The Persistence of Animation

Towards a Forensics Theory of Animation

Abstract: This paper proposes a forensics theory of animation. It will consider firstly how animation has been extensively used as model and simulation of invisible or past events. Secondly, it will consider how animation can be used to directly cogitate and analyze the world.

This paper will draw upon concepts of process philosophy, animation theory, cognitive science, forensics science, and documentary film theory. It will also feature a number of relevant animated films including some of the author’s own experimental animations which seek to forensically investigate aspects of the actual world.

Biographical Statement: Dan Torre, an American-born animator, researcher and university lecturer, currently resides and teaches in Australia. He has been lecturing in animation at universities in Australia for the past seven years, currently at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He has been researching and writing on animation history and theory for a number years, presenting papers at a number of academic conferences in recent years, including two SAS conferences. His primary research interests are animation theory, Australian animation history, the animated documentary and process philosophy. The current proposed paper draws from his PhD thesis and current research.

Autobiographical elements in animated films of Czech female directors

Abstract: In my paper I analyse and discuss autobiographical elements in short animated films of several contemporary Czech female directors. The paper employs data that I obtained from in-depth interviews with individual directors. As the main methodological tool for conducting these I used oral history. These data are further combined with the gender-specific textual analysis and interpretation of their films. I focus on identifying possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of theory-practice inter-relating research. In doing so, I point out useful methodological overlaps of only seemingly distant disciplines such as gender studies, oral history and animation studies.

Biographical Statement: Eliška Děcká (born 1982) is a Film Studies MA program student at the Film Studies Department, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. She is currently working on her MA thesis, which is entitled “Autobiographical Elements in Animated Films of Czech Female Directors.” The thesis is part of her 3-year research project, “Female Heroines in Animated Film,” which is funded by the Charles University Grant Agency. She writes on animation for various Czech film and cultural journals and works with the Czech animated festival Anifest, where she is a member of the film selection committee. In 2008, she also collaborated as a dramaturge for the animated films section ofthe Femina Film Festival.

Trauma and Memory: Animating the Inexpressible

Abstract: This paper will investigate the use of animation in three documentaries of personal history. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008), Drawn From Memory (Paul Fierlinger, 1995) and Learned by Heart (Marjut Rimminen & Päivi Takala, 2007) show us that memory is as ephemeral and elusive as the past itself. All three films exploit animation’s unique symbolic potential to express the subjective and the internal. These rich explorations show how animation conveys the inexpressible memories of a personal, and often traumatic, past.

Biographical Statement: Bella is currently completing her doctoral dissertation on animated documentary and this paper’s topic is one she focuses on in the final chapter of her dissertation. She has presented her work at many conferences in the US and UK (including SAS 2008, Visible Evidence 2008, SCMS 2005/2007/2008 and Screen 2006/2007). She contributes book and DVD reviews to Film International and Animation: And Interdisciplinary Journal and has had essays published in the Journal of British Cinema and Television and Falling in Love Again, an edited collection forthcoming from I. B. Tauris.

The Persistence of Memory: Recollecting trauma in Waltz with Bashir

Abstract: The paper examines Waltz with Bashir (2008) and the act of remembering. As the film progresses, we witness how an individual can repress certain traumatic events from their memory, how people come to remember, and how the “collective memory” is a vital component of political and historical consciousness. The paper also speculates on the appropriateness of animation for figuring such “memory work”: because animation appears to be especially suited to representations of dreams and other altered states, it should therefore also play an integral role in representations of memories and the active recollection of traumatic historical occurrences.

Biographical Statement: Paul Ward works in the School of Media at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth (UK), teaching theory and history of animation, as well as contributing to an interdisciplinary MA course. His main research interests are in animation and documentary, and his publications include the book Documentary: The Margins of Reality (2005), articles in animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and Animation Journal, and numerous anthology essays. He is a Board Member of the SAS and serves on the Editorial Boards of Animation Studies (the online SAS journal) and animation: an interdisciplinary journal.

A Film of One’s Own: The Animated Self-Portraits of Young Contemporary Female Animators

Abstract: This paper will analyse the animated self-portraits created by contemporary young and emerging women in animation, and by that means, elucidate significant differences between this new generation and previous ones of female animators. Through their animated self-portraits, the earlier animatrices explored their own identity as women and artists, developing new discourses and models for a subgenre that existed from the early days of cinema animation. But the animated female self-portrayal of the new generation comes closer to documentary and has more universal concerns, appealing to a wider audience and reaching theatrical distribution, as Marjane Satrapi’s long feature Persepolis (2007) exemplifies and which will be a focus of the paper.

Biographical Statement: Maria Lorenzo teaches animation subjects at the Department of Design, Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain). In 2006 she obtained her PhD in Fine Arts. She presented papers at the 19th SAS Conference in Portland (2007) and the National PCA/ACA Conference in San Francisco (2008). The current paper extends the line of research begun with her work “Through the Looking-Glass: The Self-Portrait of the Artist and the Re-Start of Animation,” presented as a poster at the 20th SAS Conference in Bournemouth. She is also an animation filmmaker.