significance until they were virtually rediscovered in 1992, and only Denis Gifford refers to them without having seen any. There was a special section of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival devoted to them in 2002 with a biographical presentation by David Berry on their Welsh creator, Sid Griffith. All of the cartoons are downloadable on the Pathé web site and it is the purpose of this paper as a DVD to look at the innovations and homages contained within them. It is extraordinary, though possibly predictable, that with silent screen animation saturated by cats, English animators should turn to dogs for inspiration. The enterprise of three talented men deserves wide acclaim and analysis. With minimal equipment and limited experience, Sid Griffith’s results are indeed remarkable. He creates a character of mischievous charm with a durability of style and story that remained constant throughout the 40 cartoons in the series. Diolch yn fawr, Sid.

Biographical statement: My abiding interest is the historical siting of film and film animation. To this end, I have researched British sources, Disney sources and the work of Lotte Reiniger, and organised important Exhibitions on these topics. I am especially interested in the historical techniques of animation and, as a practical animation teacher, I believed that this knowledge transmitted to students gave them a better understanding of the scope, artistry and significance of the medium. I am, of course, retired and my affiliation to an institution in a teaching capacity ceased three years ago at Teesside University.

Steve Fore

2010-03-03T13:03:00.007Z

Reenactment, the Fantasmatic, and the Animated Documentary

Abstract: This presentation concerns the historically vexed notion of the animated documentary, which Bill Nichols has tangentially addressed from the perspective of documentary theory, focusing on modes of documentary reenactment that introduce a “fantasmatic element” into a form of discourse that conventionally privileges an indexical relationship between an historical event and its cinematic representation. Nichols, however, only briefly considers animated examples of documentary reenactment; in my presentation, therefore, I intend to more extensively apply his argument to the discursive form of the animated documentary, most immediately in relation to the currently reinvigorated discussion of representation, mimesis, and realism in the arts.

Biographical statement: Steve Fore works in the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong, where he teaches in areas of animation studies, culture and technology studies, “new” and “old” media theory and history, surveillance studies, and documentary media. His current research is concerned with the ways in which animation artists have negotiated a relationship with the ongoing technological transformations of their creative form. He is especially interested in current trends involving the use of CG software and hardware, and with certain historical antecedents, including the history and practice of rotoscoping and early experiments with computer graphics.

Animation symposium - Bristol 13th July

2010-03-03T13:03:00.004Z

If you have a bit of time in the UK after the conference finishes (or are nearby) you might want to look at this symposium being held in Bristol (you can fly direct from Edinburgh). Details and submission info below:
_________________________________________________

UWE ANIMATION SYMPOSIUM - ANIMATION DEVIATION
13th July – Watershed Media Centre, Bristol

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
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 of Creative Arts) Film-maker and author of Film, Art, Phenomena.

Esther Leslie (University of Birkbeck); 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.

Current preoccupations concerning animation's dissemination across all audiovisual media have occluded other questions regarding its specificities. The production of movement from still images is a specific technical substrate of animation that remains at the heart of its expanding role across all media. Theorists of animation have contributed important insights into the significance of this paradoxical immobility generating the illusion of movement and liveliness. Much work in animation studies, however, concentrates on mainstream deployments of animation in which a movement mapped out in the animation design is realised in such a way as to remove any sense of the 'interruption' of motion that is the basis of the animatic process. Standardised 'templates' for animated worlds, characters and actions tend to predominate in this arena. Experimental forms and films made 'in the manner of' animation (Hamlyn) frequently recognize and make transparent the critical potential of broken motion. This type of 'wrong' animation (Kingston) emphasizes and exploits the 'stop' of animation as a form of deviation, opening onto a desire to dwell, to hover and settle, and to question 'what it means to be animate or alive' (Smith) through the stop that sustains the motion, the death that drives the life.

The symposium will examine this desire through theoretical and practical exploration. Can correspondences be found between the obstruction of standard motion routines in animation and broader cultural/artistic tendencies of loitering and arresting time? Should we understand this experimental animation as wilfully under produced, whose 'incompetent...lack of smoothness is polemically set against commercial animation?' (Leslie). How can we understand animation that resists blending in, either to the general rule of the illusion of life or to other media in their largely conventional adoption of established mainstream animation techniques?

ANIMATION DEVIATION invites contributions from theorists, experimental filmmakers and animators working in this terrain of the paradoxical materiality of the production of animated audiovisuality. It is interested, for example, in structurally oriented works that revolve around use of cycles and sequences, animation as poetic, as intoxication, as excluded, operating out of field and otherwise breaking up the illusion of continuous motion as a withdrawal from the designated framing of movement. Workshops and Paper sessions will be convened to enable a mix of practice and presentation-based exploration.

DATE: 13th July 9.30am - 5.30pm COST: £10.00 VENUE: Watershed Media Centre, 1 Canons Rd, Bristol, BS2 5TX

CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE: 31st March,

NOTIFICATION: late April: Please submit a 250 word abstract with your name, institutional affiliation and a 50 word bio.

SEND ABSTRACTS TO: vicky2.smith@uwe.ac.uk

Vicky Smith
Lecturer in Film Studies
Dept. of Culture, Media & Drama
University of the West of England
St Matthias Campus
Fishponds
Bristol
BS16 2JP

Kerry Gough

2010-03-01T17:39:00.004Z

Animation Re-Orientation: Animation Forum West Midlands, G(local)isation and the Creation of Regional Network Communities in the New Digital Age

Abstract: This paper examines the emergence of regional clusters of creative animation industries, specifically focusing upon the work of Animation Forum West Midlands (AFWM). Created in 2005, AFWM was formed with Digital Central financing to concentrate its attention upon fostering and generating of a network of animation creatives across the bedroom cultures and SMEs of animation workers within the West Midlands. AFWM facilitates in the development of these cluster communities and networking opportunities in order to encourage the development of collaborative enterprises within the region. AFWM functions not only as a creative hub of animation activity within the new digital age, but also acts as a refuge against the centralised processes of London and a barrier against the tide of international animation outsourcing.

Biographical Statement: Dr Kerry Gough is a Lecturer in Media Theory at Birmingham City University. She has recently completed her doctoral thesis at The University of Nottingham, which examines the historical reception of the Alien film quad and the historically specific function that Lt. Ripley fulfils, as a nexus for societal discourse and debate surrounding the body and gendered norms. She has published on comic book culture and her research interests include film and television horror, science fiction and most recently the generation of networks of animation workers and the potential that this offers for the further development of the industry within the UK.

Mark Bartlett

2010-03-01T15:52:00.005Z

Filmic Consciousness, Gendering Spacetime, and the Rupture of Animation

Abstract: The digital character of film production constitutes a new set of social relations and a new commodity fetishism able to render the real and fantasy worlds for costs far less than photorealist film. I will compare the social relations of animation production before the digital turn, in the works of Norman MacLaren and George Griffin, to James Cameron’s Avatar. Drawing on Marx, and on Deleuze’s method of linking perceptions, affections and actions, I will focus on how spacetime is gendered in animation in these works to form a specifically filmic form of consciousness through identification in kinship systems.

Biographical statement: Mark Bartlett is the North American editor of animation: an interdisciplinary journal, a member of the Manipulated Moving Image Cluster at the University for the Creative Arts, UK, and an Associate Lecturer at The Open University. He is completing a book on Stan Vanderbeek, and curating two exhibitions on him to open in the US in 2011. Bartlett’s work focuses on the intersections between technology, aesthetics, epistemology, and sociopolitical interpretation. His paper derives from a resistance to the technological determinism that often leads to the erasure of the social and political aspects in film studies.

Pierre Floquet

2010-03-01T15:32:00.005Z

Actors in Sin City’s Animated Fantasy: Avatars, Aliens, or Cinematic Dead-ends ?

Abstract: With reference to selected animated features and shorts from the past sixty years, and focusing mainly on Frank Miller’s graphic novel related film, this paper is questioning the ever-growing impact of animation techniques on representation and story-telling. The emphasis is laid on the interaction between live actors, their personae, their fictional existence, their digital parts, and the animated environment they are immersed into. To some extent, Miller reinvents the cinema of the origin; or does he barely pay homage to it in some original yet doomed aesthetic option?

Biographical statement: Pierre FLOQUET teaches English, and is associate professor at IPB, Bordeaux University. He wrote his PhD thesis in 1996 on linguistics applied to cinema, focusing on Tex Avery's comic language. Since then, he has organized several Avery retrospectives and conferences, and been a juror at festivals. He has widened his interests to live-action cinema, participating in books and journals both in France and abroad. He edited CinémAnimationS (2007), and published Le Langage comique de Tex Avery in 2009. This paper continues research on characters in animation (two related publications so far), to be developed in a focus on Burton’s animated female characters.

Progress Report - 4 months to go!

2010-02-27T17:29:00.003Z

A little update on planning:

Reminder that early bird registration is available to book online now, and can be done via credit card or invoice.

Accommodation bookings are coming along. The listed hotels and apartments rates have been negotiated for us by the Edinburgh Convention Bureau. There are hundreds of B&Bs in Edinburgh as well as other hotels, but all of the listed ones are within close walking distance of the Art College venue. They are all pretty convenient, though the Novotel and Premier Inn are literally next door to the venue!

Abstracts and bio's are gradually being uploaded as confirmations and info come in, and in the next month I hope to be getting panels together.

The social event booking for Saturday night is in hand and the Friday evening plans (shh still a secret) are looking good...

Closer to the event I'll post a list of recommended nearby bars and restaurants...I am researching them for you (its a hard life ;-)

Keep those registrations coming and remember to email me with your queries at:
animationevolution.animationstudies.org

See you soon!
Nichola

Alison Loader

2010-02-26T17:24:00.005Z

“We’re Asian, More Expected of Us!” Representation, The Model Minority and Whiteness on King of the Hill

Abstract: For years the only Asian American family on prime time, was a cartoon. The Souphanousinphones were regular characters in King of the Hill, which was, until its cancellation last year, the second longest running prime time animated sitcom after The Simpsons. As neighbours and rivals to the titular Hill family, the Souphanousinphones contributed to overarching themes of whiteness and class anxiety in the American South. Various episodes explored the Asian American experience of difference and assimilation, and the myth of the Model Minority. King of the Hill defied and perpetuated traditional stereotypes and offered the rare spectacle of Asian racial grief. These representations may have been two-dimensional but only because they were drawn that way.

Biographical statement: Alison Reiko Loader is an animation filmmaker, instructor and graduate student at Concordia University, Canada. Beginning with her first film, Showa Shinzan, produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 2002, her work has explored identity, race and cultural heritage. Her current research interests in animated installation, stereoscopy and anamorphosis constitute more formal approaches to representation and perception. Nevertheless she can still enjoy a good cartoon.

Lynne Perras

2010-02-25T19:09:00.004Z

The Golden Ages of Animation: Diverse Origins in Canada and the U.S.

Abstract: This paper will compare and contrast the origins of animation in Canada and the U.S. From a historical and cultural perspective, I will examine the development of animation in Canada and the U.S., and compare the influences that have created the industries that both nations currently enjoy. It will be seen that national psychology, politics, and governmental presence all played a significant role in determining the kinds of animation found in Canada and the U.S. in the first half of the twentieth century. Interestingly enough, these same influences continue to impact the animation of both countries even today.

Biographical statement: Lynne Perras teaches in Canadian Studies in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary. Her research areas are Canadian animation, Canadian humour, and hockey history and culture in Canada. She is also the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs in the Undergraduate Programs Office.

Jeff Marker

2010-02-25T09:50:00.004Z

“I don’t know anything about it”: Waltz With Bashir and Slaughterhouse-Five

Abstract: Both Waltz With Bashir and Slaughterhouse-Five dramatize the conflict between the artist’s compulsion to tell the story and his psychological need to repress the traumatic memories which inspire the story. Waltz With Bashir uses animation to delay our confrontation with the narrator’s brutal combat memories, just as Slaughterhouse-Five uses a science fiction narrative to accomplish similar effects. Waltz With Bashir expands the applications of animation by combining the documentary and animated forms, but it also innovates through its use of animation as a narrative strategy.

Biographical statement: Jeff Marker earned a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Georgia. He currently teaches film and literature at Gainesville State College. While he is more interested in researching the psychological experience of film and literature than mastering the canon of a particular national cinema or genre, he has begun to focus on animation history as a research and teaching interest. This paper capitalizes on his areas of interest and expertise and exemplifies the comparative nature of his work.

Nadezhda Marinchevska

2010-02-24T20:25:00.005Z

ART IN TRANSITION: BULGARIAN ANIMATION AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

Abstract: After the political changes in 1989 the social satire and the humorous miniature seem no longer to be the main artistic models in the Bulgarian animated films. The paper will focus on the Bulgarian animation’s specific ways to “globalize” its narrative and styles in the conditions of poor funding and practically non-existing distribution. Modernistic patterns had suffered a broken growth in Bulgaria (as in most of the ex-socialist countries). In spite of that the new generations give fresh and sharp tribute to the avant-garde stylistics, renewing the suggestions of highly symbolic film language to look at a situation of crisis and transition.

Biographical statement: Prof. Nadezhda Marinchevska, PhD, is head of “Screen arts” department in the Institute for Art Studies in Sofia. She teaches the classes “Animation Theory and History” and “Scriptwriting for Animation” in the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts and is an invited lecturer in the New Bulgarian University. Author of two books: “Bulgarian Animation 1915-1995”, Colibri, Sofia, 2001 (366 p.) and “Frames of Imagination. Aesthetics of animation techniques”, Titra, Sofia, 2005, (296 p.). She is also an author in the collective publication “Bulgarian cinema. Encyclopedia”, Titra, Sofia, 2000 (animation section), ed. Alexander Yanakiev. In 2006 she won the film theory award of the Union of Bulgarian Film Makers.

‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation

2010-02-24T16:39:00.006Z

Preconstituted panel

In what ways can animation address the complex and multifaceted relationships we have with cities and urban spaces in the 21st century? The panel examines animated representations of the city and urban life through a variety of lenses – the city as dystopia, as imagined community, as pre- and post-revolutionary space, as a site for memory and personal journey. By exploring these topics across three very different cultural contexts, the richness and diversity of urban mediation, and the role animation plays in it, will be highlighted.

Panellists: Paul Ward (chair), Van Norris, Caroline Ruddell, Bella Honess Roe (see individual entries for details on each presentation)

Van Norris

2010-02-24T16:36:00.004Z

In the City: Animating 21st Century Britain
(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)

Abstract: In the post-The Office afterglow public-service channel BBC3 saw comedy as part of the "consistently innovative and risk-taking programming" specified in their remit. The show embodied a tone which played into criticisms that the channel was pandering to an increasingly populist agenda. It also played into concerns about imagined community and maintained a narrative that actualises comedy's relationship with society which extends all the way back to Henri Bergson. This paper will frame this embrace of animation/comedy against institutional concerns and assess Monkey Dust as being emblematic of this wave of early 21st century UK mainstream TV animation.

Biographical statement: Van Norris teaches in the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research interests include: American and British graphic narrative form; Classical and Post-Classical Hollywood Animation and British Cinema and Television Animation, British and American comedy form, sitcom and stand up comedy. He is currently completing his PhD on British television animation. Van has presented his research at numerous conferences including the Society for Animation Studies, the Popular Culture Association and the University of Salford’s Comedy Matters conference. He has published in animation: an interdisciplinary journal and Animation Studies, as well as anthologies on television science fiction, animation and cinematic surrealism. Van is an Editorial Board member for Animation Studies.

Caroline Ruddell

2010-02-24T16:33:00.002Z

Urban Nightmares: Anime City Spaces
(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)

Abstract: This paper will chart some of the prominent tropes in the representation of the city in anime. Sci-fi, fantasy and even noir generic conventions are used to channel the representation of the city into an imposing presence. The paper seeks to understand the pleasures available for viewers when cities are often ‘rewritten’ (Staiger, 1999: 97) or ‘imagined’ (Orbaugh, 2006: 81) and cityscapes, or lines, redrawn. The paper also considers how this relates to theoretical models of spectatorship and the pleasures animated city spaces might hold for viewers outside the context of Japan.

Biographical statement: Dr Caroline Ruddell teaches at St. Mary’s University College, UK, in the areas of animation, popular culture and identity, North American cinema, and critical methodologies. Caroline's research interests are in animation and representations of identity and subjectivity. She has published on the representation of witchcraft in popular television, fissured identity in film, and on anime. Her current research focuses on anime aesthetics and spectatorship in relation to issues of movement, space and the animated ‘line’. Caroline is a member of the Editorial Boards for Animation Studies (the Society for Animation Studies online peer reviewed journal) and Watcher Junior: The Undergraduate Journal of Buffy Studies. Caroline is also Reviews Editor for animation: an interdisciplinary journal, published by Sage.

Paul Ward

2010-02-24T16:28:00.004Z

“Never forget who you are and where you are from”: Persepolis as urban memoir (preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)

Abstract: This paper will examine how Persepolis (2007) represents urban locations and cityscapes, intimately linking them to the deeply personal story – the memoir – of the protagonist Marjane Satrapi. Cities can often be seen as ‘personalities’, as anthropomorphically-charged spaces that come to stand for broader aspects of cultural (and national) identity. The paper will examine the notion of ‘autobiogeography’ and de Certeau’s (1984) work on how individuals navigate themselves physically, psychically and politically through urban space. Persepolis explores these topics via the graphic novel-inspired aesthetics of the animated film, offering a potent combination of popular culture, personal memory and urban history.

Biographical statement: Paul Ward is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Media at the Arts University College at Bournemouth, UK. He teaches on the BA (Hons) Animation Production course and contributes to a cross-disciplinary MA course. His research interests are in the fields of animation and documentary film and television. Published work includes articles for the journals animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Animation Journal, and the Historical Journal for Film, Radio and Television, as well as numerous anthology essays. Paul is also the author of Documentary: The Margins of Reality (Wallflower Press, 2005) and TV Genres: Animation (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming; co-authored with Nichola Dobson). He serves on the Editorial Boards of animation: an interdisciplinary journal and Animation Studies and is a member of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College with special interest in animation and documentary research proposals. Paul is the current President of the Society for Animation Studies.

Bella Honess Roe

2010-02-24T16:22:00.005Z

Indexing a Dystopian Future in Metropia
(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)

Abstract: This paper explores the representation of a futuristic dystopian Europe in the sci-fi animated thriller Metropia (Tarik Saleh, 2009). The film’s intriguing animation style, which is based on photographic images, will be used as a basis for examining questions of indexicality and realism in animation by drawing a connection between the corrupted index and Metropia’s themes regarding the alienation of the body from the urban environment.

Biographical statement: Bella Honess Roe is a lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Surrey. She recently completed her PhD on animated documentaries at the University of Southern California. The topic of this paper extends ideas from her doctoral thesis regarding indexicality and the relationship between animation and reality. She has presented her work at many conferences in the US and UK (including SAS 2008 and 2009, Visible Evidence 2008 and 2009, SCMS 2005/2007/2008 and Screen 2006/2007). She contributes book and DVD reviews to Film International and animation: an interdisciplinary journal and has had essays published in the Journal of British Cinema and Television and Falling in Love Again, an edited collection published by I.B. Tauris. She has a chapter forthcoming on Disney’s wartime documentaries in an edited collection on that topic and a journal article on the animated interviews made by Bob Sabiston.

At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death

2010-02-24T16:13:00.005Z

Preconstituted panel
The papers on this panel will explore and elaborate key theoretical approaches to animation in terms of death.

Death is a subject which has not only never had a panel dedicated to it at SAS conferences (as far as research reveals), it has not even had more than a few papers dedicated to it at them. Yet this subject, so foregrounded in and by not only cinema but Western culture as to form one of the two privileged foci of both, is likewise, it will be claimed, privileged by animation.

Panellists: Alan Cholodenko (chair), Janeann Dill, Michael Dow, Freida Riggs (see individual entries for details on each presentation).

Janeann Dill

2010-02-24T16:10:00.003Z

An Eclipsed Birth Meets An Eclipsed Death
(preconstituted panel: At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death)

Abstract: Taking inspiration from George Bataille’s statement, ‘A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks’, this paper is a questioning look at the early birth and seeming death of critical histories in experimental animation. Insisting upon the persistence of experimental animation as a singular aesthetic, this scholar distinguishes the art form while simultaneously reaching across the disciplines of art history, cinema history and philosophical inquiry. While this paper does not engage in an analysis of Bataille, its author is inspired by the quote.

Biographical statment: Founder-Director of a virtual Think Tank, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Art and Creative Intelligence, Janeann Dill reaches across the creative disciplines to inhabit a critical landscape at a four-point intersect of experimental animation, cinema, fine art, and philosophy (http://interdisciplinaryartinstitute.com). Dr. Dill’s global research examines experimental animation as an inherently interdisciplinary and neo-aesthetic experimental fine arts practice per se. Imbuing a praxis in experimental animation with a praxis in painting and drawing, her scholarship and research largely takes its critical cues from Eisenstein, Eggeling, Krauss, Moritz, Deleuze and Heidegger. In doing so, she tentatively joins thought to the unthought

Michael Dow

2010-02-24T16:07:00.004Z

It’s Raining Coyotes: Death and/in the Chase
(preconstituted panel: At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death)

Abstract: In surveying a number of American cartoons during the post-World War II era, this paper seeks to demonstrate the ways in which popular animation engages in an aporetical uncertainty, focusing primarily on the investiture of sapience into the cartoon character, the existential connotations of the chase, and the “death confrontation” signified by the blackout gag. The motifs of acknowledgment and “deceleration” in the cartoons of the era will be addressed: how does this phenomenology of the personified form produce this effect? How is the acknowledgment of a “life/death” state enacted, and what are its implications for post-World War II culture?

Biographical statement: Michael Vincent Dow is currently completing his dissertation, “The Death of the Chase: The Social Psychology of the Post-World War II American Animated Cartoon” at New York University. He teaches film and animation studies at Northeastern University in Boston. His paper is an extension of his dissertation, which focuses on American cartoons as reflection of the postwar social condition.

Freida Riggs

2010-02-24T16:02:00.005Z

The Lifeworld of Wall-E: A New Generation
(preconstituted panel: At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death)

Abstract: Birth and death – crucial components of the social – are all turned upside down in Wall-E. An examination of this film through Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, especially his characterisation of generativity and ‘lifeworld’ with their focus on life and death – generation – will demonstrate clearly how the medium of animation is best suited to grasp the poignancy of a character locked in a dead world, the tenderness of the love between binoculars on a box and an egg, the degradation of humanity when free will is denied it and the optimism of the rebirth of our planet.

Biographical statement: I took my PhD at the University of Sydney in 2002. My thesis, entitled ‘The Community of Film’, investigated the analysis of live action film and animation through the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. My essay, ‘The Infinite Quest: Husserl, Bakshi, the Rotoscope and the Ring’, is published in The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation, ed. Alan Cholodenko, 2007. The paper I propose for this conference is an extension of this work.

Alan Cholodenko

2010-02-24T15:55:00.003Z

(The) Death (of) the Animator, or: The Felicity of Felix, Part III: Death and the Death of Death
(preconstituted panel: At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death)

Abstract: This paper will elaborate animation’s centrality to contemporary culture, the paramount nature of animation’s relation to the uncanny in that centrality, and the profound implications of that centrality for the contemporary world and subject. To that end it will foreground the assertions of animation theorist Taihei Imamura in 1948 and philosopher Slavoj Žižek in 1991 of the relevance of the return of the dead for contemporary culture, then turn to Jean Baudrillard for a larger vision of the (lifedead) matter.

Biographical statement: The paper I propose is part 3 of the paper whose first part I presented at the 2007 Animated Dialogues Conference in Melbourne and second part at the 2007 SAS conference at Portland. It extends my theorizing in those parts of the relation of animation to death, as well extends that theorizing in my Introductions to The Illusion of Life and The Illusion of Life 2 and in a number of my articles.

Helen Jackson

2010-02-24T15:24:00.004Z

Not just for kids: engaging an online adult audience with animation

Abstract: Recent work on “The Lost Book” suggests that interactive, cross-artform work may be successful in engaging adults with animation. “The Lost Book” web series involved animation, literature and music. The six-part story was written by visitors to the website. Nearly 60% of participants who expressed an opinion, all over 16, felt the project had made them more interested in watching animation online or at the cinema. This paper will present audience feedback on “The Lost Book”. The aim is to stimulate discussion about the possible benefits of cross-artform projects and/or Web 2.0 in increasing the overall adult audience for animation.

Biographical statement: Helen Jackson is a director at Binary Fable, an award-winning young animation studio based in Edinburgh. Binary Fable specialises in 3D CGI animation – in particular using digital media platforms to bring animated storytelling to adult audiences. Another focus for Binary Fable is partnership and collaboration – with other creative organisations, across different art forms and even with the audience. Helen is very interested in how audiences interact with film, digital media and animation. She is on the organising committee for the Edinburgh International Film Audiences Conference, a bi-annual event most recently held in March 2009.

Hee Holmen

2010-02-24T12:55:00.004Z

Animation as New Media: or Ontological Quest for Animation Media Epistemology

Abstract: In the hyped world of New Media, animation technologies are the nuts and bolts of digital arts. The changes brought by digital technology forces anyone involved to reconsider the fundamental question, in my opinion, that never got a clear answer: what is animation and what is New Media? I believe that ontological questions about animation have been largely over-shadowed by its technology. If one separates animation media and animation technology, what would define animation media? In this paper, I wish to examine the historical view that defined animation media, and its relation with New Media.

Biographical statement: Hee Holmen is an artist-researcher in animation media, and has a MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Experimental Animation, and the second MA from Film Science at Norwegian Technical University. Holmen has been teaching universities in Norway, USA, and Denmark, and currently teaches computer animation at IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Holmen's present research project is Digital Comix, evolution of comics and animation as New Media.

Harvey Deneroff and Victoria Deneroff

2010-02-24T12:29:00.005Z

Crossing Boundaries: Communities of Practice in Animation and Live-Action Filmmaking

Abstract: This paper uses the social practice theory to examine historical barriers faced by live-action filmmakers attempting to go into animation, and how these barriers have been increasingly breached in recent years due to the introduction of digital technologies. In particular, the authors will use the theory of communities of practice first enunciated by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1991, which, according to Wenger, involves the study of “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”

Biographical statements: Harvey Deneroff, a Professor of Animation at SCAD-Atlanta, has a special interest in labor-management issues, including the history of animation unions. The first editor of Animation Magazine and Animation World Magazine, he edited and published The Animation Report, and his writings have appeared in Film History, The Hollywood Reporter, Animatoon, Sight and Sound, and in several books. He wrote The Art of Anastasia (1997) and helped Fred Ladd write Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas (2008). He was Festival Director of the Week With the Masters Animation Celebration, in India, organized the Ojai Animation Conference, and founded SAS in 1987.

Victoria Deneroff is an Assistant Professor of Middle Grades Education at Georgia College & State University, in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she heads the M.A.T. Program in Middle Grades Education in Mathematics and Science. She earned her PhD in Urban Schooling at UCLA, focusing on anthropology of education. Her research interest is the development and application of social practice theory to increase understanding of the work of teachers and animation artists. She has presented her research at numerous national conferences from 2001 through the present, including the American Educational Research Association and the National Association of Research in Science Teaching.

Steve Weymouth

2010-02-24T10:03:00.004Z

Utilizing investigations in neuroscience to aid teaching first-time animation students

Abstract: As a teacher of animation to first-time animation students, I am familiar with a lack of ability in many of them to adequately evaluate their early attempts at animation - they seem ‘blind’ to ‘bad animation’. Much time is needed in order to develop and improve new animation skills and this has caused some to lose interest in the discipline. Utilizing research from neuroscience and related fields, I have introduced an approach that helps the student ‘see’ their animation exercises with a ‘heightened visual awareness’. The approach has provided good results with greater and accelerated development of early animation skills.

Biographical statement: Steve Weymouth has been teaching 3D CGI animation and modelling within Media Arts undergraduate and post graduate degrees at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW in Sydney Australia for the past seven years. He has expanded the area of 3D CGI animation within the curricula and written many new courses charting clear pathways for the interested student, he has a particular interest in introducing 3D CGI to first-time students. Steve builds on his previous industry experience that includes many years of freelance and commercial work as a 3D CGI artist and employment at the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. He holds a Masters of 3D Computer Aided Graphical Technology Applications (CAGTA) gained at Teesside University in the UK.

Tom Klein

2010-02-24T09:55:00.004Z

WALT-TO-WALT OSWALD

Abstract: Walt Disney and Walter Lantz both endured career setbacks as producers of the same early American cartoon series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In the case of Disney, his bold, contentious break from the Oswald series defined his visionary zeal. And with Walter Lantz, the gradual separation from Oswald that he arranged with the consent of Universal defined his more genial and conservative approach. Yet in each case, despite their contrasting styles, these trials prepared them and led them to their ultimate success with subsequent cartoons, notably the ones they each created next: Mickey Mouse and Woody Woodpecker.

Biographical statement: Tom Klein is an Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles. He is formerly the Animation Director of Vivendi-Universal’s educational software division. While a graduate student at UCLA School of Film and Television, he catalogued the Walter Lantz Archive, and has since remained active as a scholar and researcher of Lantz studio animation.

Rebecca Coyle

2010-02-24T09:52:00.003Z

AUDIOMATION: Animation Film Music in the Brave New Era

Abstract: Studies of animation visual styles, industrial processes and histories are well advanced, but the contribution of music to animation film is still often marginalized, forgotten or trivialised. This paper provides a brief survey of the field of animation film music analysis and approaches to research. Critical engagement with the industrial practices, texts and auteurial forms of animation film music has barely caught up with experimental historical precedents, much less the current era of converged animation productions. The paper argues that animation music studies must evolve with the form to engage with animated forms of the future.

Biographical Statement: Dr Rebecca Coyle is Director of Research for the School of Arts and Social Sciences and teaches in the Media Program at Southern Cross University, Australia. Her Drawn to Sound: Animation Film Music and Sonicity will be published by Equinox (UK) in 2009, and has recently edited a special issue of Animation Journal (published 2009) on sound in animation film and television. She has edited two anthologies on Australian cinema soundtracks, Screen Scores (Allen & Unwin, 1998) and Reel Tracks (John Libbey, 2005), and is currently researching film music production within an Australian Research Council funded project.

Suzanne Buchan

2010-02-24T09:48:00.006Z

Blending Media: Expanding Animation in Contemporary and Interdisciplinary Research Fields

Abstract: Animation has long had a constitutive role in disseminating ideologies with a mind to shaping public attitudes and is increasingly ubiquitous in both moving image culture and working environments. The notion of blending media (a creative form of convergence) is one that has always been a predominant definition of animation operating outside conventional hegemonic commercial entertainment canons, and materially defined and redefined through established media and art forms. The paper outlines the intellectual genesis of the 'Pervasive Animation' collective interdisciplinary research programme that explores its use in fine art practice, design, architecture and the sciences.

Biographical statement: Suzanne Buchan is Professor of Animation Aesthetics and Director of the Animation Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts, UK, and Founding Editor of animation: an interdisciplinary journal (Sage). Her research aims to embed animation theory in philosophical, scientific, architectural, art economical and spatio-political discourses. The Quay Brothers: Into the Metaphysical Playroom is currently in production, and she is developing an AFI Film Reader of new animation theory. She was a founding member of the Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Switzerland and its Co-Director between 1995–2003. She has been a guest professor, exhibition curator, festival advisor and juror internationally.

Amy Ratelle

2010-02-24T09:26:00.004Z

An analysis of the significance of human-animal conflict in Princess Mononoke

Abstract: Princess Mononoke (Hiyao Miyazaki, 1997) is a complex film in which history and mythology brush uncomfortably against one another. Set in feudal Japan, it ostensibly chronicles the ongoing battle between industrial progress and nature. On closer inspection, however, the film is far more ambivalent. This paper investigates Miyazaki’s portrayal of the antagonistic relationship between the humans in Irontown and the animal gods who live in and guard the nearby forest. Key scenes of the film will be examined in terms of the convergence of cultural and economic factors contributing to the ongoing war between humans and animals, and how the ambiguous ending of the film undermines specifically Western notions of the nature of progress.

Biographical statement: AMY RATELLE is currently a PhD candidate of the Joint Programme in Communication and Culture at York University and Ryerson University. Her dissertation focuses on animal issues and animality in children's literature, film and television. She holds a BFA in Film Studies from Ryerson University and a MA in Film Studies from Carleton University.

Dan North

2010-02-23T19:41:00.004Z

Bunraku’s Exploded View of Performance

Abstract: The puppet represents a site of paradoxes that invite reflection upon the nature of performance and embodiment; puppets occupy a liminal space between life and death, motion and stasis, an interface between actor and character, between text and audience. With bunraku as its case study I will argue that puppets offer an “exploded view” diagram of performance, separating out the constituent parts of voice, body, actor and mechanism to allow a clearer view of how formal components are used to construct complete performances and, by allegorical extension, human subjects.

Biographical statement: My research has previously examined the history and aesthetics of special effects in cinema, most extensively in my recent monograph, Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects and the Virtual Actor (Wallflower Press, 2008). I am currently undertaking a study of puppetry and film, exploring the uses and representation of puppets onscreen. This will incorporate theories of performance borrowed from studies of theatrical puppetry, and a historical and formal account of marionettes, animatronics, motion-capture and other modes of “artificial performance”, with the aim of producing a model for the analysis of puppetry as a key component of film aesthetics within and beyond the field of animation.

Erwin Feyersinger

2010-02-23T18:25:00.004Z

Animation and Augmented Reality

Abstract: The term Augmented Reality describes a combination of the real world with virtual objects in real time. Accordingly, it is a combination of reality with animation. Artistic and practical applications of AR are becoming widespread, for example: Madonna performing live with the animated band Gorillaz; information displayed in front of the eyes of engineers, soldiers, or surgeons; or virtual creatures interacting with live images of the video gamer’s living room. Animation Studies offers a variety of perspectives to theorize this phenomenon. This paper will specifically address the broad spectrum of animation styles, which can be used in applications of AR.

Biographical statement: Erwin Feyersinger is currently finishing his doctoral thesis at the University of Innsbruck in the Department of American Studies. The thesis is titled Transgressive Phenomena in Animated Films and Television Series. His research is concerned with animation studies as well as transmedial theories, and relies mainly on narratological, poetic, semiotic, and cognitive frameworks. His academic background comprises linguistics as well as film and literary theory. He is a member of the editorial board of Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal and a member of SAS. The proposed paper will bridge my doctoral thesis and the research I will start after its imminent completion. My thesis is concerned with (ontological) transgressions and transformations in animation, which both play a crucial role in augmented reality. My research at the time of the conference will be concerned with animation outside of its traditional formats and contexts (i.e. cinemas, television sets, and, more recently, computer screens). The proposed topic complies both with the focus of the conference on the evolution of animation (as it is a new area of application) and on convergence (in this case, the convergence of animation and reality).

James Snazell

2010-02-23T18:09:00.006Z

The Experimental Cross-Over

Abstract: The paper I want to present will look at the relationship, by way of convergence and distinction, between non-commercial abstract experimental animation and what can be described as animation/motion graphics done for commercial purposes and which can be seen from an angle of abstract animation. With these two sides facilitating each other, with the development of models of working and thinking that fail to recognise such a polarity. Hopefully this paper will raise discussion of an analysis of how far this evolution is possible and what the development of those working models are and what they can be. The paper will also look to develop discussion over whether such a relationship hasn’t changed in the sense of whether there has always been a distinct relationship and cross-over between commercial and non-commercial animation.

Biographical statement: As an animator I am as often influenced or intrigued by a piece of motion graphic/animation that I have seen on TV/Film as part of an advert, TV ident, or intro for a Film or TV programme and done for commercial purposes. As I am influenced or intrigued by seeing experimental animation done for non-commercial purposes. An aspect of my research agenda and experience is the way in which abstract experimental animation and film including motion graphics relates to and crosses over with media seen in popular culture.

Martina Bramkamp

2010-02-23T18:03:00.007Z

Expanded Cinema in animation

Abstract: This paper will discuss and debate, through an innovative range of undergraduate student projects, ways in which Expanded Cinema has proved a valuable tool in the crafting, editing, presenting, reviewing, and remaking of moving image with particular focus on animation in its physical, virtual and hybrid forms. ‘Live’ projects - collaborations with industry clients and employers - have become a core component of the curriculum. Such projects create opportunities to work in a ‘real’ professional context and provide an environment of flexibility and innovation, which challenges and facilitates experimental work. This co-operative participation reflects the essence of how we support the potential for testing, trashing and refashioning moving image in the spirit of Expanded Cinema.

Biographical statement: Martina Bramkamp studied Communication Design and Animation in Germany before graduating from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Animation. She lives in London and is a Senior Lecturer on the BA Illustration/Animation course at Kingston University and the BA and FdA Animation courses at the London College of Communication. Martina works in commercial film making as a freelance animator and storyboard artist, and has exhibited her illustration work, moving image installations, photography and sculptures in Britain and Germany.

Jessica Hemmings

2010-02-23T17:56:00.004Z

Textile & Animation Theory: Who Needs It?

Abstract: This paper considers the development of critical writing about textiles and animation as disciplines that share a common feature of residing in the shadow of disciplines (fashion and film) with established histories of critical writing and theorisation. The pressure for textile theory to ‘borrow’ or ‘make do’ with scraps of fashion theory it can appropriate does a disservice to unique and particular aspects that could benefit from development within textile writing. This paper will attempt a comparison with the field of animation in the hope that new approaches to critical inquiry can be discovered. It will consider how disciplines that use craft-based techniques benefit from critical writing. In particular, the role of fiction will be explored as an alternative tool for critical writing that may prove useful for both textiles and animation.

Biographical statement: Jessica Hemmings writes about textiles. She also writes about fiction that contains textiles, materials that remind us of textiles and other things, as long as they are interesting. She studied Textile Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, Comparative Literature (Africa/Asia) at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies and wrote her PhD on textiles in Zimbabwean fiction at the University of Edinburgh. Jessica edited In the Loop: Knitting Now published by Black Dog (2010) and is currently Associate Director of the Centre for Visual and Cultural Studies at the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland.

María Lorenzo Hernández

2010-02-23T17:47:00.004Z

Morel_Morello_Morella: The Metamorphoses of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ Invention in a (Re)Animated Universe

Abstract: This paper proposes Adolfo Bioy Casares’ influential novella La invención de Morel (Morel’s Invention 1940), generally regarded as a metaphor of cinema, as fundamentally a singular metaphor of animation. Moreover, the paper will connect the novel with H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) and Anthony Lucas’ animated film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005), focusing on their fascination with the re-fabrication of nature. The paper proposes the special association between animation and invention and argues and demonstrates a critical idea for animation studies: (re)animation is the seminal subject of fiction.

Biographical statement: María Lorenzo Hernández teaches animation at the Department of Design, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain). In 2006 she obtained her PhD in Fine Arts. She presented papers at the 19th SAS Conference in Portland (2007) the National PCA/ACA Conference in San Francisco (2008), and the 21st SAS Conference in Atlanta (2009). The current paper continues her line of research connecting literature and animation that began with her ‘Visions of a Future Past. Ulysses 31, a Televised Re-interpretation of Homer’s Classic Myth’, published in Animation Studies, the SAS e-journal. She is also an animation filmmaker.

Kirsten Thompson

2010-02-23T17:37:00.005Z

“Liquid Color in Animation: Chromatic Paradoxes of Form and Abstraction”

Abstract: The arrival of subtractive color processes like Technicolor (II-IV) transformed animation, with color becoming central to animation’s kinesthetic and sensual appeal. Color attractions functioned as spectacles that offered product differentiation, affective appeal and perceptual play. This paper will examine color aesthetics and philosophy in relation to transformation sequences in Bottles (Ising, 1941, MGM), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and The Worm Turns (Sharpsteen, 1937), amongst others, in which “liquid color” in flasks, bottles, test-tubes and bubbles provide temporary physical (and narrative) forms for color functioning as hallucinogenic or magical.

Biographical statement: Dr. Kirsten Moana Thompson is an Associate Professor and Director of the Film Studies Program in the Department of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium (SUNY, 2007), and Crime Films; Investigating the Scene (Wallflower, 2007); as well as essays on a variety of topics in classical American animation, including Disney, Warner Bros, and animated comedy. Her new project examines the history of color aesthetics and production processes in classical American animation.

Richard Stamp

2010-02-23T17:27:00.004Z

Lines of convergence: the rhetoric, materiality and disciplinarity of the line in defining ‘animation’

Abstract: Although definitions of animation begin from an affirmation of its diversity, the rhetorical force of the dominant definitional tropes of ‘line’ and ‘drawing’ raises the problem of material specificity. This is what Norman McLaren does in his reflections on his own (canonical) ‘definition’ of animation as ‘not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn’, insofar as ‘static objects, puppets and human beings can all be animated without drawings…’ This paper will argue that the rhetorical effects of ‘the line’ recur, unacknowledged and problematically, within recent quasi-ontological definitions of animation as the ‘animatic’.

Biographical statement: Richard Stamp teaches cultural studies, film and philosophy at Bath Spa University. He is interested in ‘theorising’ animation in ways that combine an attention to the diverse materiality of animated media and the (inter)disciplinary formations of ‘animation studies’. The present paper is part of a project on ‘thinking through’ animation that takes issue both with dominant trends in ‘animatic’ theory and with recent so-called ‘pragmatic’ rejections of it. He is one of the editors of Film-Philosophy, an Open Humanities e-journal, and has recently co-edited work on Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Rancière.

Brian Fagence

2010-02-23T16:49:00.006Z

Animation scriptwriting and transmedia tension.

Abstract: While the worlds created through mainstream animation share similar orthodox discourses as traditional live action narratives, animation’s propensity for exaggeration often attempts to open or at least renegotiate the meanings formed. This paper will discuss the distinctiveness of the animated narrative through an examination of the script development for the animation short, Fallow as it forms amid a transmedia storyworld; exploring the narrative tensions of creating a transmedia universe from the perspective of the scriptwriter of animation, and how we might explore story and script as it relates to animation where expectation and the assurance of authenticity is questioned.

Biographical statement: Brian Fagence is a lecturer of Critical Studies for Animation, and Animation Scriptwriting in the Division of Animation at the Cardiff School of Creative Industries University of Glamorgan. He has lectured for ten years in moving image studies with a focus on theoretical approaches to animation and their practical integration. He is a storyteller and scriptwriter and his current PhD research into the distinctiveness of the animated narrative, explores how story and script engages with animation, its production and its transmedia development.

Colleen Montgomery

2010-02-23T15:49:00.006Z

Etch-a-Sketching in 3D: Technological Optimization and Technophobia in Pixar’s Toy Story and Monsters Inc.

Abstract: The popularity and ubiquity of digital animation has radically altered contemporary animated filmmaking/viewing practices. Pixar is a crucial nodal point in this reimaging of the animated film. Yet inasmuch as it represents a technological optimization of digital animation, Pixar simultaneously inscribes within its narratives a critique of the technological retooling of labour and production. This paper will discuss how Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) and Monsters Inc. (Pete Docter, 2001) illustrate this duality, articulating both a fear of the technological assimilation of individual labour and a nostalgia for archaic/obsolete technologies.

Biographical statement: Colleen Montgomery is an MA candidate at the University of British Columbia currently completing her thesis on Pixar, vocal performance and intertextuality: “Pixarticulation: The Voice in Contemporary Animation.” Her primary research interests lie in Disney, Pixar and animation studies, as well as in translation studies. Recent publications include “Post Soviet Freakonomics: Balabanov’s Dead Men and Heritage Porn” in Cinephile 5.1, with forthcoming work to appear in Paradoxa 22.

Richard Leskosky

2010-02-23T15:43:00.003Z

Insomniac Nightmares

Abstract: A distinct subgenre of Hollywood theatrical animated shorts concerns itself specifically with sleep, or more properly speaking, the act of sleeping or trying to sleep. In essence in these films, a character tries to sleep and someone or something repeatedly stymies that endeavor. One, two, or three character types may be involved the would-be sleeper, an interrupter who deliberately or accidentally awakens him, and one who attempts to keep the first asleep. This presentation will explore this subgenre employing a highly modified Proppian structural analysis I have used in analyzing other animated sub-genres at previous SAS conferences and in print.

Biographical statement: Richard J. Leskosky is the Academic Programs Coordinator for the Department of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a past president of the Society for Animation Studies. He studies pre-cinematic animation devices, animation patents, and animated film genres, and has presented papers in all these areas at previous SAS conferences. He is currently working on a volume on animated film genres.

Aimée Mollaghan

2010-02-23T15:38:00.006Z

The Role of the Minimalist Musical Aesthetic in the Line Films of Norman McLaren

Abstract: The role of music in visual music films has, in general, been neglected when analysing visual music textually and if discussed it has been examined predominantly from the academic vantage points of art and avant-garde film theory. To adequately scrutinise these texts I feel it is essential to look at them not only in terms of their existence as ‘moving pictures’ but that equal weight be accorded to their aural aspect and that they should be considered in terms of specifically musical parameters. This paper will examine Norman McLaren’s three Line films Lines Vertical (1960), Lines Horizontal (1962) and Lines Vertical (1965) from a musical perspective. McLaren claimed that the structure of these films was influenced by the structure of Eastern music and therefore I would posit that the orchestration of McLaren’s minimalist images has a parallel in American minimalist music of the 1960s.

Biographical statement: Aimée Mollaghan is currently researching a PhD on the subject of the visual music film in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies in Glasgow University. She has a BA in Film and Video from University of Wales, Newport/IFSW and an MPhil in 2D/3D Motion Graphics from Glasgow School of Art. This paper fits into her wider interest in the role of sound in experimental film and animation. She has directed short films and documentaries and worked as a freelance sound recordist and animator.

Deborah Szapiro

2010-02-23T15:32:00.004Z

FROM THE FIRST TO THE FIFTH SCREEN : the evolution of narrative animation across contemporary screens.

Abstract: Five major screens dominate our contemporary viewing experience: cinema, television, the computer, mobile and urban screens. Each plays a unique role in the way we perceive the animated film. The ubiquity of screens and saturation of information and media images in everyday life calls for a considered approach to narrative structure. To create meaning for audiences, it is necessary to consider the qualities of each screen and the relationship of author, narrative and audience to each other, and to the screen. This paper charts the evolution of narrative structure in contemporary animation as it travels through the major contemporary screens. It explores the shift in narrative structure required to create meaning across these screens and the possibilities that new screens present for narrative animation.

Biographical Statement: Deborah Szapiro is a doctoral student and sessional lecturer in the School of Design, University of Technology, Sydney. Her research analyses narrative and aesthetic screen elements in the creation of meaningful audience interaction. Her aim is to provide a design methodology that can be applied to individual and multi platform projects for the five major contemporary screens and for future screens. In addition to pursuing an academic career, Deborah is a creative producer with a track record for producing award-winning animation. She is founder and festival director of the Japanime Film Festival which debuted as the main film event for the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival and is co-director of the Sydney International Animation Festival (SIAF).

Gregory Bennett

2010-02-23T15:18:00.004Z

On the edge of the uncanny cliff: motion capture and animation in recent 3-D computer-generated photorealistic films.

Abstract: With reference to the films The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), A Christmas Carol (2009) and Avatar (2009), this paper considers how these most recent examples of photorealistic 3-D animation can be seen to enact the complex (and controversial) relationship between motion capture and animation. Drawing on phenomenology, motion capture’s complex relationship to ‘indexical’ reality, and the conception of the ‘uncanny cliff’, the paper examines key examples of observable ‘ruptures’ in perceptual verisimilitude, and aims to identify and account for these through the embodied spectator’s success or failure to resolve and/or synthesize a range of indexical and ontological instabilities.

Biographical statement: Gregory Bennett is a senior lecturer in Digital Design at AUT University, New Zealand, specializing in 3-D animation and visual effects practice and theory, including developments in motion capture and 3-D stereoscopic projection. He is currently undertaking PhD research which explores issues of embodiment and mimesis in the simulation of perceptual reality in 3D computer animation which combines photorealistic aesthetics with motion capture and stereoscopic projection. This proposed paper is a direct outcome of his core PhD research which is informed by both theoretical and practical investigation.

Nea Ehrlich

2010-02-23T14:58:00.010Z

The Animated Documentary as Masking – When Exposure and Disguise Converge

Abstract: My paper considers the way documentary animation is used to produce a new form of knowledge about the actual world by recording and exposing elements of reality whilst partially visually disguising the material represented. Animation combined with live-action footage that depicts historical events in a novel manner has the ability to expose information and perspectives otherwise unknown that become part of the collective memory, a vital component of political and historical consciousness that constructs and transforms national identity. My paper features several works of contemporary artists and film-makers and draws upon concepts of animation theory, contemporary art, masking and masquerade, Brechtian theory, film philosophy, spectatorship and psychoanalysis.

Biographical statement: Nea Ehrlich is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Edinburgh. She is currently researching animation as a multi-faceted language of a fictitious-interpretive character to present reality, which is part of her PhD thesis about animation as masked representation of cultural identities. Nea was head of the Education Department at the Ashdod Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel and has taught widely about visual culture. Her primary research interests are animation theory, the animated documentary and animated representations of conflict, contemporary art and multi-cultural curatorial issues.

Birgitta Hosea

2010-02-23T13:19:00.004Z

Drawing Animation

Abstract: Drawing is a key component of ‘traditional’ practice in classical animation that is sometimes seen as an outmoded form lacking in relevance to a digital age. On the contrary, using digital tools and virtual materials is still seen as problematic by some animators schooled in traditional methods. In contemporary art, however, there is an explosion of experimentation with different tools, processes and paradigms and a resurgence of interest in drawing around issues of time, performance and materiality, which can be applied to a deeper consideration of drawn animation. [N.B. This paper will be an illustrated, abridged version of an article that I am currently in the final stages of writing for Animation: an Interdisciplinary Journal].

Biographical statement: Birgitta Hosea is a digital artist, animator and Course Director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Character Animation, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. She is the author of the Easy Guide to Flash series (Focal Press, 2004/2006) and has published articles on performance drawing, digital materiality, online 'readership', animation and performativity. She is a member of Drawn Together, University of the Arts London performance drawing research collective, and is currently engaged on a practice-based PhD at Central Saint Martins in animation and performance.

Miriam Harris

2010-02-23T13:03:00.005Z

“Drawing Upon the Unconscious: Text and image in two animated films by Robert Breer and William Kentridge”

Abstract: Robert Breer and William Kentridge are both artists with international reputations, who make animated films that are typically projected within the context of the art gallery, or avant-garde film screenings. This presentation will explore two short animations in which words and drawings have an important presence: ‘Bang!’ (1986) by Breer, and ‘Automatic Writing’ (2003), by Kentridge. I will explore how both the semiotic and symbolic realms, as posited by Julia Kristeva, are manifested in these two animated films, making for a filmic experience that resonates with a viewer’s perceptions, as well as their unconscious.

Biographical statement: Miriam Harris will be submitting her PhD for examination at the end of February, 2010. The title of her thesis is ‘Words that Move: How words and images are amalgamated within animation and the graphic novel’, and she has written chapters on Len Lye, Lynda Barry, Robert Breer and William Kentridge, graphic novels by the second generation after the Holocaust, and Michaela Pavlátová and Eastern European animation. Miriam has had several essays published over the last five years that deal with the intertwining of text and image. She is a Senior Lecturer in Graphics and Animation at Unitec New Zealand.

Shannon Brownlee

2010-02-22T18:27:00.006Z

“Masculinity Between Animation and Live Action, or, SpongeBob v. Hasselhoff”

Abstract: The juxtaposition of animated and live action male characters allows contemporary filmmakers to address the nature and “naturalness” of masculinity. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (Stephen Hillenburg, 2004) figures the continuity between polymorphously perverse childhood and heroic male adulthood as a continuity between animation and live action. By contrasting the animated SpongeBob with the grotesque, hypermasculinized and cartoonish live action body of David Hasselhoff, the film denaturalizes “real” masculinity and naturalizes the film's gleefully perverse animation. Ultimately, SpongeBob inspires broader questions about how the encounter between live action and animation allows us to re-imagine grotesque and naturalized forms of gender.

Biographical Statement: I am currently working on a book manuscript entitled A Passion for Adaptation: Experimental Film, Psychoanalysis, Gender. This explores film adaptation from a psychoanalytic perspective to argue that such concepts as the “original” and the “copy” are important objects of fantasy for spectators. “Masculinity Between Animation and Live Action, or, SpongeBob v. Hasselhoff” represents the beginning of a new research project on animated film and spectatorial fantasy. I teach Film Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Edwin Carels

2010-02-22T18:21:00.004Z

Chris Marker: animator and avatar

Abstract: “If I could, I would withdraw into Second Life forever, like Brandon on Tahiti.” (C.M.) The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which Marker throughout his career has applied a particular notion of the animated image to his own creative process. From his well informed writing on animation in the early fifties, to the design of his alter ego - the cartoony cat Guillaume - to his recent avatar Murasaki on Second Life: Marker makes a strategic use of animation. Refusing the label of filmmaker, Marker – like any animator- plays upon the interval to trigger memory and generate his own, mythical time by accumulating individual images to provoke a subjective perception in the viewer.

Biographical Statement: I’ve started the third year of my phd-research for Ghent University. (The living line: animation and the visual arts - a media-archeological enquiry). The oeuvre of Marker will comprise a chapter in this. After having curated a large exhibition on Marker and written on him within the framework of the visual arts, I would very much appreciate the opportunity to test these ideas in the company of animation scholars. As a curator and filmprogrammer I apply an expanded notion of animation, working on exhibitions and projects with Robert Breer, The Quay Brothers, Priit Pärn etc. See also my presentation at the ‘Pervasive Animation Conference’ (Tate, March 2007)

Travel assistance - Emru Townsend Award

2010-02-22T14:44:00.004Z

TRAVEL GRANTS FOR CONFERENCE PRESENTERS

The deadline to apply for an Emru Townsend Award is March 14, to help with travel expenses for those presenting conference papers. Three grants, each in the amount of 200 GBP, will be awarded. At current exchange rates, this is roughly 230 EUR or US$315. To apply for a grant, all applications should specifically include:

1) a short bio (including academic/professional/student affiliation, and any roles/responsibilities you have held within S.A.S), from 100 to 500 words in length.

2) the conference paper abstract

3) a short description of the importance of the grant to you, why your research is original, and your particular need for monetary assistance, from 100 to 500 words in length.

Emru Townsend Awards are competitive for S.A.S. members. Applicants must not have been a recipient of an S.A.S. travel grant within the last three years. Travel grants will be awarded in person at the Edinburgh conference. If a person does not attend the conference, then the grant is forfeited.

The award recipients will be announced in April, at the decision of the selection committee. Applicants must send their request by email, adhering to the above 3 guidelines (bio, abstract, short essay about the request, either as text within an email or as an attached Microsoft Word .doc) to Tom Klein at tomklein@lmu.edu

Patrick Crogan

2010-02-19T15:31:00.004Z

The lively user: the Nintendo Wii system and the (re)animation of the player

Abstract: The Nintendo Wii console is significant for putting the player into motion as part of the animated virtual world no longer simply ‘on screen’. The ‘blob-tracking’ technics of the Wiimote controller necessitate the becoming (re)animated of the player as provider of gestural input in response to the game challenges. The minigame packages (such as Warioware: Smooth Moves (Nintendo, 2007) exemplify this mobilising of a new gestural program of interaction. They experiment with a whole range of new movements readable by the system and herald a new phase of the materialisation of what could be called virtual spatio-physicality.

Biographical statement: Patrick Crogan teaches film and media at the School of Creative Arts, University of the West of England, Bristol. He has published numerous essays on film, new media, animation and critical theories of technology in anthologies and journals including the Journal of Animation Studies, Games and Culture, Angelaki, Theory, Culture & Society, Film-Philosophy and Culture Machine. He is on the Executive Board of the Digital Games Research Association and is chair of the Play Research Group at UWE. He is currently on research leave considering post-cinematic forms of media temporalization.

Irina Chiaburu

2010-02-19T13:00:00.005Z

Subversive strategies in Soviet animation of Brezhnev period: Andrei Khrzhanovky’s “In the World of Fables” (1973)

Abstract: The cultural pluralism that surfaced with the onset of Glasnost’ raises the interesting question of whether Stagnation might be somewhat of a misnomer for what was happening in the artistic and cultural life during Leonid Brezhnev’s administration. Although his regime tried its best to “tighten the screws” by increasing censorial control over cultural production, it couldn’t revert the process of cultural and social transformation set in motion by Khrushchev’s Thaw. Instead, it produced a milieu for a fascinating dialectic between authors and the State. Applying Linda Hutcheon’s theory of irony to Andrei Khrzhanovsky’s film “In the world of Fables” (1973), I would like to demonstrate how this dialectic has affected the development of subversively potent trends in the language of Soviet animation.

Biographical statement: The proposed paper is a part of my PhD dissertation: “Ideology, subversion and Soviet cartoons during Brezhnev’s ‘Stagnation’”, which I hope to complete in summer 2011. My research interests at the moment are subversion and critical discourses in the field of cultural production in particular visual arts, cinema and animation, as well as the role of the artist in such production. My long term interests are in animation history, theory and method.

Michael Daubs

2010-02-18T16:34:00.004Z

Subversive or Submissive? User-Produced Flash Cartoons and Television Animation

Abstract: User-produced media are often presented as political reform, moving the locus of control away from mass media and toward the individual. The same is true for Flash animation or Flashimation. The Flash software allows user-producers to decrease production time while increasing their individual control. Thus, it is assumed that Flashimation is a subversive form that challenges the dominance of mass media, but this assumption ignores the complex, sometimes hegemonic relationships between Flashimation and television. This paper examines these relationships and questions whether Flashimation truly is subversive, or if aesthetic convergence and remediation reasserts television’s position as society’s dominant cultural form.

Biographical statement: Michael S. Daubs is a Media Studies PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. His research interests include visual culture and aesthetics, convergence and remediation, and the democratic potential of user-produced media. His dissertation, entitled Rivalry and Allegiance: Aesthetic Remediation between Television and User-Produced Media, examines the relationship between television and user-produced media through case studies of animation and reality media. He previously earned a Master of Science in Informatics (Media Arts and Sciences) and a Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunications, both from Indiana University.

Samantha Moore

2010-02-18T16:11:00.004Z

Animating unique brain states: The animated documentary and ‘psychorealism’

Abstract: This paper will look at the ways in which animated documentary can represent unique brain states, such as synaesthesia or autism, in the work of Tim Webb, Paul Vester and the author’s own work with neuro-psychologist Dr Jamie Ward for the Wellcome Trust. It looks at the challenges of working with unique brain states and the ways in which the information collected can be verified. It also questions whether animation is the primary vehicle for representing such subjective states, not just in a representative, symbolic way but in a literal recording of reality – albeit a reality unique to the subject.

Biographical statement: Samantha Moore is senior lecturer in animation at the University of Wolverhampton, UK and is a member of CADRE (The Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation). She is an animated documentary maker; An Eyeful of Sound (2010), The Beloved Ones (2007), doubled up (2004) and Success with Sweet Peas (2003). Her work has been screened and won awards internationally. She has written about animated documentary for various journals, co-authored a book chapter and given papers and talks at several conferences about her work on synaesthesia and animation.

Malcolm Cook

2010-02-18T13:28:00.007Z

The Lightning Cartoon: Animation from Music Hall to Cinema

Abstract: This presentation will explore the relationship between early animation and the lightning cartoon, an act known to have been performed by a number of key figures in the early history of animation, including J. Stuart Blackton in the US, George Méliès in France and Walter Booth in the UK. Concentrating on Britain it will examine the music hall act as an example of pre-cinematic animation, the earliest examples of the use drawn material in film in 1895, the importance of this performance to World War 1 animated cartoons and its continued influence in the 1920s.

Biographical statement: Malcolm Cook is a Doctoral candidate at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is researching early British animated cartoons prior to the advent of sound cinema, with a particular focus on the relationship between the moving image and the graphic arts and other pre-cinematic entertainments, as well as the neurological processes involved in the perception of these forms. He holds a BA in Film and Literature from the University of Warwick and an MA in History of Art, Film and Visual Media from Birkbeck College.

Rebecca Miller Asherie

2010-02-18T13:14:00.004Z

Heavenly Voices and Bestial Bodies: Issues of Performance and Representation in Celebrity Voice-Acting

Abstract: The popularization of celebrity voice-acting over the past two decades marks the intersection of two prominent figures in contemporary American culture, namely the celebrity and the animated animal. This paper reflects upon the performative and representational implications of celebrity voice-acting and explores how this phenomenon allows celebrities and their animated animal counterparts to engage in a symbiotic relationship which liberates the star from the constant scrutiny of extra-textual media representations of his or her body while simultaneously endowing the animated animal with an authoritative and politically-viable vocal endorsement.

Biographical statement: Rebecca Miller Asherie is a doctoral candidate in the Cinema Studies department at New York University. She holds an M.A. in Cinema Studies from NYU and a B.A. in Linguistics and Italian from McGill University in Montreal. She is currently conducting research for a dissertation on the cultural history of the figure of the animated animal in American cinema, including issues of aesthetics, performance and representation of animals since the inception of animated film.

Robin Sloan

2010-02-18T13:09:00.003Z

Contextualising dynamic emotional facial expression animation

Abstract: Increasingly, automated techniques for animation production are being used to create believable, interactive characters for computer games. Procedural animation software can be used to quickly and efficiently manipulate character animation in real time, addressing issues such as the effect of physical forces on character dynamics. However, there is arguably a growing demand for computer game characters which are not only interactive, but also capable of delivering engaging performances. In this paper, the results of two practice-based studies of facial animation are described. The aim of the research is to explore the dynamics of emotional expression performance through animation practice, in an attempt to contextualise specific ‘choreographies’ of facial movement. Ultimately, the research should lead to a better understanding of how temporal expressions are interpreted, laying the foundations for procedurally animated, high-performance interactive characters.

Biographical statement: Final year PhD student Robin Sloan is involved in research and teaching within the Institute for Arts, Media and Computer Games at the University of Abertay Dundee, one of the world’s leading institutions for games education. With an educational background in computer arts and practical experience in the computer games sector, Robin has research interests in game art and design, interactive character performances, and practice-based research. His project ‘Emotional Avatars’ is specifically focussed on the production and perception of facial animation, set within the wider context of animation for computer games.

Paul Taberham

2010-02-17T18:22:00.004Z

Cross-modal verification, weak synaesthesia, and the case of visual music.

Abstract: To most viewers, the enjoyment of both animation and live-action film is largely contingent on the comprehension of a conventional narrative. As such, the abstract films of Oskar Fishinger, Len Lye and others should be highly esoteric - yet one may contend that they are more accessible than most films within the avant-garde. My paper will address this disparity by drawing from research within cognitive science to account for the appeal of visual music. I will outline, in an accessible way, two cognitive procedures that every human is hard-wired with that visual music exploits. One is called cross-modal verification, and the other is cross-modal abstraction.

Biographical statement: I started my PhD in January 2007 at Kent University. As of 2010, I will be in my writing-up year. Prior to this, I studied filmmaking at Salford University and worked as a freelance editor. My thesis examines spectatorship of avant-garde film within the framework of cognitive science. Audio-visual relations are explored as well as narrative comprehension. Animation comprises a significant, though not exclusive part of my research. This proposed paper draws the main ideas from two different chapters of my thesis, both of which address visual music.

Estefanía Martínez

2010-02-16T18:20:00.005Z

“The Three Ps in Coraline: Postfeminist, Psychoanalytic and Postmodernist approaches to the Animated Film”

Abstract: This paper contributes to the study of methodologies and theories in animation studies because it offers an extremely complex and alternative approach to animated narratives. This paper is focused exclusively on the theoretical underpinnings of the narrative structure, which makes of Coraline (2009) a very extraordinary movie. In addition, research encourages animators to emphasize the convergence of a strong theoretical narrative structure with modern animation techniques.

Biographical statement: As a woman currently working in animation, this study contributes to my future because it is strongly related to my current area of research. As I have analyzed in Coraline, the role of female figures as protagonists in the animation industry is dominated by a male presence in both the production of the film and in the characters on the screen. I believe Coraline is exceptional because it is one of the few movies emphasizing the female perspective in animation. I am developing a short animated narrative as my thesis project for getting my MFA at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. This movie combines hand-drawn film animation, HD video and 3D animation. My thesis includes additional research focused on the integration of old traditional media with digital media and its meaning on current animation. In addition, I work as a teaching assistant at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for the undergraduate students in 3D animation. In the future I would like to combine teaching with working as a technical director in the animation industry.

Mark Chavez and Liu Lin Yi

2010-02-16T17:59:00.006Z

From Active to Proactive: New Opportunities for Real-time Simulation in Animation

Abstract: This paper will seek to discuss the aesthetics of animation, in particular, how and why animated imagery influences the viewer. In addition we will discuss our attempts at defining a visual language with contemporary animation toolsets. Our aspiration is to determine if a methodology that dynamically manipulates the visual nature of a cinematic work of art is capable of bending it's aesthetic according to a diagrammatic template. We will discuss the historical context for these kinds of systems and project where this technology and opportunity for defining a new intimate aesthetic may lead.

Biographical Statement: An animation industry expert, academic and researcher, Mark's interests are in emergent computer animation techniques including synthetic sculpture, motion and related forms in popular culture. His research interests are in characterization and storytelling with real-time and rendered imagery exploring visual and behavioural representation in the animated form; including the creation of intelligent animated forms with richness in personality and emotive evocative states that are flexible enough to respond to the viewer within a predetermined simulated performance. With a focus on visual aspects of artistic research, he is currently conducting basal studies in the emotive impact of non-objective imagery. He plans to leverage his findings into more aspects of visual narrative and storytelling.

Liu Linyi is a Research Associate in School of Art, Design and Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University. Her current research area includes theories of interactive narratives and storytelling, audience’s anticipation and perception as well as player’s role in an interactive storytelling environment. She is also interested in the ontological relationship between video game and linear cinematic narratives. As a researcher with strong background of Film and Communication Studies, she is endeavouring to seek interdisciplinary approaches for contemporary animation studies and dynamic cinematic experience.