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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.
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.
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.
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.
