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Suzanne Buchan (United Kingdom)
Suzanne is Professor of Animation Aesthetics at Middlesex University. She is Editor of animation: an interdisciplinary journal
(http://anm.sagepub.com) and active as a curator. Publications include The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom (2011), Animated Worlds (2005), Animation, in Theory for Animating Film Theory, Ed Karen Beckman (2013) and Pervasive Animation. An AFI Film Reader (2013).
Topic of her presentation: ‘Pervasive Animation’
Animation is pervasive throughout moving image culture; it has many formal, aesthetic and critical intersections with digital cinema, installation art and new media. This illustrated talk explores the transversal nature of independent contemporary animated media, its multi-platform formats and its interdisciplinary qualities. It raises crucial questions with a view to generating dialogue and debates between the often disparate fields of theory and practice, and is followed by a moderated discussion.
Jens Meinrenken (Germany)
Jens studied Art History, Philosophy and German Studies at the Universities Bamberg and Berlin. His publications circle around comics, animation and computer-games. Currently he holds a fellowship at the UDK Berlin.
Topic of his presentation: ‘Questions of Style: Comics and Animation as Pictorial Forms of Modernity’
Comics and animation give rise to a sensory presence of the picture by virtue of their own independent aesthetic. Responsible for this making-present and strengthening of the pictorial in comics and animation is their massive engagement with the traditions and avant-gardes of the visual arts. Both media combine the techniques of reproduction with the power of drawing and painting to create an own pictorial form of Modernity. On the other hand comics are playing an increasing role in similar media like animation, movies or computer games. The adaptation of comics in the era of the digital image produces a visual style that broadens the limited boundaries of a printed graphic novel. In Comic Book Movies like “Kickass” the medium is shown as a printed book and animated sequence at one time. Time and space could be seen here as radical dynamic forms of an image that transforms older ways of storytelling to a new visual level.
Rebecca Akoun (France)
Rebecca studied at "Ecole Estienne des arts appliques", an art school in Paris. After moving to Israel she studied animation at “Bezalel Academy of Art & Design” in Jerusalem. She graduated with a movie called "The Wolf turned Shepherd", using the cut-out technic. This movie is currently showen at film festivals around the world, and is destined for distribution in a program with three other shorts for children. In 2013 she is developing a new puppet animation.
Topic of her presentation: ‘Comparing animation education in France and Israel and the impact on personal narrative and aesthetic choices in production’
Rebecca will use the example of the development of her latest project, based on a fairy-tale by the brothers Grimm, to describe how the very different educational environments in France and Israel influenced her work.
Katharina Simoens (Belgium)
Katharina works as junior curator for the “Internationaal Kortfilmfestival Leuven” which has a strong emphasis of short narrative films. Before relocating from Austria to Belgium she was managing member of the “VIS Vienna Independent Shorts Festival”. She worked as curator for a variety of international short-film events, DVD selections and cinemas.
Topic of her presentation: ‘Animation as growing aspect of short-film productions - seen from the perspective of a film-festival’
Katharina will talk about the changes and developments in animation that she experiences through viewing many thousands
of films, submitted to the major European short-film festivals she worked for. The shifts in the approach and the role of animation will be parts of the topics of her presentation.
Van McElwee (USA)
Van creates complex and esoteric video art; he transforms electronic fragments of the visual world into contemplations of how we receive and perceive visual information. An artist who continues to experiment with the possibilities of this new art form, McElwee uses this technology for very personal explorations of the dynamics of sound, motion, and time. McElwee has been producing and exhibiting experimental video since 1976. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including The American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.
Topic of his presentation: ‘The dimension of variation in relation to animation in my experimental media production’
Based on presented examples Van will discuss concepts, approaches and qualities of animation as part of his media art. His installation “AND/OR vs. THE CAPITOL OF THE MULTIVERSE” at the ASIFAKEIL will close after one month of display at the end of his presentation. Between projections of selected pieces Van McElwee will explain and demonstrate the role of animation in experimental films.
Moderator: Franziska Bruckner
Franziska works as film scholar at the faculty of Theater-, Film- and Mediastudies in Vienna and is Co-Coordinator of the AG Animation, a workgroup within the German-speaking Animation Studies. Her main research focuses on animation, experimental film and various relations between fine arts and film.
For a more detailed CV and a list of publications please visit:
Moderator: Holger Lang
Holger works as assitant professor at the media-communications department of Webster University Vienna. His research is focusing on the effects and functions of images in time-based media and the application of these in practical artistic work. Besides his career as artist he is organizing media related events like this symposium.
For detailes about his accademic work please visit: